Making Netflix's Kaleidoscope was like trying to put a difficult puzzle together, the cast told Newsweek—so much so that they decided to just "roll over and embrace" what the creative team had in mind for the show.
The anthology series premieres on the streaming platform on New Year's Day. Set over 24 years, it follows the planning and execution of a bank heist led by Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito), who puts together a team to crack the "unbreakable" vault of Roger Salas (Rufus Sewell).
While this may seem like a standard heist thriller at first, what makes the show unique is that the episodes are designed to be watched in any order and viewers are encouraged to choose where they want to start the story.
With that in mind, the actors had to help make this non-linear experience work and that led to a "confusing" shoot, Jai Courtney told Newsweek, as he discussed making the show alongside Esposito, Tati Gabrielle, Rosaline Elbay and creator Eric Garcia.
'Kaleidoscope' Creator on Building the Show
Garcia came up with the idea for Kaleidoscope's non-linear story eight years ago. He wanted to do something new with modern TV consumption and combine it with a drama based on the case of 70 billion dollars in bonds going missing during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which led to the show as it is now.
The creator explained: "I had an idea in 2014 and I had written an email to a friend of mine with this notion of 'I don't understand why we have to watch things in order' with batch delivery. Like it exists now so there must be some way to do this, and these two things slowly came together."
In order to bring this vision to life and ensure viewers could start at any episode, and immediately understand the story and its characters, Garcia had to create "a lot of master plans" that focused on things like narrative, props and script to piece it together.
"I had a group of about 10 people in my writers rooms and my writers, writer's assistants, script coordinator, really everybody in the room worked together and we had a ton of whiteboards, and a ton of note cards we had, it was a very A Beautiful Mind over there," he said.
"And we got to the point where you're kind of threading everything together, and then you're also figuring out how to do it, [...] my production designer, Michael Bricker is, I hesitate to use the word genius because it is thrown around, [but he] is an absolute genius. What was great about it was Michael, and Max Sherwood on props, Jenny Gering on costumes, we'd get into this stuff on a character level that ended up also then becoming about the specificity of the props and the connections of things."
Garcia added that it was thanks to people like Bricker, Sherwood and Gering that they were able to make the show work because they "really picked up on this and ran with it and just threw down with this crazy [idea]."
"When I said 'hey guys, we're doing this thing, there's no actual structure, but there's a structure within it.' They really got excited by that," Garcia added.
What the Cast Thought of the Non-Linear Structure
Gabrielle, Courtney and Elbay all said they were unaware of Garcia's plan for the show at first, only learning later that he intended for viewers to pick and choose which episode to start with. Esposito, however, knew early on after being sent multiple scripts and he found the councept fascinating.
"I was intrigued by that but more interested in how it would all link up, and how I would be able to use those links and clues to deepen my performance," Esposito explained. "What I loved about it, for me, was that I had the ability to test my skills in memory as I started to really [go through it].
"By the time I got through all eight [episodes] I had a good sense of who these people were, all of the players, and who Ray Vernon was and who Leo Pap was, and where he came from and where he went," he added, referring to his character's two names in the Netflix show.
"So, the challenge for me was to hold that all inside of me and allow that to be exemplified in my performance when it needed to be, when it was necessary," he went on. "I thought from the beginning this would be a brilliant idea and the fact that it was written so seamlessly allowed a way in as an actor that felt more like creating a filmic journey that would be like no other."
Gabrielle, who plays Roger Salas' protégé Hannah Kim, added that she found the idea "amazing" and said she felt that "especially once reading all of the scripts and seeing how much detail and attention to detail Eric and the writing team put into every episode."
"It felt like he was a mad scientist work of art when it came to his writing," Gabrielle said of Garcia's scripts. "And it affected the way that I approached it, just not necessarily needing to know where everything goes at what time but to have all of the information and have the whole timeline, to be able to inform the character in any moment, and be able to carry that and have freedom, and have room to play with where you place certain moments or certain nuggets from that character.
"So, to me, the nonlinear structure was, I think, incredibly freeing as an actor and just really fun to go through."
The Cast Share Experience With 'Confusing' Shoot
With the creative team keeping track of all the moving parts, the cast decided it was best to just accept their elaborate plans when filming, Courtney said, even if it made for a "confusing" experience for them at the time.
Courtney, who plays thief Bob Goodwin, explained that the cast didn't shoot their scenes chronologically or episodically, so it felt like they were "all over the place."
"We rarely film in sequence anyway but, yeah, even [with] the episodes themselves you'd hope that they were filmed chronologically, at least to give you something to bind onto, but no, not at all, we were all over the place," Courtney said.
"And even going back and forth with stuff, there's a few episodes that are quite close together in their chronology and I had moments as an actor where I was like, 'wait, but didn't we just jump out of the building?' It's like 'no that's in a couple of weeks time!'
"But, fortunately, the execution is far less confusing for the audience than it was for us in making it!"
Elbay, who plays explosives expert and Bob's wife Judy, joked: "There were smarter people than us keeping an eye on it, basically.
"It was really nice to kind of release some trust and be like, 'oh, there are amazing writers, showrunners, and directors keeping track of it while we kind of flail in the middle."
Courtney said that it was "interesting" to try and navigate building Bob and Judy's relationship alongside Elbay, particularly because their romance goes through various stages over the course of the eight-episode series, which is set over the years both before and after the heist.
"It's something you have to keep tabs on and Rose and I had discussions around, without overdoing it, finding opportunities to leave tabs, something to give us a sense of where they were at," the actor said. "We operate as this group; The heist crew, if you will, are kind of in our own pod, there's other elements to the story but as far as our experience shooting it most of it was concentrated within that group.
"There's not a lot of time you spend with Bob and Judy, for instance, as a couple outside of that environment, so [we were] making sure that without being on the nose we understand that there's a bond between them that's a little more intimate than just being in a heist crew together, [it] was important to know where we were at.
"But it is cool, I mean it's a challenge for an actor to jump in and around all that stuff, but I think we all had fun with it. It feeds you with more to deal with, and that's far more exciting than being able to coast through something that is way too easy to understand."
Kaleidoscope premieres on Netflix on Sunday, January 1.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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