Malcolm-Jamal Warner reflects on his iconic Theo Huxtable role in Issa Rae’s ‘Seen & Heard’ doc

Before his death, actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner reflected on his journey on “The Cosby Show” for Issa Rae’s “Seen & Heard” documentary.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner‘s untimely passing earlier this summer sent Black communities into a whirlpool of grief. Now, in one of his last on-screen appearances, the actor reflected on his time playing Theo Huxtable, the role that made him feel like many audiences’ cousin/brother. 

Warner is one of the many Black television icons to appear in Issa Rae’s latest production, “Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television,” a two-part documentary exploring the impact of Black representation on TV. The late actor makes a special appearance in the first part, “Seen,” where he opens up about the audition process for what would become one of his portfolio’s most culturally iconic roles.  

“When I auditioned for ‘Cosby,’ I was 13,” Warner recalled. “I’d been watching ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ and watching these kids on television be smart alecks and what have you. That’s what my acting had been influenced by.” 

And while he thought he killed the audition, earning smiles from nearly everyone in the room at the end, Warner specifically remembers one person in the room who held an unimpressed expression: Bill Cosby. 

“I killed in the room, I was getting the laughs, and I’m thirteen. And I finished my audition, and everybody was smiling except Mr. Cosby,” the actor continued. “And he looked at me and he said, ‘Would you really talk to your father like that?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to see that on this show.’”

While the show is now considered somewhat controversial due to Cosby’s inappropriate actions, the family sitcom was a trailblazer in the television space, depicting a level of Black storytelling that had yet to be explored in Hollywood. And according to Warner, the show’s controversial namesake is to thank for that. 

“Mr. Cosby made certain that everyone was acutely aware that ‘The Cosby Show’ was his brainchild,” Warner explained. “But then you have these other creatives, you know, there’s a network producer, writers, you know, studio coming in, trying to tell him how to do his show, and every step of the way, Mr. Cosby had to stop them and remind them that’s not the show that we’re doing.”

“I watched him do that from year one to year eight. That battle never, never stopped, until the show stopped,” Warner added. 

Warner, 54, died on July 20, 2025 in a tragic drowning incident while on vacation in Costa Rica. And while he went on do other roles and creative projects beyond “The Cosby Show,” the actor was always aware of the impact the Huxtable family had on Black viewers. 

“I was getting tens of thousands of letters from people who were saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you for the show. We are the Huxtables,’ and you know, and the show obviously got criticized for not being Black enough, not being a real depiction of the black experience,” he says in the documentary.

This is not the last time fans will see Warner. The actor’s final on-screen project is scheduled to premiere on October 7 in the second episode of Fox’s crime drama “Murder in a Small Town,” per People Magazine.

Watch both parts of “Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television” on HBO Max now.