No Good Deed stars Teyonah Parris and O-T Fagbenle spoke to ComingSoon about the dark comedy and playing a couple trying to find balance in their relationship. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
“When Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul (Ray Romano) decide to move on from their empty nest to forge a new life, they list their gorgeous 1920s Spanish-style villa located in one the most desirable neighborhoods in Los Angeles — and the real estate frenzy begins. Multiple families all race to buy what they believe to be their dream house, convinced it will fix all of their very different problems. But as Lydia and Paul know all too well, sometimes the home of your dreams can be a true nightmare. As they struggle to hide the dark and dangerous secrets that linger inside their longtime home, Paul and Lydia begin to realize that the only way they’ll escape the past is to finally face it,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: O-T, what does it mean for you to be starring in such a stacked ensemble cast? You’re with so many comedy legends in the show.
O-T Fagbenle: Yeah. I mean, it’s an opportunity to meet people you admire so much and to work with ’em and to learn from them and yeah, it was really exciting, and they all brought it in such a brilliant way.
Teyonah, what really impressed me about your performance and O-T was that you really feel like a couple that’s still figuring it out. How is it finding that balance of having that love in that relationship, but have it be like they haven’t been together that long?
Teyonah Parris: OT and I had a lot of conversations, I would say, that helped us try to figure out what the balance was between what we know, and what these characters know, and what they don’t know about each other. Because their lives are being accelerated so much, like with the impending birth of their first baby, and his mother coming over and inserting herself into their lives. There’s so much that’s happening to them, and then trying to figure out as actors what these characters know and don’t know about each other and what Liz [Feldman, the creator of the series] and the writing staff give us was a fun task to try to balance.
Fagbenle: I think you hit on something really interesting though, like that thing of, they have a lot of love with each other and also, they’re going through this tough time and it’s like real couples do. Weaving that balance between, Hey, we’ve gotta make this work, but you really annoy me, but I love you, and I think Liz did a really good job of writing that, and Teyonah did a great job acting that.
Parris: Thanks, O-T. You too, O-T [laughs].
O-T, the actress that plays your mother is so fantastic. I can’t think of a better third wheel. How is it working with her?
Fagbenle: Yeah, Anna Maria Horsford, who is an absolute legend. She was just wonderful and she kind of stays in character all the time and, very method, and-
Parris: You as well! They were two peas in a pod. They were cast perfectly.
Fagbenle: She would come off set, and she’d be like, “Oh yeah, good job, son, my baby.”
Parris: Literally, she’s like, “Mm, good luck to you. But this one, he’s a star. That’s my son.”
Fagbenle: Yeah. She would call me special all the time. And I was never sure if this was a compliment or not. “He’s special.” And I’d be like, “Oh, thank you?”
Parris: She meant it as a compliment for you. Trust me, she did. She did.
I love that. That’s such a funny story. And Teyonah, I wanted to ask you specifically about acting pregnant because you’ve got that lived experience that you can draw on, but how is it faking it for the show?
Parris: That was one of the things that I was really excited about exploring. This was my first time back working since my maternity leave, and so I just had so much more life experience to draw on for Carla and what those mentally…what one might go through in their pregnancy. I could draw on that as she was trying to also navigate this newish relationship. It was really a chance for me to reprocess some of the things I went through in my own pregnancy and also try to forget some of it, because Carla hasn’t gone through everything that I’d gone through at that point, but I really felt like it was deepening the work and the experience and I got to bring much more to Carla in this moment of her life, having my own lived experience of pregnancy.
Thanks to O-T Fagbenle and Teyonah Parris for taking the time to talk about No Good Deed.
