Why Linda Cardellini Relished That Last, Nasty ‘No Good Deed’ Twist

This article contains spoilers for the season one finale of No Good Deed.

When Linda Cardellini asks to play a “badass bitch,” there’s only one writer she knows will listen. The ER and Freaks and Geeks alum earned her first lead-acting Emmy nomination for her warmly funny performance as the good-natured, gently homicidal Judy Hale in Liz Feldman’s Dead to Me. So when Feldman let Cardellini know she was at work on another darkly comic new series and asked Cardellini who she wanted to play next, Cardellini gave her answer.

Next thing she knew, Cardellini was playing Judy’s opposite in No Good Deed, which centers on a well-to-do Los Angeles couple (Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow) disarmingly eager to sell their dream home. The premiere episode introduces three sets of couples expressing interest at an open house, one of which is the washed-up actor JD Campbell (Luke Wilson) and his gaudy new wife, Margo (Cardellini). Over the course of the series, Margo starts a brazen affair and fakes a car accident; we learn she’s changed her name and lied about her dark past. The finale reveals that Margo is actually the reason why the homeowners are so desperate to leave their home: She killed their son, Jacob, to protect herself after he threatened to take their affair public. When she’s found out, JD burns her house down, and our last glimpse of Margo finds her back up to her old conning tricks—with some pretty severe facial burns.

So yeah: in all that chaos, there’s a whole lot for Cardellini to play. And while she’s been known for decades on TV as a reliably likable face, in No Good Deed, she relished the chance to break bad.

Vanity Fair: What was your process of discovery with this character? What did you know and when did you know it?

Linda Cardellini: I knew quite a bit about her trajectory from the beginning. I didn’t know how it was going to happen. Thinking about the character too, it was like, is this a whodunit? Is it a how-done-it? And where does she find her way in all of that? There’s a little bit of both in that for her, in the way that she’s presented throughout the show. In true Liz fashion, you never know when the twists and turns are going to come, and even if you know the big twists, there’s all these little micro twists and deceptions and strange relationships and other nuggets that come out.

She’s such a fun, wild character. How did you find your way in? What notes were you excited to play?

To build her from the outside in. She’s a very superficial person in a lot of ways—the makeup and the hair and the clothes, I mean, that part was really fun. I got to work again with Trayce [Gigi Field], who was also our wardrobe designer for Dead to Me. Liz and I talked about what we wanted her to look like: You could go to any supermarket in Los Angeles and see somebody who looked like her. Specific to Los Angeles.[Laughs] And the thing I loved about Margo is that she really thinks about herself first. It’s delicious as an actor to think about: It doesn’t matter to me what anybody else wants in this scene. It’s all about what I want.

Talk to me more about that LA supermarket look. How did that evolve?

It was a lot of time in the chair, and some days there’d be costumes so tight that I actually couldn’t even unzip myself. I had to have other people help me out of them to go to the ladies’ room. That’s not typically what I play. [Laughs] The conversation at first was like: I have dark hair at the time, so what if she has light hair and what if there’s no bangs? Definitely no bangs. Then, whatever you see here, there should be a consciousness that she cares about her appearance above all. Whether you think she looks good or not, she thinks she looks good. Also, she’s deeply flawed inside of there too—when you put on all of those masks, you might actually be masking what’s inside.

That’s an interesting tension to play, especially in the earlier episodes, when we as the audience don’t even know to be looking for a killer. How did you think about playing that when it’s so hidden from view?

She’s a brilliant liar, and I think other people are not. Some people read your emotions and read a situation through empathy. She does not; she reads it through opportunity. Everything that she’s looking at, when she’s looking at another person or talking with another person, is how it can help her. She’s not a person who looks back. She’s constantly in motion and grabbing people: “Oh, honey.” If she doesn’t get what she wants, she just makes a slight turn and keeps pushing in that direction—which I do think that we find in life: people who keep getting what they want don’t let what would stop other people stop them.

