Offering Mr. Palin the principal role in the series, she acknowledged, was “a complete long shot,” but not unthinkable. “Tom, in the show, is an old man who’s never really grown up — that’s the nature of the story,” Ms. Hughes explained. “Michael Palin looks like an old man who’s still a little boy, in the most charming way.”

Image Michael Palin, far left, with Jodie Comer, in “Remember Me.”

Mr. Palin had just one question during this recruitment process: “He asked, ‘How supernatural is it? Is it going to be ‘Scooby-Doo?’” Ms. Hughes said. “We thought, ‘oh, no — this means he hates ghost stories.’”

On the contrary, Mr. Palin said he has been a fan since childhood of the ethereal tales of authors like M. R. James. “There were always clergymen involved, for some reason,” he said. “And he opens a door in the middle of the night, and the world of the suppressed and mysterious invades.”

Mr. Palin, who grew up in England’s Yorkshire county, said he always showed an aptitude for acting and imitation, but had to keep such aspirations secret from his father, an industrial engineer, who did not want him pursuing a theater career. (His older sister, Angela, had already tried her hand at acting but landed in stage management, and his father “could already see himself supporting me for the rest of my life,” Mr. Palin said.)

When Mr. Palin went onto Oxford in the early 1960s, he said, “I was off the leash, as it were — my father wasn’t able to monitor all my movements.”