Netflix is cracking into 2023 in a huge way with their upcoming anthology series, Kaleidoscope. Created and sorted so that viewers could watch in any order, the heist mystery chronicles a quarter of a century, beginning 24 years prior to the crime, and the months after, and the stakes are impossibly high. For a whopping seven billion dollars, split evenly six ways, a group of highly skilled thieves will attempt to break into the most secure vault in the United States – possibly the world.

Kaleidoscope stars Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap, the mastermind of the operation with a seven-billion-dollar chip on his shoulder and his eye on an old foe and corporate titan, Roger Salas (played by Rufus Sewell). Pap commands a team of experts, each with a specific skill set, played by Paz Vega, Peter Mark Kendall, Jordan Mendoza, and rising star Rosaline Elbay , who plays explosives expert Judy Goodwin, and Jai Courtney as Bob Goodwin, the safe-cracker.

Before Kaleidoscope started streaming on Netflix, Collider’s Steve Weintraub got to speak with Elbay and Courtney about the series. During their interview, Elbay and Courtney explain the format of the series, how it can be watched in any order without losing sight of the central focus, and what kind of experience it provides viewers. While filming, Courtney shares what he learned, and they discuss a difficult scene only a handful of the cast members were subject to. Check out all of this and more in the video above, or you can read the full interview below.

COLLIDER: Rosaline, I'm going to start with you first. Individual question. I've seen Jai [Courtney] work up close, and he's what we call a diva. And I'm just curious, what is it like working with someone who is just really difficult on set and always wants to steal other people's lines?

ROSALINE ELBAY: I'm just really glad that someone's finally asking me about my experiences because I felt silenced for a very, very long time. There are many open secrets in the industry about people like Jai, and it's gone on for far too long. You don't know this, but I was actually given an extra retainer fee so as to babysit Jai.

Paz Vega, Giancarlo Esposito, Jai Courtney, and Peter Mark Kendall in Netflix's Kaleidoscope
Image via Netflix

Right.

ELBAY: But, no, I mean he's a nightmare. It's been absolutely awful, and I'd love to get that out in print. Thank you so much.

Listen, it's also a nightmare when you do interviews with him. He's always trying to evade questions... I'm joking.

JAI COURTNEY: She seems to have all the answers so, she'll take it from here. Rose.

One of the things that's crazy about this series is that you can watch it in any order. When you guys were first told that information, were you like "Get the F out of here. This is never going to work."

COURTNEY: Yeah. It's a curious thing, and definitely an original concept, which you know it's going to be a challenge to execute. But I think what they were able to craft with these episodes, all perhaps serving as a pilot, if you will, was really, I don't know, really quite wonderful. Each audience member will start in a completely different place in the story, and get a completely different trajectory. And I think creating that unique experience for the viewer is really engaging, and it's also going to force people to put their phones down, pay attention, and investigate things. I think it creates something really fun and special, and I think people are going to have a ball with it.

It's not as convoluted as it sounds. I don't think it gets confusing on any level. We have a center point that you will never be too far away from understanding our geography. You get to cast yourself into the future and the past and even jump in and out of that in small gaps of time. That was my one concern, was, are the [episodes] that are close together going to confuse people in their tracking forward? And I don't think that's the case at all. I've seen the whole show, and I think it's achieving something really fun and special.

KALEIDOSCOPE Jai Courtney and Rosaline Elbay
Image via Netflix

I watched three episodes, so far, and I watched them in the way that the Netflix sent them to me. But I'm curious, did anyone say to you a certain order for you to watch them?

COURTNEY: No. There was slight talk around, "Oh would you want to jump here and then jump there?" But that's not the point. I remember, at one stage when I was reading early on, knowing one was chronologically going to exist after the other, I had to resist the urge to read it that way. But it's all about, I don't know, investing in what the concept of this show is supposed to achieve, and it serves just as well.

ELBAY: Yeah.

For both of you, I love watching heists on TV, in the movies. It's just a genre I can watch endlessly. What is it like to make a heist show like this?

ELBAY: Your job. Safe-breaking.

COURTNEY: Yeah. I know, right.

ELBAY: It was really fun. I mean it's really great to get to do something like this where, as an actor, there are so many fun things that you get to do and skills you have to learn. But at the same time, being able to do it on a show where there was also so much heart and so much depth to these characters. It just felt like being able to pretty much do everything that you hope you might doing this job.

COURTNEY: I learned how to crack a safe, which was pretty fun.

Giancarlo Esposito as Leo amongst the talent ensemble in Netflix's Kaleidoscope
Image via Netflix

You really did? For real?

COURTNEY: Yeah, for real. Yeah, for real. It's a really interesting technique, and it's actually incredibly simple. You just have to have a deft kind of touch and perception, and there's not that much involved with it. I'm surprised more people don't walk around cracking safes, honestly.

ELBAY: And if he could share anything with the world, it's go crack safes.

COURTNEY: Yeah.

With the episodes, which shot or sequence ended up being the real pain in the ass? Is there a specific shot that, for technical reasons, whatever, it ended up being really challenging?

COURTNEY: I don't know about a shot per se. There is a portion of the story we spend a large amount of time submerged in water, or a part of the group do. And that got old pretty quick.

I've heard that.

ELBAY: Yeah. There was a lot of damp. There were two episodes of just [constantly] being sprayed and being sort of drenched in water, and there was a lot of shooting, I think most of it was the shooting the outdoor scenes for summer when it was New York winter.

COURTNEY: Oh yeah.

ELBAY: Yeah. That was... I was blue.

COURTNEY: Yeah. Rose managed to find herself in short dresses all through a New York winter. And it was always discussed because we'd be like, "Well, what's stuck with the seasons in this show? Where are we at?" Because it's actually one of the things that isn't necessarily played into too specifically. And it definitely was supposed to look warm on days that they're literally shoveling snow off the road, which got painful. But we love what we do. You got to be careful to complain.

Giancarlo Esposito and Paz Vegas as Leo and Ava in Netflix's Kaleidoscope
Image via Netflix

No, totally. Listen, I'm lucky to do what I do. You guys are lucky to do what you do. But I do think that audience members don't actually realize what it takes to make a TV show and the hours that go on.

COURTNEY: Yeah. It is cool.

But it is really a lot of work.

COURTNEY: It is intense, and, certainly, I think, it's fun to get under a rain tower in minus zero temperatures – I'm talking Celsius – but hour four of that at 3:00 AM in the morning, you really start to question some of your life choices.

ELBAY: And bearing in mind we're the actors. The crew's been there three hours before we got there. It's going to leave three hours after...

COURTNEY: Yeah. But they're allowed to wear rain gear, and GumBoots, you know what I mean?

ELBAY: That is true.

Kaleidoscope is now streaming exclusively on Netflix. For more on the series, watch our interview with Giancarlo Esposito and Tati Gabrielle.