“But at the end of the day, it felt like the clues were so well written [in the script], a lot of the clues were on the page, and I think a lot of the clues were also strangely in me. I can only play it as the version that makes most sense to who I am, I suppose.”

Carell concurs. You cannot “play” the research, Carell says. “I don’t think you play the research because then it’s very thin. You arrive as prepared as you can possibly be, but once you’re there, either it’s inside of you at that point or it’s not. To try to jam that information inside, I don’t think, is necessarily helpful once you’re there.”

Because of the nature of the story, much of the filmed action across the limited series takes place in a single contained space — the room where Fortner has Strauss imprisoned.

“When we were in that set, we were really in it for the duration of the day, and when I got chained in, it was a real lock with a real key, and I thought, boy, if there’s an earthquake or a fire, I hope somebody thinks twice about letting me out of here,” Carell says.

Carell remained chained, even when directors Chris Long and Kevin Bray were filming Gleeson’s close-up shots, he says. “It all sort of added to the vibe of that space, and it didn’t feel like a cliche space,” Carell says. “It felt like a space people are familiar with, but being there for so long, it really took on sort of an ominous quality.”

The rapport between the two actors is obvious. Carell says he found in Gleeson an actor who took his work very seriously, but did not take himself too seriously. “That, to me, is the ideal combination. When it’s time to achieve what you’re both setting out to achieve, you’re of one mind, and you go for it,” Carell says.

“But at the same time, there were moments of ridiculous levity between the most horrific moments,” Carell adds. “And I think we sussed each other out in terms of that, and we were very tuned in, at least the way I felt about it, in terms of where the other person was and what they needed. It was a kind of perfect alchemy.”

Some days were heavy, recalls Gleeson. “Because we have to go to some really dark places,” he says. “And for some of it, we would stay in it, and then sometimes you would just feel it break free and say, we can’t live in this all day, we’ll damage ourselves if we live in this all day. I loved every second of it. It was wonderful.”

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