From executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, and based on Caroline Kepnes’ best-selling novel of the same name, the Lifetime drama series You gets deep inside the head of bookstore manager Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley, in an unsettling creepy performance that will stick with you), who crosses paths with an aspiring writer, named Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail), that he quickly finds himself obsessed with. Using the internet and social media to gather the most intimate details of her life as a way to get close to her, what seemingly starts as a crush quickly becomes something much more dangerous.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, co-stars Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail talked about how You was like nothing they’d ever read, how creepy and unsettling this premise is, what made them most nervous, whether viewers should root for Joe and Beck to be together, why putting too much about yourself online can be a scary thing, the challenges of making a real and genuine connection with someone, and how they can’t wait to see how fans will respond, throughout the season.

Elizabeth, when this came your way and you found out what it was, were you like, “This sounds crazy, I’m not sure about this,” or was it, “This sounds like nothing I’ve read, please sign me up”?

ELIZABETH LAIL: It definitely was nothing like I had read. When you read the script the first time, there’s so much inner monologue on Joe’s part, which at first, I was nervous about. I was like, “Are they gonna be able to pull this off?” Hearing someone’s thoughts can go either way. But then, what I was most thrilled about when I saw the first couple episodes was the way they managed to make hearing his inner dialogue so seamless.

Did you know, from the beginning, that you’d also get to do a little of your own inner dialogue?

LAIL: I didn’t. I really didn’t. I knew that Beck was going to be more than just a movie that he watches. I knew that we were going to learn more about her, which you inevitably have to, if you’re stalking someone, and I hoped there would be surprises. I knew that she would have a lot to do.

The whole concept is a little scary and creepy, and it’s also a little scary that he’s really digging into her, in a way that she is totally unaware of.

LAIL: It’s gross. It’s absolutely gross. It’s worst case scenario, if you were to meet someone and they just took it next level. I just watched Unsane, the Steven Soderbergh film, and she knows that she’s being stalked, which gives her all of this anxiety, but Beck doesn’t know. She wouldn’t experience that anxiety until she potentially would find out.

Penn, when you read this and learned about the concept of it, what excited you about it and what made you nervous about it?

PENN BADGLEY: I’d say, by-and-large, that I was just across the board nervous, and less excited. From the first moment, Joe is all wrong. You also discover that in the book. I read the book first and was compelled by it, as a story, but not necessarily because I wanted to bring this guy to life, knew how and knew that I could. I wasn’t sure about all of those questions.

Which is probably a good thing. You don’t want to over-identify with somebody like.

BADGLEY: Right. It’s funny you say that because I feel that people are somehow responding to this show in a way that surprises me. Getting this show on the air requires a lot of different people. That requires hundreds of people to sign off on something, to watch it, and to edit it. I am just really excited to see how people respond. I’ve been really repulsed by certain parts of Joe, and it’s weird to play somebody that you actually feel that way about. It’s a challenge. In fact, over the course of five months of shooting the 10 episodes, I didn’t always necessarily do it as well as I could have. It’s hard to do that, all the time. I learned a lot, as an actor. I was able to detect that the role would be able to give me the opportunity to think this way and to apply that to a role. You don’t always get the chance to do that. I think that was partly why I took the opportunity.

Do you want people to root for Joe and Beck to be together?

BADGLEY: I really don’t know.

LAIL: I think you do because, if they’re not together, then what will Joe do?

BADGLEY: That’s even worse.

It seems like Joe needs something to focus on.

LAIL: Yeah, and there’s really no winning, so wouldn’t you just rather they be together and blissful? Why don’t they just be twisted together? There’s a real connection there, and you root for that.

BADGLEY: Definitely!

The other stuff could maybe be forgivable, but murder is a little iffy.

LAIL:  Exactly! But Beck doesn’t know, so she’s fine.

BADGLEY: In 2018, murder is always a little iffy. For thousands of years, we still haven’t gotten the whole, “Thou shalt not kill.”

When you’re telling a story like this, does it make you glad that you don’t necessarily put everything of yourselves out on social media?

LAIL: It does make me glad. It makes me glad that I’m not in the Tinder dating universe. You meet a stranger and you don’t know them, so you’re opening yourself up.

BADGLEY: Somebody I’m close to is a first responder on a hotline for people who have been assaulted and have suffered. Obviously, this is hearsay, so I’m not staking any claim about the nature of a platform, an app, and a company, but people are in the market for one thing, and you don’t know what the other party is in the market for. You don’t know what implicit social agreement there is.

