Based on the popular and award-winning Dark Horse Comics graphic novels created by Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy follows the “children” of Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), a billionaire industrialist who adopts seven of the 43 infants inexplicably born on the same day in 1989 to random women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. While they’ve been prepared to save the world, things are never that easy, and now that the impending apocalypse is very real, Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Vanya (Ellen Page) and Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) must get over their own family drama, if they have any chance of stopping global destruction.

At the Los Angeles press day to promote the new series, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with co-stars Tom Hopper, Emmy Raver-Lampman and David Castañeda to talk about what they thought about the pilot script, why these characters are so relatable, the incredible dance scenes, fight sequences, challenging moments, and where they think things could go next, in a possible second season. Be aware that there are some spoilers discussed.

Collider: When you read this, what were the questions that went through your head and how did you ultimately work all of that out, before signing on?

EMMY RAVER-LAMPMAN: For the first three months, we only had the pilot and what little details (showrunner) Steve [Blackman] would give us about where we were going. But even he, when we were shooting the pilot, didn’t know what was gonna happen, in time. He knew, but it was not totally fleshed out. But it was one of the best scripts that I had read, that whole pilot season. I was just so intrigued by the family aspect and the characters, and the fact that they are superheroes, but that’s not the most important thing. It felt so unique, with Pogo and Grace, and this brutally unfortunate up bringing that they all have. It was just so intriguing.

TOM HOPPER: It was really relatable. You could relate to all of them, in a weird way, or at least say, “I know someone like that.”

RAVER-LAMPMAN: Just when you start to forget that they have powers, you’re like, “Oh, right!”

HOPPER: Luther throws someone across the room and you’re like, “Wait, why am I doing that? Oh, right, they’re superheroes. Forgot about that!”

DAVID CASTANEDA: We all have our jobs to do it justice, with the comic books and the script, but in the end, there just had to be trust, especially when you’re doing wacky things like dancing, or you’re fighting and you’ve gotta trust that the stunt team and DP is doing the best job. Everything has to come together. That was the biggest thing for me, coming into this. I was like, “Okay, I need to fully allow myself to trust everyone,” because everyone brings their A-game to this.

How often do you get to do a project where you’re killing people, there are great fight scenes, the apocalypse is coming, and you get to dance?

RAVER-LAMPMAN: It’s unbelievable! What you just said is ridiculous. It’s so crazy!

HOPPER: It’s so brilliantly unique. As an actor, it’s such a massive gift to get a job like this because, what jobs do you get to do that in? It just doesn’t happen.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: I think I’m ruined forever. It’s my first [series regular role]. It’s really unfortunate, right of the gate.

HOPPER: After this, everyone is gonna have to try to meet this bar. In terms of an acting experience, the fact that every episode coming out, you think, “What’s it going to be? What are we going to be doing?,” is really exciting.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: To walk away from something that you’ve worked really hard on and can be proud of, isn’t always the case. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the piece isn’t good or that you didn’t have fun doing it, but to walk away, being like, “Wow, I’m really proud of my experience, the work that we did, and what we created,” it doesn’t get any better than that.

HOPPER: That’s such a good feeling.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: And I felt like that, every day. Even when there were miserable, hard times, and we were all frustrated, or we were angry that the scene didn’t go the way we wanted it to, or we couldn’t quite figure it out, or it was freezing and we were standing in the rain for hours, I still would go home, every day, and be like, “Yeah, that day was really rough, but this is gonna be unbelievable.” And I feel that, regardless of how it is received. Whether or not it becomes a huge hit, it doesn’t matter because I’m still so proud of it.

How long did you guys have to dance to Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and do you just never want to hear the song again?

HOPPER: I still love it.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: I hear it, all the time. It took no time, really. We just showed up on set, they put the song on repeat, and then they let the cameras roll for 20 minutes, and let us get comfortable and goof around and do whatever we wanted. We were very free.

HOPPER: It was so much fun.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: It was so loud. You could hear it, out by our trailers.

HOPPER: We were like, “Just turn it up!” And it was such a fun environment on set, most of the time, anyway, but those moments were great. It all started with Steve Blackman. It had to be creative and collaborative, and it was great.

Tom and Emmy, I really love the dance number that you guys have together. It’s just so beautiful. What was that like to shoot?

RAVER-LAMPMAN: It was amazing! [Tom] smashed it out of the park.

HOPPER: I had the best teacher. Emma [Portner] was amazing, as our choreographer.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: I come from theater, but I would never consider myself a dancer first, so I was also nervous. Partnering is a whole different ball game than solo dancing, but I think we both were really excited about it. We loved the song, and we were so excited to work with Emma. I’m such a fan of her work. She and Steve had a conversation about that, and how it needed to be romantic with twinkling lights, but that it also needed to still have the quirk and uniqueness of the show. It couldn’t just be a waltz in the park because we’ve seen that a zillion times. So, there were little elements of it that are very Umbrella Academy. Collectively, we maybe rehearsed for six or seven hours, and then we only ran the whole scene about five times.

