THE RESORT: William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti Preview the ‘Wild as Hell’ Peacock Mystery Series

In Peacock’s THE RESORT, Noah (William Jackson Harper) and Emma (Cristin Milioti) decide to take a trip for their ten-year anniversary—but things go awry almost instantly.

At first, the problems seem to stem from the couple’s internal discord, as the two can’t seem to find themselves on the same page. (Even if Noah doesn’t always realize it.) But when Emma finds an old cell phone, she becomes obsessed with the mystery of what the heck happened to its previous owner. And when Noah gets looped in, the duo set out on an action-packed adventure to find out who possessed it and what the heck happened at a neighboring resort 15 years earlier.

“I just thought it was wild as hell,” Harper says in the video below of his initial reaction to the series. “I thought it was just all over the place, in the best way. For something that has so many interesting genre elements, it has this long narrative that is really rewarding to read, as well as play. But it was one of those things that just didn’t telegraph any of the directions it was going.”

“I loved how unexpected it was and how singular it was…the show you’re going to end up with is very different than the show you begin with,” adds Milioti. “I was so enamored with that, because I think that it’s a miracle that anything gets made and anything comes together. But when you read something that sort of exists in its own world and sort of creates its own genre and feeling, that’s very exciting, and I was very drawn in by that. And [creator] Andy [Siara]‘s involvement and Will’s involvement.”

And those connections were significant: Siara and Milioti worked together on the film PALM SPRINGS, while Milioti and Harper previously co-starred in the 2017 play AFTER THE BLAST.

For the actors, tapping into that bond was essential as they were going through THE RESORT’s production, using it to ground themselves in their characters’ complex relationship rather than the show’s mysteries.

“We really needed to lock into that sort of stuff,” Harper notes. “[It] took up like a lot of the brain space when it came to, ‘Okay, so where are we? How are we feeling about each other in this moment? This is a huge thing going on, but, also, we’re in a very different inflection point in our relationship and what do we do with that?'”

“It’s easy for me to get locked into those places just because when you’re working with someone like Cristin all the time, it’s really fun to get into those scenes and try a bunch of stuff, tear it all up, and just see what she does,” he continues. “It’s always interesting and grounded and organic. Part of it was just me being an actor nerd, being like, ‘I can’t wait to see what she does when we do some stuff.’ That kind of took a lot of the brain space for me. The prognostication and stuff [about the central mystery], we started to do a little bit more of that, but it was really just fun to be getting to do scene work with Cristin all the time.”

Milioti was equally as effusive about working with Harper again. “Obviously, we’re very different than the characters we played, but…I just always knew I could count on Will,” she says. “It was a wild shoot, and it did feel like we sort of like held on to each other through a tornado of things—all good, but we just kept coming back to each other, which is also something I really love about this show. It’s like a mystery, but it’s also about who these people are.”

Watch the video for more from Harper and Milioti…

THE RESORT, Thursday, Peacock

RELATED:

• THE RESORT EP Andy Siara on the Show’s Long Road to Peacock, and Balancing Character Arcs with Mystery Clues
• THE RESORT: Peacock Releases Trailer for William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti Comedic Thriller
• THE RESORT: William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti Comedic Thriller Gets July Launch on Peacock

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