As Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina pop onto my screen to chat about what it was like to work on Based on a True Story, their brand-new Peacock true-crime dramedy, which premieres on June 8, they are doubled over with laughter. Though they’d never met prior to playing a long-term couple going through a little, let’s say, theoretical estrangement before murder brings them back together, if this interview is any indication, they instantly forged the kind of connection where finishing each other’s sentences came to them really easily.
“We never met. It was very instant. We also kind of … our sense of humor is very, very similar,” Cuoco begins. Which is really dumb,” Messina adds. Which is just dumb, dumb, dumb, which ruined everyone’s lives on set because we just wouldn’t stop,” Cuoco explains. “But it worked for these characters, and we were able to go off on these tangents and find a lot of little magic moments together that made it into the show.”
A simpatico vibe between the two seems completely feasible, considering both Cuoco (best recognized for her Emmy-nominated turn as drunk but well-meaning Cassie on The Flight Attendant and her 12 years as literal girl-next-door Penny on The Big Bang Theory) and the affable Messina (who has appeared in many, many films, such as Air, and put in five solid years as the handsomely toxic Danny Castellano on The Mindy Project) are the kind of leads who bring an infectious charm to the parts they play.
When you put the two together as husband and wife in Based on a True Story, you get Ava and Nathan, a couple facing imminent parenthood along with significant financial and existential crises. Their desperation drives them to bond as they attempt to do business with a serial killer in the form of a true-crime podcast, and all kinds of wild high jinks ensue — all of which is heightened by the aforementioned tangents. “At one point, one of our directors came up to me,” Cuoco begins. “We were doing a scene, and she was like, ‘Can you do this a little more straight?,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know what that means
Cuoco first heard about the project as any highly successful, young, hot actor does — it came around. “I heard about the project way before I actually heard about the project, if that makes sense,” she explains. “I knew the script was looming around, but I had nothing to do with it. Then it came back around for me, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I heard about this; this is so brilliant.’ I love true crime. I love the tone they’re looking for, and I just thought it was such a funny, funny idea. The writing was brilliant.
Part of the appeal of the project for both of them was that it was a chance to work with the other. “When you go into a job and you know you’re going to be truly one-on-one with someone for a long time, you kind of do your due diligence and kind of ask around town and other actor friends if they’ve worked with this person,” Cuoco says. “It was like, every single person I spoke to not only knew Chris but said he was the best human being in the world and that I had to work with him. He had a gleaming reputation. It was just so cool, so I was thrilled to do this with him.