From creators Rachel Ramras, Hugh Davidson, and Larry Dorf, the Netflix original series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window takes on all aspects of a page-turning, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller, down to the endless bottles of wine, always ill-timed rain, and unknown things that go bump in the attic. When Anna (Kristen Bell, who’s also an executive producer on the project) witnesses a gruesome murder across the street, which may or may not have actually happened (you can blame the fuzziness on all of that wine), she begins to question everything and everyone as she tries to figure out what’s going on and who’s responsible.

During this interview with Collider, which you can both watch and read, co-stars Bell, Tom Riley (who plays Anna’s charming new neighbor Neil) and Michael Ealy (who plays Anna’s ex-husband Douglas) talked about the show’s very long title, why the title fits the show so perfectly, their reactions when they found out the ending, having to be completely uninhibited with the absurdity of it all in order to make it work, the wild cameo, and that poor useless handyman (Cameron Britton).

Collider: To start with a silly, fun question, how long did it take you guys to learn and actually get the title right? Did you have to have practice it a lot to get it right?

KRISTEN BELL: I got it right, right away. And that’s not a brag, that’s because it felt like a wonderful joke. I think when someone does a really good bit, or makes a really good joke that’s just tonally perfect, I tend to remember it. I feel like this title really lets the audience know that we are going to be making fun of things and this might not be as serious as they think.

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Michael and Tom, how was it for you guys? When you explain this show to your friends and family, do you get the title right?

RILEY: Yeah. I guess I have practiced because I’ve said it more than some people would say it, but there’s a little joy at being able to say, “That’s what I’m shooting. That’s what’s gonna be on soon. It’s called The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window.” People think the title should have ended five seconds ago, and you’re still going. There’s a joy in that, for sure.

EALY: The title’s definitely tied into the experience. Having lived through this experience of making this project, you think, “That’s it.” You could even probably add more. It is such an appropriate title for this experience. It goes with that.

BELL: The title is too much, and the show is too much.

EALY: Exactly.

BELL: That’s why it works. Titles are supposed to economize language, to let you know just a tiny little hint of what you’re about to get into. We tell you almost everything, and we tell you mostly non-pertinent details about the show in the title. That’s why the whole bit works.

When you all learned who the actual killer is, and you read the script, and you saw how it all plays out, what was your reaction, and how do you think viewers are going to react?

BELL: I could never in my wildest dreams, and I spent a lot of years playing a detective on television, have guessed that this is how they would’ve ended it, but it feels perfect. I think the most shocking thing was how violent the ending is, from my perspective.

Tom, what about you? How did you react to learning how things would end up?

RILEY: I love the ending. It feels perfect for what the show is while at the same time being completely unexpected. And like Kristen said, it’s incredibly violent and I was there for the violence. I didn’t do anything about it, but there was some brutal stuff going down.

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Image via Netflix

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Michael, was there anything that you were particularly surprised about? Was it just the ending that surprised you, or were there moments along the way that surprised you? Was it a lot of, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is where they’re taking this”?

EALY: Yeah, there was a lot of, “Oh my God, this is where we’re going.” It was a rollercoaster ride, from the moment I read the scripts. I was just having these laugh-out-loud moments and these big gasps, every time I read the scripts. They didn’t feel like they had limits. The writers really felt like they didn’t have any limit to how absurd or how outrageous they were going to make a situation be. It was a joy to actually see them push the boundaries, especially with this particular genre.

I was so impressed with how this show takes on everything with these types of stories, from the wine to the rain to the attic and all of the misdirection, including adding in grief and a love story. Everything is in this, and somehow it manages to all work. Were you ever worried that you were taking on too much and throwing too many things into the mix, or was everybody always giving suggestions for things to add?

BELL: I certainly didn’t give suggestions to add anything. These writers – Larry [Dorf], Hugh [Davidson] and Rachel [Ramras] – who I’ve known for a while, they’re trained Groundlings and trained writers, and they’re very, very good at what they do. Rachel has read and watched every psychological thriller ever and is particularly interested in the ones that are written by women, for women, and what that entails. And so, I didn’t add anything, but I actually felt like unless they went for broke and, like Michael said, were completely uninhibited about what kind of absurdity they would throw at you, and unless they made fun or commented on everything in this genre, it wouldn’t work. This is a show that we had to act with subtlety, but nothing about the world of the show is subtle. It’s all very in your face.

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Image via Netflix

Kristen, you also got to do the final scenes with the wild cameo that everybody will talk about by the end of the show. What was it like to shoot that, especially with who you got to shoot it with?

BELL: It felt like the psychological thriller gods were blessing us because I got to work with the queen of all psychological thrillers. Having put effort into even reading the email with the invitation to be a part of this was so thrilling, and it made me feel safe to poke fun at this genre, knowing that she gave it her blessing.

Michael, what was it like to explore this relationship, between Douglas and Anna? The relationship between your characters is serious, it’s dramatic, it’s sad. What was it like to really have all of that drama in the middle of all this craziness?

EALY: I’ve had my fair share of love stories that I’ve participated in and there was never one that was like this. This one just had so many more layers to it. It had so many more twists and turns and trauma, quite honestly. This relationship was rooted in trauma. And so, in a lot of ways, it was much more complicated. And as Kristen was saying earlier, the most complicated part of it was the tone, being hopelessly in love, but also an idiot about it. Love can make you an idiot, and that’s how I felt Douglas was, in a lot of ways.

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Image via Netflix

Tom, your character is someone that we learn about through the relationships that he has with the women in his life, from his dead wife, to his neighbor, to his girlfriend, to his daughter. What was it like to explore each of those relationships and find the character through all these different sides to him? He feels like a little bit of a different person with each of the women in his life.

RILEY: Well, I think that’s partially because a lot of what you’re seeing is Anna’s perspective of him. She is constantly remaking in her mind who the man is, whether he is the great hope that she’s been waiting for in her life, or whether he’s a murderer, and she bounces back and forth. Some of those relationships that you see, you’re not seeing the truth. You’re seeing how Anna is imagining it. So yeah, it’s very much about playing the role that is simultaneously the man he is and the man I know he is, which is all revealed in episode four, and at the same time, trying to play the guy that’s Anna’s invention.

Kristen, I absolutely love the character of Buell because I also love Cameron Britton. It’s hilarious and insane that he pretty much exists just to fix a mailbox, which makes him the worst handyman ever. How much fun was it to have that dynamic as really the only constant that runs throughout this whole show?

BELL: It was a lot of fun because not only was it the constant, but usually when there’s a constant and there’s a wise old tree in a cartoon, you go back to the constant, and you get new information. Buell’s character gives absolutely no information and is not helpful in any way. He’s just the constant. And so, Anna doesn’t really know where to place him, other than he’s just always there. And then, as the story unravels, there’s this wonderful line that I have to Michael’s character when I say, “What was Buell like when you hired him to fix our mailbox all those years ago?” Just that line sums up what we’re doing. You go, “Oh my God, he’s been fixing that mailbox for years.” And if you really watch Cameron’s performance, he’s so great because he’s picking things up, and he’s looking at them. He analyzes everything before he touches it. It’s great, and it’s absolutely pointless, which is perfect.

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window is available to stream at Netflix.