[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Lucifer, Season 5, Episode 8, "Spoiler Alert."]

In the first half of Season 5 of Lucifer, the Lord of Hell is bored and unhappy with his place on the throne, instead being more deeply drawn to his life in Los Angeles, helping the LAPD and exploring his undeniable attraction to Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German). Abandoning his kingdom, Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) is forced to deal with his even more mischievous twin brother Michael (also played by Ellis), who seems hellbent on making a mess of his life, in every way possible.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, Tom Ellis talked about how lucky they are to be on a show that pushes the envelope on what they can get away with, why there was a sense of euphoria when shooting the season’s noir episode, just how much fun they had on the musical episode in the second half of the season, the challenge of playing twins, the Lucifer-Chloe dynamic, getting to explore the father-son dynamic with the addition of God (Dennis Haysbert), learning that Season 5 would not actually be their final season, and why he gets so emotional at the thought of saying goodbye to this character.

Collider: I very much enjoyed the new episodes — I especially love a good noir episode.

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Image via Netflix

TOM ELLIS: Yeah, that was so much fun for everyone involved. Even our crew was really excited about that ‘cause it was such a different venture. And as soon as we started seeing the results for how it was turning out and how it was looking on the monitors, it was so much fun to be a part of.

What was it like to film something like that, and what was your reaction when you found out that you’d get to film something like that?

ELLIS: The weird thing was, when we talked about it, initially, they said they, “We’re going to do this episode and it’s going to be in black and white.” In my head, I don’t think I fully realized the whole noir-ness of it and how fully committed we were going to be to shooting it like a noir film. And the way that we shot it was so different from a usual episode of Lucifer. Once we got the costumes and all of those things, it was great fun to see the rest of my cast all get to play different characters. It felt a little bit like The Wizard of Oz, where the main players all suddenly turn up as different things. That was joyful to watch because everyone’s been playing the same part for five years, so it was really fun to watch people have a go at something else. There was a big sense of euphoria, the entire time that we were filming that episode. I really loved it. We’ve always alluded to the fact that Lucifer is this timeless character and he’s always felt a little bit like he’s from somewhere else, in the usual show, but it felt like everyone else had to come back to where he is now, in terms of the type of character he is and era that he feels like he’s from.

How cool is it to get to play like that, five seasons into a show?

ELLIS: It’s so much fun. We all are lucky, in terms of the tone of our show, and what we’re able to do and get away with, I suppose. It’s so much smaller than a lot of shows that are locked into what they are, by that stage. We’ve always tried to push the envelope a little bit, in terms of what we can get with. Season 5, for most of it, we all believed was our final season. There were a lot of boxes that we wanted to check, for things that we hadn’t done yet on the show, and that was one of them. I’m just delighted by the way it turned out.

Since we won’t get to see it until the second half of the season, what can you say about the musical episode?

ELLIS: Well, you’re basically just asking me about my two favorite episodes of Lucifer. I’m so excited. Ildy [Modrovich], one half of our showrunning team, has wanted to do a musical episode for a long time. It was Season 5, [which was going to be] our final season, so we definitely needed to try to do that. I’ve always wanted to do it, but I’ve also been of the mind that there needs to be a reason that people are singing as opposed to it’s just a gimmicky episode. And the beauty of it was that we found the perfect reason for it, and not only made it service the episode, in terms of where the music comes from.

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Image via Netflix

But aside from the music, the readthrough of the episode was one of the most emotional and funny readthroughs that we’ve ever had. And that was without any of the musical numbers in it. As an episode, it’s just so packed with everything. There’s a lot to do with Lucifer and his father in it. It’s great. There are so many memorable moments from it, I felt like I’d won a competition, every day that I turned up to work. Because it was like living out my dream. We were doing all of these big dance numbers and it was fantastic. Everyone was really buzzing, when we were doing that. We had so much fun, I can’t even tell you. It was illegal, how much fun we had.

You’ve previously talked about how, because you thought this was the final season, it had the mentality of go big or go home. How did that affect and influence the story that you were telling? Did it change anything?

ELLIS: It didn’t change my approach. Personally, I said to everybody at the start of the season, “Please, let’s not talk about the end. I just want to be present and enjoy the season. Inevitably, it will be really sad when the show ends, so I want to spend the year enjoying it, grieving the character slightly, and just putting everything into it." And of course, then I was thrown the curveball of Michael, as well. I had my hands really full, just going into work everyday, which was great, in terms of deferring the inevitable. So, it was that mentality, but I was extra exhausted at the end of Season 5.

At what point did you learn that Season 5 wouldn’t actually be the last season, and that you’d also have a sixth season?

