After Big Little Lies, yet another Liane Moriarty bestseller has now found its way to screen. Nine Perfect Strangers — a star-studded series comprising top names like Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Luke Evans, Michael Shannon, Bobby Cannavale and Samara Weaving — has nine strangers from the city band together for a 10-day retreat at a health and wellness resort, hosted by Kidman’s Masha. But things are not what they seem at the resort, which plays out in eight episodes, three of which are now available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.

Over a late evening video call, The Telegraph chatted with Bobby Cannavale — the man with titles like Will & Grace, Boardwalk Empire, Mr. Robot and Master of None, among many others, to his name — on the show.

Your Tony Hogburn in Nine Perfect Strangers is a man who minces no words. What interested you?

The thing that intrigued me the most about this guy is that he signs up for the retreat even though he fights it every step of the way. That contradiction was interesting, and I had to figure out how to enterprise with this guy. Working with Melissa (McCarthy, who plays Frances Welty, one of the ‘strangers’ who signs up for the retreat) took care of that because she is such a great co-actor. The main thing was how to play a guy who doesn’t really want help, who wants to end it all, and yet he’s signed up for this self-help thing. He thinks he’s not going to make it through the 10 days.

You and Melissa McCarthy have an antagonistic sort of chemistry on the show, which gives it some of its best moments. The two of you have, of course, shared screen space before. How did you bring on that comfort and chemistry?

This is the fourth or fifth time that we have worked together and we are very good friends. She texted me about the project and she told me to read it. She told me, ‘We get to hate each other until we fall in love!’ (Laughs) And I thought, ‘Okay, that’s fun!’ Chemistry has never been a problem with us. We liked each other from the moment we met. We are contemporaries, we have sort of the same references, we find the same things funny... and so, chemistry is not what I was worried about, to be honest.

I just thought that the conflict between our characters was really well written. That’s David (E. Kelley, the show’s creator) you know, he’s really good at writing characters who you know will end up liking each other, but he’s really good at holding that tension as long as he can. I thought I was in really good hands, with both David and Melissa, and of course, with Jonathan (Levine, director) overseeing the whole thing.

It’s really good fun working with Melissa. I have done it all with her by now... I have played a supervillain to her superhero (in Thunder Force) and she’s the only one who has ever cast me in a romantic comedy (Superintelligence). I trust her pretty implicitly.

Would you, in real life, ever sign up for a wellness retreat like this, especially after the last couple of months that we all have had and need some healing?

I actually have a three-year-old and a five-year-old at home and I really can’t afford to take 10 days off and go to a wellness retreat! So I am probably not going to do that anytime soon. The closest I have come was when I was in my late 20s and I was in California and I went to the Esalen Institute for a few days. That was honestly only because I wanted to experience their hot mineral baths! (Laughs)

I didn’t really know what I was in for and I encountered these other people who were on a serious spiritual journey. And I actually got into it... I didn’t talk for three days, I did some yoga, I ate some fresh produce.... But I wasn’t on some quest or anything. I am open to it, though... maybe later on in life when the kids are out of the house... I may then get interested in turning inward.

Bobby with Melissa McCarthy in Superintelligence, one of the many projects they have done together Sourced by the correspondent

With so many actors on set, it must have been one big party. What were the memorable moments?

The first scene that we shot was after two weeks of quarantine in a hotel room. We shot in such a strange time and were dropped right in the middle of paradise (Byron Bay, Australia). The first day of shoot was when all of us met Nicole (Kidman), who plays Masha, and that was pretty surreal because none of us had met Nicole yet, we didn’t know what her character was like, what she sounded like, nothing. None of us really knew each other well, except me and Melissa. We were just looking around at each other, and the reactions that you see on our faces are very real! (Laughs)

And then Nicole walks in and just watching her in the scene reminded me of those documentaries of charismatic spiritual leaders. They have a charisma and you get drawn towards them, and Nicole definitely has that in her. That was pretty memorable, looking around the room and watching everyone react to Nicole’s character... it was pretty funny! (Laughs)

What was it like being cocooned with this amazing cast and crew in a situation where the rest of the world was shut down?

For myself and my family, it wasn’t such a big deal to go to Australia. My wife (actress Rose Byrne) is Australian and it was fun to go down and see her people. For everybody else, they were leaving home and leaving their families behind. We were probably one of the first productions to kick-start in the pandemic, and on set, we would talk a lot about that. Everybody was freaking out as to whether we would ever get back to working normally again, and we were, in a sense, very, very aware that we were kind of like guinea pigs in terms of understanding what working under Covid-19 protocols were going to be like. We were getting tested every other day, and operating in a bubble. But we were always grateful for the work that we were doing when most others were sitting at home.