No Good Deed kept Lisa Kudrow on her toes before she even started filming the show.
During an exclusive joint interview with Us Weekly, first-time costars Kudrow, 61, and costar Ray Romano recalled their initial reactions to their mysterious roles.
“I got concerned. I read three [scripts] and felt like, ‘Well, OK, but what happened? What’s my role in it?” Kudrow recalled while Romano, 66, had a different experience adding, “I got to read five scripts. Every time the script ended, I wanted to see the next one.”
Long after shooting was over, Romano enjoyed getting to watch the show as a fan. “That’s what you want the audience to feel,” he told Us. “The writing was great [especially] the tone of it. I got to play things I’ve never played before. It’s dark, it’s emotional and it’s funny.”
Fall TV Preview 2024: Inside Must-Watch New and Returning Shows
No Good Deed also offered Romano the chance to work with creator Liz Feldman. “I knew her work from Dead to Me. I knew the tone that she was trying to go for,” Romano told Us. “It was just all a nice challenge and appealing. It was an easy decision.”
The comedy series, which premieres December 12, follows three families vying to buy the same house, which they all think will solve their problems. Romano and Kudrow play a married couple that watch people wander around their house — without the potential buyers knowing.
“My character has a hard time expressing himself and he keeps things bottled up a little,” Romano teased to Us. “So I tapped into that pretty easily. He does things that maybe I wouldn’t — and he probably has more trouble with anger than I do — but it’s all there. It’s all there somewhere.”
Kudrow, meanwhile, didn’t “need to know exactly what” similarities she had with her character, adding, “I always bring something of myself to everything. … But I know Liz was saying, ‘Oh, this is close to you.’ And I was just like, ‘Yep. But I don’t want to know what that is.’”
In addition to Kudrow and Romano, No Good Deed stars Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, Teyonah Parris, Abbi Jacobson, Poppy Liu, Denis Leary and O-T Fagbenle. The show was the first time sitcom legends Kudrow and Romano shared the screen, which came as a surprise to both of them.
Did You Catch Sam Smith’s Cameo on ‘And Just Like That’?
“She refused every time I tried [to work together],” Romano joked. “No, we never met. We had never met. The first time we met was at the table read. I took the job before [Lisa] was cast in it — and then they told me — and it was just like a bonus.”
Kudrow was just as thrilled about her scene partner.
“I was dying to work with Ray Romano for years. I’d see him after Everybody Loves Raymond and went, ‘Oh my God, he’s such a good actor. He’s effortless. I would love to work with him. I bet that’ll never happen,’” she recalled. “Then this came up and I said, ‘OK, I don’t know if I need to read the script even because it’s Liz Feldman and Ray is my husband in it.”
No Good Deed premieres on Netflix Thursday, December 12.
