Lewis Pullman Is Sorry for Making You Sob during ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

If you’re coming here because you’ve been personally victimized by Lessons in Chemistry (aka, you sobbed hysterically into your popcorn and glass of wine while watching episodes 2-8), welcome. You’re not alone, and we’re here to help. Actually, we’re mostly here to talk to Lewis Pullman, who stars as Calvin Evans in the series that follows Brie Larson and Pullman as the titular chemists who fall in love, but in a flew-too-close-to-the-sun kind of way, before tragedy strikes. Pullman has the very-difficult job of helping to construct a believable and complete love story in only two episodes. And spoiler alert: he does it.

We asked him about working on that task with Larson, why he loved Calvin and Elizabeth’s dynamic, and why sometimes, acting feels a little bit like being a clown.

[Editor’s note: There are many spoilers ahead for Lessons in Chemistry, so if you haven’t finished the show yet, don’t say we didn’t warn ya!]

I’m wondering how the conversations about this role went with your agents when they were like, Okay, Lewis, role looks great. You do die in episode two. Tell me about how this came about for you.

[Laughs] Nail on the head there, that’s kind of how it went down. It’s a no-brainer to get to work with Lee Eisenberg and Brie Larson on a story that is so beloved. But that also comes with a lot of fear. You don’t want to be the one stick in the spokes.

If you were to look at my grades from high school, I was unsure whether I could fake being a scientist. I love their relationship, and I love his personal history and him as a character, but I’m honestly so bad at science. Luckily, they had all these incredible scientists on set to help us. I had to ask them to explain it to me like I was a two-year-old.

You and Brie have such wonderful rapport in the first few episodes of the series. I’m wondering what the chemistry read process was like for the two of you.

We didn’t have a chemistry read for Lessons in Chemistry. We tried to build the scaffolding by workshopping a lot of things, and not being afraid to try and fail and land on exactly what it was about these two people that made them such magnet to each other. They found each other in such a rare, statistically unlikely scenario, especially because they’re such particular people.

And Brie is so great. She brings a whole basket of games onto set and has such a lively and playful approach to her work. So we would be playing games in between takes with the whole cast and that immediately makes it feel like a family.

What kind of games? Like, board games or card games?

Like Boggle and Catch Phrase. She had a whole plastic tub of them. It was so fun. And you’d do a scene and then you’d go back and you pick up right where you left off in the game.

What was your favorite part of the Calvin and Elizabeth dynamic?

It’s a very fresh-feeling romance and they are these very awkward people. They don’t abide by a lot of social norms and they don’t like most people, or they don’t get along with most people, which makes the likelihood of them finding somebody that they get along with decently, let alone fall in love with, extremely improbable. It’s so fun to play people who aren’t used to being in romantic relationships. It’s almost like the age-old alien comes to Earth and tries to assimilate with humanity.

I liked how earnestly they were into each other. There was no cynicism in their relationship.

Especially once they finally accept it, because it is so hard when you’re used to being alone for so long. It must feel like an impossibility. And everything feels dissonant. And even the best things that feel so good, they’re new, so they feel uncomfortable.

I want to fast forward a little and talk about your character’s death. I’ll admit I had not read the book, so I was surprised. And I was literally watching it with my golden doodle on my lap, sobbing hysterically. What was it like to film?

Oh no! That was one of those moments where I was like, I’m a clown. What I’m doing for a living is that I’m a jester, I’m a fool. We had to shoot that three different ways: one where the camera was static, one where I’m trying to pull a fake dog, and one without a bus, where I mime being hit by a bus. We’re in Pasadena with all these onlookers. But it even surprised me when I finally watched the whole series. It happens in such an abrupt and in a way that has a violence to it that is realistic without being too gory. And that final shot on Six-Thirty is heartbreaking. That dog really stole the show there.

Have you had any friends or family text you being like, thank you for making me sob, Lewis?

My mom was like, no more dying in movies, please. Can we stop?

For the rest of the series, you appear in flashbacks. How did you wrap your head around playing a character that the audience knows has since passed away? Do you alter your performance in any way?

When I read it on the page I was like, oh, this is easy. I just come in and comfort her. But I’m not exactly playing Calvin. I’m playing Elizabeth’s perception of what she would hope Calvin might do in that moment. When you lose somebody, you can’t help but try and fill in the blanks of how they might support you, or respond to you, or what questions you wish you could ask them and how they might answer it. And so in some ways, those scenes were less Calvin, and more trying to be a physicalization of Elizabeth’s grief and almost a hologram of what she predicts, or she fantasizes about what he would be doing or saying.

Yeah, he’s almost a dream to her at that point.

Yeah, totally. I got a little too accurate on some of it because I would just come around the corner and console her and Mad, and I was like, Where am I coming from? What am I doing in my office? Was I doing work or did I have a ghost mask and I was just like, haunting the halls? That was something that was not on the page.

What was your favorite scene to play in the series?

I love the Christmas scene montage. Brie and I got to play and dance and try and bring to life to their relationship, the manifestation of their bliss. You’re also creating memories that you know Brie’s character is going to look back on, so the richer, the better. And that was such a fun, playful day.

My last question for you, it’s a very serious one: The outlet Decider called you a “mega dream boat” in the show, and I’m wondering if you’d like to respond to that.

That’s such a high compliment. I didn’t know about that. A “mega dream boat,” that’s a double whammy. That’s a high honor. I think there’s many others heeds fit for that crown. I wouldn’t put myself on the list, but I’m honored to at least spend the rest of this afternoon pretending.