(Photo: Marvel TV / Netflix)

Sitting down in a press room at New York Comic Con, the excitement from the cast and crew of Jessica Jones was palpable. The second series from the Marvel TV and Netflix collaboration, the show centers around the titular character, a superpowered (or “gifted” as they use in the program) private detective with a troubled past played by Krysten Ritter.

When the actress and the Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg sat down at our roundtable for their first ever interview with press, you could see a strange dichotomy of anxiety and relief on their faces. The cast was all smiles and joking with each other as they walked in the door. Before any questions were asked, since food was a topic of those jokes, Rosenberg said, “During this production, [Ritter] had to walk around with like piles of meat, just to feed the muscle she was building.” Ritter chuckled, but also smiled and nodded knowingly.

During the roundtable interview, Ritter and Rosenberg talked about the dark tone of the show, about being "slutty" without being objectified, and about the experience of filming a "13-hour character study." They also revealed what their "hallway moment" is, comparing the end of their pilot to the celebrated and buzzed-about scene in Daredevil.

Here is the full transcript of our conversation, including questions asked by others at the roundtable.

If you could give the one sentence pitch for Jessica Jones, what would that be?

Krysten Ritter: (to Rosenberg) One sentence, good luck! (laughs)

Melissa Rosenberg: It’s a total badass, very damaged, and darkly funny character who’s a detective in Hell’s Kitchen with a little something special.

Ritter: That’s pretty much… we’re just starting interviews, but by the end of the day I’ll probably have it down! I would say it’s a darkly comedic character study of a former superhero.

Rosenberg: Oh, that’s much better!

Ritter: Thanks! (laughs)

You seem to love this character so much and really bite into her…

Ritter: I do love this character. It’s the role of a lifetime. As an actress I got to do everything that I’ve always wished to do, but have never found in one part. I feel like you’re either doing comedy or doing drama. This is doing drama, looking badass and cool, and also being funny sometimes; obviously, it’s more drama than comedy but I got a couple one-liners in there, and also doing action. It’s so rare to get all those things in one part.

Her sense of style is so unique…

Ritter: Her sense of style is really awesome, and something I, from the beginning had a very specific idea about based on what was established in the comic book, plus what’s in the script, and from Mel and Marvel. I wanted to make sure that she looked iconic in a way, that she was identifiable immediately. I wanted Jessica Jones to be a Halloween costume!

(Another Interviewer) What I love about her is she doesn’t wear heels!

Ritter: (laughs) That’s what I love about her! I love that I wasn’t wearing tight jeans, I was wearing comfortable, practical things. I have to be able to work, I have to be able to get dirty, to jump around and get a little rough.

Rosenberg: One of the things that you always have when you have a female detective or a cop is that they always end up having to play the honeypot. Cut to the scene when they put on the tight dress and go do this – from day one, that was never going to be Jessica Jones.

Ritter: One of my favorite things about Mel, because she has such an integrity about a female character like this, is me not being in a slutty outfit or high heels, it’s just not about that.

Rosenberg: It’s not that she doesn’t get to be slutty. (laughs)

Ritter: (laughs) It’s just not obvious or in your face, or done in a way you’ve seen before.

ComicBook.com: The teasers have been so interesting because you’re showing so much of her attitude in these tiny little silent vignettes. What was it like filming those?

Ritter: Yeah, the marketing campaign, even when we were just seeing what we were going to shoot, is so genius because it’s really about teasing out her personality, her attitude, and her powers. Nobody – you know, Jessica Jones isn’t the most famous comic book character, so getting to know her in those little bits and pieces, whoever came up with that marketing idea deserves a medal.

This new series requires even more special effects than Daredevil, right?

Rosenberg: No, actually the other way around. Daredevil is all action, and they do it really well. We have a great deal of action, but it’s really more about character.

Ritter: This is like a thirteen hour character study.

Rosenberg: But she does kick ass! We went through, not only did she get wounded on a regular basis, but we went through three different stuntwomen! One broke her ankle, one had a neck injury, and I forget what the other one had. But they were dropping like flies, we were like, “maybe we’re working them a little hard!”

Jessica’s a very damaged person from the start of this story, how do you see through her eyes?

Ritter: For me, it’s all about prep work. My whole paycheck went to my acting coach! (laughs) It’s really about breaking down the scripts, breaking down scene by scene and finding clues and things to build from, finding a physicality. It’s all about prep work and finding that place where she lives.

She lives in a dark place! She has a very hot temper, she has post-traumatic stress; it’s a very dark headspace to live in. So it was just about finding that slowly, and luckily I had the time before we started filming. Then once we started filming, just by nature of shooting nights and not sleeping, you kind of get there and you stay there.

Was it difficult to stay in that headspace while you were filming?

Ritter: Yeah, and towards the end – I’ve never shot anything this long. I was thinking about it, and my first audition was about a year ago to the date. So I’ve been living in this character’s headspace for almost a year. By the end of filming, I was like, “oh my gosh!” If I’m walking down the street and I see something that’s kind of scary, my instinct is to like, beat them up! (laughs) I’m just ready! Which is not me… So it was definitely an amazing experience. Creatively, this was the most rewarding experience of my entire career.

Rosenberg: Mine as well!

Ritter: So yeah, living in that headspace definitely changed me a bit. Now I’m back (laughs).

