'No Good Deed' cast reflects opposing house-hunting motivations

Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, Teyonah Parris and their co-stars said their new series No Good Deed, on Netflix on Thursday, highlights how buying and selling a house reveals hidden motivations.

In the show, Paul and Lydia Morgan (Ray Romano, Lisa Kudrow) list their Los Feliz house on the market. Several couples enter a competitive battle for the home.

"The house represents something totally different to the people who live there than the people who want to buy it," Cardellini, 49, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

Cardellini and Wilson play Margo Sterling and JD Campbell, a Hollywood couple who already live near the Morgans. Cardellini said the Sterling-Campbell home is a metaphor for their marriage problems.

"Our house in the show represents this vacant, larger-than-life dream that is unattainable and unaffordable," she said.

Parris and O-T Fagbenle play Carla Owens and Dennis Sampson, expectant parents looking for a place to raise a family.

"In this show, you see that house-hunting can really bring out the worst in people," Fagbenle, 43, said. "In this show, it gets pretty dark."

Carla and Dennis began dating only months before the show begins, but because she became pregnant, they are making a go of their relationship. Parris, 37, said their characters are transferring their own issues onto the house.

"They literally imbue the home with all of their dreams," Parris said. "Like, if we had this home, we could be better people, we would be a better family."

Abbi Jacobson, 40, and Poppy Liu, 32, play a same-sex couple with relationship issues, the sources of which are revealed in subsequent episodes. Though there is a dramatic backstory, Jacobson said her intense pursuit of the Morgans' house is comic.

"My character is going hard for this house," Jacobson said. "She will do anything, so that was something that was really fun to play."

The house-hunting drama reminded Wilson of his past. He lived with his brother, actor Owen Wilson, when he began his career in Hollywood.

Owen eventually needed his own place and pressured Luke to move out. Luke admitted he dragged his feet even after completing a purchase.

"II still didn't move out until Owen eventually said, 'I thought you bought a house. When are you going to move out?'" said Wilson, 53. "Then, I did move out, and sure enough, about a year later, the guy said he missed me."

Wilson's character has not had the success the real actor enjoyed as the star of Old School and Legally Blonde. As an actor, Wilson said, he enjoyed playing JD, a disgraced soap opera star.

"I can certainly draw on things that I've been through myself and that I've seen other people do on set," Wilson said. "The idea of a failed, out-of-work soap opera star, you just read that sentence and I think OK, that seems like it would be very fun to do."

Margo is still accustomed to the lifestyle of a successful Hollywood couple and wear

designer fashions to prove it. Cardellini collaborated with costume designer Trayce Field to realize the scripted description of Margo.

"One of the things I remember reading is 'she's dripping in Gucci,'" Cardellini said. "She's dripping in designer clothes and her handbag means so much to her."

The cast members and series creator Liz Feldman also said their home-buying experiences reflected the competitive nature of real estate depicted on No Good Deed.

Jacobson recalled competing with 16 other buyers for a home, and Parris had friends who were among 50 potential buyers for a home. Parris said just checking real estate listings was good research for No Good Deed.

"You scroll through the apps just looking at the houses and the prices," Parris said. "A $1 million, $2 million house, you're like, 'They could do better,' just judging."

The couples also become embroiled in a mystery with the Morgans. In each episode, the viewer learns more about why the Morgans really want to move out.

Feldman, 47, said the resolution of that mystery changed when she began writing the series with her writers.

"The finale changed quite a bit," Feldman said. "I will only say that the smoking gun that's revealed in the finale was not the original intent from my initial pitch."