‘The Resident’: Malcolm-Jamal Warner on AJ & Fatherhood, Plus Season 7 Hopes
While we may not know if we’ll see any more of our favorite doctors on The Resident — Season 6 ended on January 17, and Fox has yet to make a decision about its future — Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Dr. AJ Austin) did pop up on Accused this past week.
When we chatted with him about that guest spot in the anthology series, we took the opportunity to ask about the medical drama. While Warner has not yet heard anything about Season 7, he does know what he’d like to see, plus shared his thoughts on two of AJ’s storylines, regarding his family and a big risk he took to save the governor’s life in exchange for saving Chastain.
Season 6 ended with Padma (Aneesha Joshi) coming home, but do you think she and AJ can make a family, whatever theirs will look like, work? We haven’t really seen that yet.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Yeah, I think just that whole concept of family is obviously not a typical one but with the help that Padma is getting and AJ’s strong desire to be a father to his children, there is some middle ground that they would be able to find.
AJ’s arrogance came into play when it came to making that deal with the governor to save his life and save the hospital. Because of the man he is, if that hadn’t worked, do you think AJ would’ve come out of it the same doctor?
Yeah, because I think it was not just his arrogance, but his deep, sincere desire to save the hospital. It’s funny because I don’t know if I would attribute that to his arrogance but I guess now that you say it, there is a little bit of arrogance in that. But I think that’s the thing that allowed him to, as he said to Conrad [Matt Czuchry], “you do a little bit of bad for a whole lot of good.” But I really think that move really came out of his desire to save the hospital. This was something that was, as far as he was concerned, bigger than himself. If for some reason things didn’t go right or for some reason it came out that he made this deal, I don’t think that would be something that he would ever regret because he was doing whatever he could in his power to save the hospital.
What are you hoping to explore with AJ going forward if there is a Season 7?
I would probably like to see more of how AJ navigates fatherhood. I think at one point we had talked about AJ becoming chief of surgery, which would be great for him because he would face even more moral dilemmas, if you will. And I think whenever you see a character who constantly faces moral dilemmas, it either breaks them or makes them even stronger.
Do you think he’s ready for a serious romance in his life at this point?
I think he’s definitely ready. I think his whole reaching out to Padma to be her sperm donor, there was nothing romantic in that. After losing his mom, there was a sense of family that he so desperately needed. But I think it’ll be really interesting to see how AJ navigates through a romantic relationship again with someone who he greatly respects.
