Watching the three-person cast of 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher, Jr., carry and balance the film between them makes us wonder what it’s like to perform as a small ensemble in a movie largely contained in one location.

Three is a relatively small number of characters for a high-grossing movie, and the lack of location changes puts extra pressure and scrutiny on their performances. It is entirely up to those three actors to sustain our attention and draw us into the story. This seems a daunting task for the cast but at the same time allows ample opportunity and screen time to showcase their talent. As Goodman joked at the New York 10 Cloverfield Lane press day, “You have more lines! The flip side of that is that you have more lines to memorize.”

Being part of a smaller ensemble cast has special advantages if you admire the other actors, as Winstead noted. “I think when you have the two other people be John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr., I think it’s the best opportunity ever,” she said at the press conference. “I got to just kind of sit through a master class of acting. Just to sit opposite to him [John Goodman] everyday, I couldn’t have been luckier. I guess it depends on the kinds of actors and I lucked out on this one.”

Winstead – whom director Dan Trachtenberg called “the best special effect in the movie” – said that she was especially motivated for this film because she loved the way her character was written. “What I loved most about [my character, Michelle] is that she’s kind of a badass from the beginning,” she said. “In reading roles, I generally see a lot of female roles being, if they’re badass, they have to be kind of weak in the beginning in order to grow to find their strength, and something happens to them that makes them find it and they persevere on. But with her, she was smart and strong and capable from the get go, as I think a lot of women are. So it was cool to get to see that play out… There’s not a second of the movie where she’s passive or where she’s not trying of figure this thing out. So I was really excited to play someone whose brain never stops working the entire film.”

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Questioned about the psychology of his character, Goodman replied, “I have to trust the audience if they’re gonna see my inner screw loose. They’re gonna see the loose wiring in the guy after a while. He comes at it from his own particular point of view, which happens to be looney tunes. But it’s also nice to have somebody that will stab you with a jagged piece of wood one moment and sew you up the next. He’s got his own perspective on things, and he’s always right, which never ends well for anybody.”

Both actors were struck by their roles immediately on reading the script. “It was different,” Goodman said. “That’s the first thing that hit me, that it was different from anything I’ve read before, and it was interesting. It was a page-turner, which is always a good sign. It’s like reading a good book. You wanna see what’s gonna happen next. So that was the very first impression.”

Winstead had a similar reaction. “I didn’t expect the turns to happen whatsoever, and I certainly didn’t know where it was going and where it was leading,” she said. “And selfishly as an actor, I just really kind of wanted to play this role and go on that ride of the character. It just seemed like I would be able to do a lot of fun stuff. And I thought it was really refreshing in terms of the genre as well.”

Another issue for the actors and director was developing of backstory for their characters, even if all details of their past lives were not spelled out in the script. According to Winstead, “It was a very collaborative experience in terms of the character of Michelle. There’s a scene in the movie where she talks a lot about what she’s gone through or regrets that she’s had, and that was something that was collaborated on as we were working because we wanted it to feel very natural to who I am and what I was bringing to Michelle, so that kind of changed as we were working: okay, well, who is she, and where’s she coming from, and what’s her story? But I loved that the audience never fully knows her story. I loved that as an actor I get to have that bubbling under the surface without it verbally being explained, and that way the audience can come to their own conclusions about who she is to them. And you make your judgments on her based on her actions in the film and how resilient, resourceful and clever she is, as opposed to having all this exposition about who she is on paper.”

Goodman approached his character’s backstory in a more intuitive, spontaneous way. “I would invent stuff day to day the more we went into the film, and kept it to myself,” he said. “It’s pretty screwy up in my head.” His method was to “just play stuff. That’s what we did was play. It could have gotten intense on the set really quickly, and it wasn’t. It was loose and fun. So yeah, I’d just write my own backstory and then forget about it.”

According to director Trachtenberg, “I think the cool thing about [Goodman’s] menacing role in this movie is it’s so much more intense because he’s funny at times and because he is so lovable by nature. So you’re not only scared by him but you really enjoy being scared by him, which is something very unique to John.”

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Although he has a number of short films to his credit, 10 Cloverfield Lane is Trachtenberg’s first venture in full-length feature films, but both Goodman and Winstead said this was not noticeable. “It takes a few days to get used to anybody that you’re working with,” Goodman said. “I’m always nervous at the beginning of a film. But I didn’t know he was a first-time director, and I wouldn’t have guessed it. Because he was very confident in what he wanted. He was very helpful in his direction. I got tunnel vision – I see this far in front of my face when I’m working, and he would remind me of things that I need to know.”

Winstead agreed, saying, “I could tell he was looking at it from inside of Michelle’s shoes as opposed to watching her from the outside, and to me that made all the difference for feeling total confidence in how he was going to handle this from my perspective and the character.”

Talking about the intense car accident scene, Trachtenberg recalled that he abandoned more complex gimbal shots in favor of shaking the camera and relying on Winstead’s performance to carry the scene. “It’s really a testament to Mary — once again, [she’s] the best special effect. It’s very easy to shake the camera, but her flinging herself all over the place—”

Winstead replied, “They got me a massage after.”

“We’ve gotten you a few massages,” Trachtenberg said. “We needed to. You really put yourself through the ringer for us.”

10 Cloverfield Lane proves that whether a movie has cast of three or of thousands, the rigorous efforts of the actors under the confident guidance of the director are the key to a successful movie.