As Emmy nominations approach, Vanity Fair’s HWD team is diving deep into how some of this season’s greatest scenes and characters came together. You can read more of these close looks here.

Michael, The Good Place

When Mike Schur and his producing partner David Miner first met with Ted Danson about starring on The Good Place, Miner told the beloved actor three powerful words: “Comedy misses you.” At the time, Schur said, Danson was wrapping up a run on CSI: Cyber—but he was hoping to lure the Cheers vet back to NBC, and back to making people laugh. “He’s such a great dramatic actor, but also, he’s the best comedic actor TV has ever had,” Schur said in a recent interview. Good thing Danson said yes—because Schur had no plan B for this character.

Danson has since spent three seasons gamely and gleefully playing Michael, who in the show’s first year poses as a sort of tour guide to the show’s areligious version of heaven. But as Kristen Bell’s irreverent wisecracker, Eleanor Shellstrop, eventually figures out, Michael is actually a demon who has gathered four humans—Eleanor; neurotic morality and ethics professor Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper); unctuous socialite Tahani Al Jamil (Jameela Jamil); and lovable dummy Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto)—to torture one another, transforming what seems like an idyllic paradise into their own private hell. But since then, Michael has blossomed into someone who not only likes humans, but also wants to become one.

Schur knew that whoever played this role would need to walk a tricky line. “When people open their eyes and there’s a person there, and that person says, ‘Don’t worry, you’re in the Good Place,’” Schur said, it was important that both the characters and the audience “immediately trust him, and you believe that he is telling you the truth.” Danson is just that person. “But the genius of him as an actor is that at the moment that the rug is pulled out, and the truth is revealed, and he giggles the way that he giggles, and you realize that this whole time he’s been screwing with you and with the audience, that he is also the perfect guy to do that.”

When I asked Danson what it was about Schur’s pitch or the character that enticed him, his answer was simple: “I literally just sat there listening in awe, and asked a few questions at the end, and said yes.”

How Michael came to life

Michael’s mercurial emotions are a delightful roller coaster; one moment he’s practically bouncing with glee, and the next he’s curled up in the fetal position, pulling the drawstrings of his gray hoodie as tight as they’ll go. As fun as it was for Danson to play Michael as a diabolical torture artist in season one, his most rewarding moments with the character came later, after Michael began fully embracing how much he loves humans—and, increasingly, wants to be like them. “I love when he’s not a ‘demon,’” Danson said. “When he’s overwhelmed by human emotion, it comes out like a toddler almost.”

“Ted has this incredibly graceful manner about him,” Schur said. “The way he moves through space, and the way he gestures, and the way he speaks, and the stillness that he keeps when he talks—that’s the ‘I believe when you tell me you’re a god’ thing that he has. But then when you ask him to be silly or to lose his mind, or freak out, or have a panic attack, or whatever else he has to do in the service of comedy, he just has a complete sort of gut-level commitment to whatever it is that he’s doing. He’s utterly fearless.”