LAIL: There’s a real disconnect there. It’s a good reminder to trust your gut. I also know people who have gotten married off of Tinder.

BADGLEY: It goes both ways.

LAIL: Yeah, it certainly goes both ways. The idea of needing to put yourself out there, in an electronic format, to find love, is really the story that our society is telling right now. Of course, sometimes that’s possible, but only if handled with great care.

BADGLEY: You raise a great point. With most things, we actually need to invest far more care. To me, a show like this, at a time like this, makes it easier to open up a conversation where we can recognize the myriad social contracts that we’re constantly signing with each other, in this very implicit, unspoken way, but which matter. For years, we’ve made dating this funny trope, where guys just try to get the girl and they maybe beat her over the head a little bit, figuratively speaking. We take a literal thing and make it figurative, and then we desensitize to it.

LAIL: We romanticize it. But the truth is, this guy isn’t taking no.

BADGLEY: He doesn’t understand no. He doesn’t hear no.

LAIL: And that’s not considered romantic. That’s not the agreement.

BADGLEY: Right. I think we have an idea of romance now that is at all costs. He’s following a logic that is not just his own. It’s definitely out there. Two great examples are a lot of Prince songs and a lot of Michael Jackson songs. Two of our most iconic and talented artists in popular culture, since popular culture really existed, had manic declarations of so-called love, which veer far more into sociopathic obsession and lust. We love to dance to it and we love to sing to it, but what is that feeling, really? Is that love? To me, it’s the kind of love that we live with, day-to-day, that matters. That’s the kind of love where you discipline a child. That’s not sexy though, so we love the kind of love that feels like a drug. My point is that I’m really questioning if that has anything to do with love. It doesn’t mean that love can’t also have that on top of it, but we can also have that without love, and mistake it for love.

LAIL: There’s the idea that love is supposed to hurt, but it really shouldn’t hurt. The true kind of love shouldn’t come with all this pain and torment.

The problem is not just Beck’s judgment in men, but also her judgment in friends.

LAIL: She’s seeking love in all the wrong places, essentially. When it comes to her relationship with Peach, that relationship is based on what Peach can give her. It’s the same with almost everyone that she dates, and that just stems from a deep need inside of herself, unfortunately. We all have that. I don’t think Beck is the only person doing that. I think most of us are doing it, maybe in lesser degrees and maybe we’re more aware. I don’t know how aware she is. She writes about it, but that’s also the artist thing. They’re addicted to that tragedy. They want the tragedy because it creates the poem. But I think Beck grows, throughout the season. I like to think that she grows.

BADGLEY: She definitely does.

Is there anyone in her life that Beck can just be genuine and real with?

LAIL: That’s such a sad question. I’ve never thought about that. I think it’s Joe.

BADGLEY: That is the strange thing.

LAIL: That’s what makes it sad. I think she’s her most true self with Joe.

BADGLEY: And he is with her, in a way.

LAIL: That’s what’s so sad about that question. She’s not very well connected with her family, and all of her friends are just the group she’s in. I think Joe is the closest thing, and that’s really sad. I never thought about that before, and now I want to cry.

BADGLEY: It’s really sad. We had some moments on set that were heart-wrenching, not because we were in the moment of the scene, but we were like, “Damn, this is hard to confront.” Even though it’s a fictional story, it somehow seems to contain something very real and very true. More than anything I’ve ever been a part of, as a project, I feel like it creates a conversation, just for itself. I really want to know what it is that people think about this show. I really want to know what they like. I want to know when they are triggered and don’t like it. I want to know when they are offended. I really do. I’m not going to defend it, across the board. I’m really interested to see what it is that this elicits because no one can predict, and I love that. I love that it’s courageous, on one hand. I would love for it to, at times, be uncomfortable because that is how we learn and grow.

I don’t think that any of us could or should try to claim that we understand it, 100%, and I feel that way about all projects. We can’t control the way viewers interpret something, so I’m just so interested to hear what they think because, if it does have the reaction to it that we’re anticipating, I’m just fascinated about what that says for us. At a time when we’re recognizing the pitfalls of a patriarchal system, what does it mean that we actually really like a show like this? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t, at all. I’m a part of it. But I just think it’s exciting to be a part of something that can generate these types of questions, rather than just going, “That was nice. What do you want to do next?”

LAIL: Regardless of what the talk is, as we unpack it, when I signed, I don’t think I even realized the multi-level human condition question that we were delving into, but that’s why I act. So, I think it’s positive, even though it can be a very scary, negative story, at times.

You airs on Sunday nights on Lifetime Television.