HOPPER: When they said that they got everything that night, we were both like, “What?! Can we do it a few more times?” It was done so quickly.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: It was also 3:00 in the morning, so everyone was ready to go home, but we were like, “No drone shot?” But, it was really fun. That was a really good memory.

HOPPER: That’s an amazing memory from the first season.

David, one of my favorite scenes is the fight between Diego and Hazel (Cameron Britton). What was it like to shoot that scene with him?

CASTANEDA: When we first shot the intro to that scene, where I come in and kick him in the back, it was probably one of the funniest moments on set. Cameron is such a big kid, and we padded his back and I was like, “Look, I’m gonna hit you here, and you can fake it.” So, I came in and gave him a little tap, and then he came up to me and was like, “Hey, man, you can hit me.” And I was like, “Really?!” And he was like, “Yeah, you can kick me.” So, I told Jeremy [Slater], who was directing that episode, and I told the stunt coordinator, Rick [Forsayeth]. I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna hit him.” And they were like, “Okay, he wants it. Fine.” And on the first one, I flew into the frame and I kicked him, and he flew out of the frame. It was one of the funniest things. Everybody stopped, and it looked like a meme. They were calling it, “Coming out the weekend into Monday like,” and then, you see Cameron fly out of the frame. I hope they used [that take]. It was one of those things where it just set up the tempo of the comedy of the scene and how I played it out. We had such small space to fight in that, and there was a lot of intricate moves that Cameron and I were able to play off. Cameron was like, “I wanna play with you.” And I was like, “Okay, I don’t wanna play with you because you’re about 6'3", but let’s do it.” It came off great, and the vase broke over my head.

HOPPER: And the fact that Number Five was having a margarita, in the middle of this fight makes it a hilarious fight. It’s so good.

Tom, how do you find a character, who is not really entirely human anymore? How did you approach finding the way that you wanted to carry yourself, physically?

HOPPER: Having the suit was a big part of that process for me, wearing it ever day, it made me start to feel what it would be like to be Luther, and what it’s like carrying his body around, all the time. He used to look just like any other normal-looking humans, and now he’s hiding, or he’s hilariously trying to hide.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: Luther thinks he’s fooling everybody with that jacket.

HOPPER: It’s so true, Luther thinks he is. He’s got this weird body dysmorphia thing, and he’s like, “No, they’ll never know, if I’m wearing this jacket. It’s fine.” So, the suit really helped me find that in him. He’s physically awkward.

What was the most challenging thing for you guys to shoot?

RAVER-LAMPMAN: We were outside, in Toronto, in the winter a lot. I’m usually in good spirits and I love working, and I’m a really hard worker, but I don’t do well when I’m cold. The gremlin starts to come out when I’ve been standing outside for 12 hours, in a crop top and heels, shivering and trying to keep my lips from going purple. That was when I would look at the schedule and be like, “We’re outside all day?!” And it was February. That was the trickiest, but then you finish the day and you’re like, “Wow, that was really good.”

HOPPER: Logistically, I would say the courtyard scene in the pilot was the toughest because it was in the rain. It got under minus 20 that day, so we were doing a rain scene in minus 20 degrees, which was also a fight scene, as well. The grass that was throwing us off. At the end of two or three days, it was just a mud pit.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: And then, you’re soaking through your shoes, so your feet are wet and they’re dumping rain on you.

HOPPER: That was one of the toughest few days we had on the shoot.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: And that was our second week of shooting. It was right out of the gate. We were like, “So, this is what we’re starting with? Great!”

HOPPER: It actually got easier, from then on.

CASTANEDA: The first scene that I shot was the burglary fight in the intro. I knew why they were doing that scene. If I couldn’t pull it off, I’d just get fired, let’s be honest. And then, (comic book creator) Gerard [Way] and (illustrator) Gabriel [Bá], and the people from Dark Horse and Universal, were all there watching. I was like, “This is the moment.” That was big first day jitters.

This season leaves things pretty open and on a big cliffhanger. Have you had conversations about where things could go next? Do you have any idea?

RAVER-LAMPMAN: We don’t really know anything about a second season. I have my list of what I think Allison should be.

HOPPER: We know what the show is now, so we’ve all got our own ideas about what we should do.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: I think the biggest question is, where and when? Where did they go, and when did they go? Five was responsible for taking us somewhere that’s not a self-imploding planet, so where are we?

HOPPER: The options are wide open for that.

RAVER-LAMPMAN: Truly, it could be anything, which is so exciting because I felt like that, reading every episode, as we shot Season 1. Now, we’re potentially looking at a wide open second season. I have no idea. I don’t even know where to begin with it because we could start all over. Who knows?

The Umbrella Academy is available to stream on Netflix.