How do you hope people feel about Margo at the end when they know everything?

That’s a good question. I don’t know, honestly. I hope that they enjoy the ride. If you’ve gone along for the ride at the end, I hope you feel like it was worth it. I feel like nobody needs to like Margo. [Laughs] Maybe you can love to hate her, but I don’t know that anybody needs to like her.

I don’t worry about whether the audience will necessarily like her; that’s out of my control. But in the scene, can she actually get what she wants from somebody? If you are being unlikable to the person you’re talking to, can you get away with that? She can get away with that with Greg, the real estate agent [played by Matt Rogers]. It doesn’t matter to her if she’s her true self.

She comes back at the very end in a surprise, with a kind of blown off, two-face look. How did that come about?

That was definitely a process in the chair. It was not so easy to move with, but after days and days of trying to get her to look good, it was fun. It was hard to turn my head and get the timing right—all of that stuff. Also to have the reveal of it. I have pitched a few ways that she could come back from that, in case my pleas work and I can get Liz to bring Margo back if the show ever comes back.

Have you ever acted in prosthetics like that before?

Yes, the first job I ever had on television! I was in a Saturday morning kids show called Bone Chillers. I did 13 episodes and it was my first big job, and it was the best feeling ever to be able to work as an actress. I played a werewolf on one of the episodes, and I had to have a full mask. Back then they used to do this thing where they cast your head all in—it was like plaster. You’d have only straws in your nose and then you would be enclosed by the plaster for, I don’t know, a long time. [Laughs] People who were claustrophobic really had a hard time with it. I’m not claustrophobic at all, but unfortunately I have very sensitive skin, so I was a little scared to take it off. But it turned out great. [Laughs]

You did some improv on this show, as with Dead to Me. Are you generally comfortable doing that?

I really love it. Since I first worked with Liz, we always say everything that’s on the page and then after the scene ends, we can keep going—we just won’t call cut and everyone will keep talking. And typically the actors that you’re on set with are pretty great at it.

Between Ray Romano, Lisa Kudrow, and all the rest, who kept you on your toes the most here?

That’s tough, because everybody’s so good. Lisa and I, after [her character] hits me with the car, we’re crying and we’re laughing and then one of my favorite things I say to her is, “I used to not like you.” It’s just such a bizarre thing to say to somebody, and she’s using it as such a manipulative thing. It’s very Margo to take something that would make somebody feel less than and really turn the screw right there. That was written, though, not mine.

I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time, and both this and Dead to Me have allowed you to play particularly distinctive, complicated characters. Is there something about the way that Liz sees you as an actor that feels different?

I feel so extraordinarily lucky that she chose me to begin with, and then chose me again. The idea that somebody sees what I want to be able to do—to be somebody who can sort of play anything—and writes for me in that way is a dream. The things I got to do over three seasons with Judy: In one day we’d be laughing, crying, screaming, yelling, fighting, loving. And I also get to do that now in a completely different role.

Have you felt generally that you weren’t seen that way in the industry otherwise?

Everything about any business can be frustrating, especially when you have hopes and dreams and plans for yourself and things either go your way or they don’t. It really vacillates, but it’s much like doing something you’re afraid of: Will this work? Will this not work? There’s all those feelings that go into the excitement of doing a job like this, something that isn’t guaranteed, and I don’t know what is in life—but even more so with this kind of business.

The hard part about being an actor is you’re at the mercy of what is out there, and you’re at the mercy of whoever will choose you, and then you’re at the mercy of whether something gets seen or not. All of those things are unknowns, and it’s almost like lightning in a bottle when all of those things come together. I don’t know how anything will be received, but I’m just lucky I got to actually do the work. The rest of it is out of my hands. You can concentrate on the things that have happened or the things that don’t happen. I’ve had so many good things happen—and I also have a lot more things that I want to do too.

This interview has been edited and condensed.