Cristin Milioti and William Jackson Harper Gush Over Reuniting for ‘The Resort’ (Exclusive)

Cristin Milioti and William Jackson Harper leaned on their history together when bringing life to The Resort‘s Emma and Noah, an unhappily married couple who find themselves at the center of a 15-year-old mystery during their vacation to the Mayan Riviera. The Good Place star and Palm Springs actress previously played a couple in marital distress in After the Blast and told PopCulture.com in an exclusive interview that reuniting for the new Peacock show was nothing short of magic.

Embracing the “nuance” and “organic choices” in Noah and Emma’s relationship was easy with Milioti, whom Harper gushed is just “really, really good.” He added, “I think that also there’s a lot of subtext in the script, and so once you’re made aware of some of those things, the lines take on a really odd and different life of their own.” It then becomes “less about forcing it” and more about allowing the “uneasiness” surrounding Emma and Noah’s relationship sink in – a relationship Harper described as being “in that weird mature place where it’s like, nothing’s really wrong, but it’s also not right.”

Milioti echoed that because of her experience in After the Blast with Harper, the two were able to bring another aspect of performance to The Resort. “I feel this incredible shorthand with Will,” she told PopCulture. “I think because we were in this very difficult play together, a play that I love, but that was heavy. But then also, I will just follow him to the ends of the earth. He’s so brilliant. I trust him so much as an actor and as a person. And, I just always felt really safe to try anything.”

The Resort creator Andy Siara also embraced Milioti and Harper’s bond after first working with the former on Palm Springs. Harper was the first person to come to Siara’s mind for the role of Noah, and even made the part “exponentially better,” he told PopCulture. “From the first moment [Milioti and Harper] walked on set, you can see that this is a relationship,” Siara continued. “The characters that they were playing [were] a relationship that had a history to it. That’s something that, if that didn’t work, then the show wouldn’t work, but it works.” The Resort streams beginning Thursday, July 28 on Peacock.