ELLIS: About four weeks before we were meant to finish. We had already spent a long time agonizing over what the end of our show should be because, obviously, it’s a privilege to be able to know that. We’d spent a lot of time and thought about what we wanted to do. So it was a surprise, to say the least, but this show has never had a normal run of things. It’s not had a typically orthodox run of episodes of TV. It’s gone through lots of different ups and downs behind the scenes, but we’ve always been managed to be able to roll with the punches. This was like, “Oh, wow, the finish line has just moved. Okay.” But (co-showrunners) Joe [Henderson] and Ildy [Modrovich] realized that there is a part of our story that we can still carve out and still come to the ending that we were planning, in the first place. We’ve just got a few more corridors to go down, before we get there.

How hard was it to then not be able to finish the finale, for reasons that were totally out of everyone’s hands?

ELLIS: It was frustrating, of course, but at the time, the world was particularly crazy. No one knew what was happening. The notion of having to go back and pick up where we left off is quite difficult because, at that stage of a season, you’re in the zone and I’m very close to the story, at that stage. So, coming back and picking up, at that point, is going to be quite strange, but they do it on films all the time, where you have to come and do pick-ups. It’s just part of the job, really. It’s just been a longer period of time than normal, in between.

Have you had conversations about when you can finish filming, or when you’ll start Season 6?

ELLIS: We have a tentative start date in September. The plan is that we come back and finish what we have left of Season 5, which is about five or six days left to shoot. So, we’ll get that done first. They can take that off and get that edited and ready, and do all of the post-production stuff they have to do and add it to what we already have in the can. And then, we’ll be able to put out Season 5, Part 2. Meanwhile, we’ll be working away on Season 6, which is going to be interesting, given how the world has changed.

This season starts off with Lucifer being a “really sad devil guy,” as evidenced by the title of the first episode. What sort of soul-searching will he have to do this season?

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Image via Netflix

ELLIS: Oh, he does a lot. Lucifer realizes that he actually deeply cares about someone more than himself, and not only is that a disturbing notion to him, but it’s something that he can’t stop. In his way to try to help service that and finally do the right thing, Lucifer doing the right thing often ends up in Lucifer doing the wrong thing, but it comes from a really good place. It’s all part of his evolution and where we found him. He’s gone on a cycle of really growing up, without ever realizing it. The climax of that does happen in Season 5.

What was your reaction to learning that you’d be playing Lucifer and his twin Michael?

ELLIS: I wasn’t just told. Joe and Ildy approached me about it. Bringing the character of Michael in was something that they’d wanted to do for a long time. In the comic books, they talk about Michael being Lucifer’s twin, so Ildy was like, “We thought about you playing it.” I took a deep breath and thought, “I know how hard my schedule is already, but it’s the final season, so if you really want to do this, I’m game.” At that point, it was only 10 episodes, and then it became 16 episodes, so it was a bit longer, as well. But I do love a challenge, and that is definitely one of the biggest challenges I’ve had on the show.

Finding a new character and playing a new character, in front of a group of people that I knew and trusted, and who knew me as one thing, was a weird experience for me. That played with my head, a little bit. I felt a bit fraudulent, at times, turning up and trying to play Michael, in front of all of these people. It became about doing speed changes, at the side of the stage. The biggest challenge was that we didn’t have a lot of time. We never have a lot of time to shoot stuff because it’s not like doing a big movie. I really wanted to differentiate between Michael and Lucifer, but we couldn’t do too much because we couldn’t change anything, physically, on him, and you couldn’t change their hair too much because that would take so much time to reset for Lucifer.

So, basically, I just had to go old school on how I thought about the character of Michael, and that involves his voice, the way that he walks and carries himself, and essentially what his wants are, and try to find some truth in all of that. It was interesting. It’s a bit like being in repertory theater, back in the day, where you’re playing multiple characters in plays.

Was it ever difficult to go in and out of the accents?

ELLIS: I did a show called Rush before Lucifer, and I was American in that. I had a rule that I made for myself that I would only be American when I was at work. I wouldn’t go in and out with my British accent because I just found it easier, that way, to just not think about it. So, I started like that as Michael, when I was finding the Michael character, and the crew found it so weird that I dropped out of doing it, after awhile, when I felt that I’d found his voice. It gets easier to switch, the more you do it. The thing that I found the hardest was Michael pretending to be Lucifer, and trying to find some difference between me, Tom, playing Lucifer, the character, and me, Tom, playing the character of Michael playing Lucifer. We somehow managed it.

What did you ultimately most enjoy about playing the two characters?