Rosenberg: Krysten really went through a complete physical change as well. She was working out for months before we started shooting to put on bulk – because she’s a thin girl, obviously! So it really takes work to put muscle on that. But you’ll see from the first episode, she got cut!

Ritter: It helps with the physicality of the character because she’s so heavy and has all the weight of the world on her, so it changed the way that I carried myself. The first thing I did when we rapped shooting was stop working out! (laughs).

Daredevil “announced itself” with that hallway battle. What would you say is the sort of “wowza” moment early on for Jessica Jones?

Rosenberg: In many ways, I think the end of the pilot is pretty much that moment.

Ritter: I was thinking that, too.

Rosenberg: You’re going through the pilot and it’s sort of easy… Edgy, a little humor, you almost think it’s over. Then this incredibly dark hit – I think the pilot really says something about all the different aspects you’re going to have in this show.

Did the success of Daredevil help you guys at all, the reaction to it?

Rosenberg: I think it actually put more eyes on us in a way, and people started meddling more! (laughs) It was nice to know, it meant we are going to get eyeballs. It’s a nice thing when you create a show to know you’re going to have an audience. You don’t know how they’re going to respond, but not every show has that. Everyone’s fighting for audience space.

ComicBook.com: You mentioned that obviously, Jessica Jones is a lesser-known comic book character, even Daredevil at least had a movie and animated series that raised his profile a bit. What’s the good and the bad that comes with having a character that your average viewer might not know?

Ritter: The good, and only the good, is that I’m the first person to play Jessica Jones. It’s not like I’m playing Batman or something and it’s been done and going to be compared to Michael Keaton, you know what I mean? (laughs)

From the beginning, obviously the Alias comics are epic. So much to draw from there. The scripts are epic. When I finished reading the scripts that were available to me and all the comics, I asked Jeph Loeb, the head of Marvel Television, “What’s next? What else can I read?” He said, “I appreciate your voracious appetite for all things Jessica Jones, but she will be as developed for television, as she is in the comics.”

So it’s a little bit more freedom, I guess. And yeah, originating a character is very special.

Relating this to that epicness, obviously this is going forward connected to Luke Cage and eventually the Defenders, did you know going forward you might have that commitment?

Ritter: Well there is that commitment. Me getting this gig was a real gamechanger. First of all, having a show that’s picked up [ahead of time] is amazing! Having a character like this available to me is amazing. This is two shows! This is Jessica Jones and The Defenders which is really unheard of. And it’s on a network that as a viewer is my favorite. It comes out in fifty countries! I feel like someone gave me one of those golden tickets from Willy Wonka!

So I feel really blessed and fortunate, but a lot of pressure. Like you (Rosenberg) were saying about the eyes on it – oh my gosh, people are going to see it though!

Rosenberg: And the show is called Jessica Jones, so she is in virtually every scene. Toward the middle when she was collapsing working five days a week months and months on end, we were trying to create stories for the other characters, but you have to earn those. You have to earn the ensemble. So we just beat the hell out of her.

Ritter: Yeah, I barely survived (laughs).

Rosenberg: It was amazing, what she went through.

Do you think Marvel Comics would ever pick up on some of these stories you’re doing?

Rosenberg: There’s one out! Brian Michael Bendis just released a new comic book.

Ritter: It came out like two days ago!

Rosenberg: Yeah, the character is now dressed in the clothes that Krysten established in the show.

Ritter: Her hair’s a little bit darker…

Rosenberg: So he’s reverse engineering it back into the comics a bit already.

How did you find the chemistry with Mike Colter (Luke Cage)?

Ritter: I don’t know, it’s magic. We were so lucky. It doesn’t always happen. We read together twice, and he was the only person I read with. I thought we worked great together, he’s so tall and so am I so that’s nice, he makes me look like a normal sized person (laughs). We had such a great chemistry from the beginning. We challenged each other, we make each other laugh endlessly, we bicker like brother and sister, so I’m very lucky that he was there.

What was the first scene you shot together?

Ritter: Our first scene we shot together was our first time being on screen in the show (at the bar). That’s rare, and it was also a scene we did in our audition. So it was a scene that we’d done probably twenty times, and when we got there, you’re always like, “we’ve done this so many times, how do we keep it fresh?” But when we got there, you’re on the set, and you’re those characters, it almost took on a whole new life. That scene went very different than it did during our auditions. More chemistry!

You’ve done intense roles before like Breaking Bad, but this is obviously a whole other thing, how does it compare to things like that?

Ritter: You know, it doesn’t. This is just a way more intense, way more all-encompassing – I didn’t do anything besides Jessica Jones for nine months. Nothing. I didn’t talk about anything, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t leave the house. I’d go to work, I’d come home, go to sleep, wake up a few hours later and get back in the van to go back to work. This was the most immersed I’ve ever been in a world or a character.

ComicBook.com: What is the fan experience so far for you with this, with the built in fanbase of the Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics fans, their reaction and anticipation?

Ritter: I don’t know because we just finished and I haven’t been out in the world!

Rosenberg: Just today, ask us at the end of the day! (laughs)

Ritter: Yeah, this is my first thing, our first appearance as a cast, so I don’t know yet. I know that what I see on twitter is very positive, and my twitter is definitely more active.

ComicBook.com: Do you feel prepared for the panel, being in front of 5,000 fans excited for this?

Ritter: Honestly, I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never done comic-con, I’ve never been in a situation like this. So I’m very nervous, I’m very excited. I love this show so much, so I’m very happy to start the press!