ELLIS: I think surprising people. When we were working, people would come up to me and be like, “Hey, Tom, I love you, but I really don’t like Michael.” That’s a really good compliment, because job done. I didn’t want people to like Michael. I used to walk around going #MichaelsADick because that’s how I felt about it. I had that feeling about the character that I was playing and what he was doing to the characters that I love, and will always love. There was a weird enjoyment, in that sense, in playing Michael.

We learn that Michael has likely been involved in Lucifer’s life much longer than anyone realized. How will learning that affect Lucifer?

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Image via Netflix

ELLIS: It goes right to the very heart of what pisses Lucifer off the most about his brother, which is that he was always able to manipulate him. So, to suggest that he’s been manipulating Lucifer, since the very beginning of time, including the rebellion against his dad, Lucifer just cannot deal with that information. When it comes down to it, and the fact that Michael has been messing with all of the things that Lucifer loves, there’s going to be some kind of a hefty climax to it.

Do you think it’s possible for Lucifer and Michael to rebuild or heal their relationship at all, or is there just no chance of that happening?

ELLIS: That depends on whether they’re prepared to evolve. We have a nice evolution that is very unexpected, in that relationship.

Just when Chloe (Lauren German) thinks that she’s confident in her feelings for Lucifer, she learns that she was entirely created for Lucifer by God. How do you overcome that?

ELLIS: And who told her that? Bloody Michael. It’s tough. Michael is the perfect villain for the season. You think that Lucifer and Chloe have made all of this progress in how they feel about each other, but there are still things that have been unsaid, and these things have huge, profound effects on what they thought they felt about each other, whether they’re allowed to feel those things about each other, and whether they’ll allow themselves to feel those things. It’s really difficult for Chloe, a woman of science and logic, to even live in this world, let alone to now find out that she is, indeed, an actual pawn created for God’s game of chess.

It’s cool that we also get to meet God this season, and if you’re going to have God, you want him to be in the form of Dennis Haysbert. What can you say about that relationship, and what was it like to have him as an addition to the show?

ELLIS: It’s really weird, every time someone asks me about Dennis, the hairs on my arms go up. It’s just happened again. He knows that we’re talking about him. Also, Dennis and I have become really great friends and I have a deep affection for him. In the grand scheme of things, we haven’t spent an awful lot of time together, but the relationship between Lucifer and his dad is obviously the central source that’s behind Lucifer’s everything. I didn’t know if we’d ever get to explore that relationship, and then when we did, it was actually really moving. There were moments of honesty on the set, between myself and Dennis, that I didn’t think we’d ever have on a show like this, and it was really profound. I’m really happy that we’ve gone there, and I’m really happy that we got Dennis doing it. I can’t imagine having done Lucifer without exploring that relationship now.

He’s a great addition to any show, but having him play that role was a great idea.

ELLIS: It’s amazing. That’s when our show really zings, as well. People can identify with what’s happening on screen. So, yes, we’ve got God and all of these celestials and angels, but ultimately in a family, the family dynamic and what happens within a family dynamic, everyone knows about. They all have their own dynamics, within that. When we start mining into that territory, I think our show really works. In the first two episodes in the second half of Season 5, we have things that happen that I’m just so grateful that I got to be part a part of.

I will forever love the relationship between Lucifer and Linda (Rachael Harris) because there’s just something so funny about the two of them together. How would you describe their interactions this season, especially as they’re becoming more and more like family?

ELLIS: They are becoming more and more like family. Lucifer is still very much holding Charlie at arm’s length because dealing with children is still difficult for him, even if he does have a soft spot for Trixie. He gets to a point, this season, where he thinks he may have learned all that he can from Linda, but of course, we know that is never true.

It seems as though Lucifer is not someone who will ever learn all that he can.

ELLIS: No. Although he does, indeed, come to that conclusion, on many, many occasions.

You’ve said that it will be sad to say goodbye to this character and this show. What have you most enjoyed about playing this character and how hard will it be to say goodbye to him?

ELLIS: I’m getting emotional. I didn’t know I was going to cry. Give me a second. Hold on. I’ve just had an opportunity to do so many different things. All of the things that I excel at or that I think are my strong points have all happened in one character, and I’m just very aware that absolutely will never happen again, but I’m glad it did. I just really care about him.

I think the reason that I’m getting emotional is because we all care about the characters in this show. Everyone that’s been behind it has enjoyed it, and we enjoy other people enjoying it. I don’t want it to go on forever. I’m really, really happy with what we’ve done. Everything comes to an end, and I am really ready to move on and do other things, but I’ll be forever grateful.

Lucifer is available to stream at Netflix.

Christina Radish is a Senior Reporter of Film, TV, and Theme Parks for Collider. You can follow her on Twitter @ChristinaRadish.