Extraordinary, a new series now streaming on Hulu, begs the question, “what if everyone had a superpower?” That is, everyone except you. That’s the premise behind the series, which stars Máiréad Tyers as Jen, who’s turning 25 and has yet to develop any powers at all. In the world of Extraordinary, everyone discovers their power on their 18th birthday. Jen feels stuck in her dead-end job at a party shop and is constantly trying to figure out ways to awaken whatever her power is.

Luckily, Jen has her best friend/flatmate, Carrie (Sofia Oxenham), to help her through this struggle. Together they share an East London flat with Carrie’s long-term boyfriend, Kash (Balil Hasna). Carrie has the power to channel the dead but feels she’s been overshadowed by her own abilities. Kash has his own power — the ability to turn back time — which he uses to undo mistakes or to try to keep Carrie from dumping him when he says completely the wrong thing. The fourth member of the flat is a stray cat named Jizzlord, who actually turns out to be a man (Luke Rollason) that’s been turned into a cat for the past three years. The four friends navigate young adulthood together, with all of its ups and downs, all made even more extreme by those nagging superpowers.

Collider’s Abby Cavenaugh sat down with the four main cast members, where they talked about what it was that drew them to the show and what powers they would choose for themselves. It was a fun chat about a fun show, and you can read it all here, or watch the video above for the full interview.

Image via Hulu

COLLIDER: So one of the things I loved about the show is that it shows that even if you have a power, it might not be as necessarily awesome as you think it would be. So, if you could pick any of the powers depicted in the show, even knowing the drawbacks, like accidentally giving your dad an orgasm or getting your butt stuck in a wall, which one would you choose?

MAIREAD TYERS: I think the helium one would be quite handy, wouldn’t it?

SOFIA OXENHAM: Yeah.

TYERS: Because you’d just blow up balloons whenever you wanted.

LUKE ROLLASON: What? That’s the thing that you [would want, with] all the powers, you haven’t got a helium balloon you need to blow in.

TYERS: So I’m going to take that one back. I’m going to start it again.

ROLLASON: I think teleporting, there’s a character who teleports.

OXENHAM: Oh yes. Oh yeah.

ROLLASON: I don’t want to give too much away. But there’s a character who’s able to teleport, and I think that would be very useful because I’m quite bad at leaving the house. I’m quite late often because I can’t, I always, I leave the house, I forgot my shoes. So I go back and put them on. So, just be able to teleport out, that would be great, with shoes on.

Yeah. I think teleporting would probably be the coolest. Anybody else have a thought?

OXENHAM: I think shape-shifting. I would like shape-shifting, but if I was to really specific, I wouldn’t just like to shape-shift into a cat, I’d like to shape-shift into other animals as well. Specifically aquatic animals, like dolphin, sharks. So I’d like to be able to shape-shift.

ROLLASON: Dolphins and sharks? If you had to choose, what would it be?

OXENHAM: Dolphins, obviously?

ROLLASON: Yeah, of course.

Image via Hulu 

Speaking of the shape-shifting. Luke, tell me this was a real cat, and was it a real cat on the show?

ROLLASON: Yes. A real cat name Annie. Occupation: my rival. There was a time when, my dressing room had a sign that said, “Jizzlord the Human.” And I spent ages trying to work out what Jizzlord the Cat’s dressing room was. Turns out it was a small box, so I won that round. But also the cat got a little massage every day.

TYERS: Yeah, she got a massage every time she’d go on set. Luke did not.

So how did you prepare to play a cat?

ROLLASON: Yeah. The thing is that because the cat. I never actually, obviously, I’m not portraying the cat. I’m someone who transforms out from being a cat. Although a lot of people I’ve spoken to about it, all of them just think that I’m in a fur suit. No matter how many times I explain, “Oh, no. I’m a cat who turns into a man.” They think I’ve been walking around going like, “Meow, meow, meow, meow.” That’s my impression, and that’s why I didn’t get the role that went to Annie.

But come on, pay attention. So, it is an interesting role to play because he arrives in this environment, and he doesn’t know anything about what he’s doing, and he’s completely lost. And even physically, he’s not even really used to his body yet, and that kind of corresponded to how I felt suddenly being on this set of this amazing show. For all of us, this is our first big role, and I kind of felt a bit like, “Oh my God, where the hell am I? What am I doing?” All of you guys had to pretend it was totally normal whereas, at least for me as an actor, I felt quite disorientated. So in many ways the perfect preparation was just not knowing what I was doing.

And since it was for all of you, I guess your first leading role, what attracted you to the project? What made you want to be a part of it?

TYERS: Immediately, the writing. The writing of it is just so brilliant and it feels quite unique in that I think it’s the humor of it is quite current. It’s quite our age group, very current, but somehow [show creator] Emma [Moran] has written it that I feel like it’s going to be relatable for loads of different age groups, whether you’ve been through this period of your life or whether it’s ahead for you. And I mean, the characters are so funny. The first scene that I read was the interview scene at the very start. And I was just like, this is absolutely hilarious. The idea that this girl has to, she can’t help but be completely honest and everything just completely blurts out and it’s kind of unapologetically honest, and not sugar-coated. Yeah.

Image via Hulu 

So what about the rest of you? Sofia, what drew you to it?

OXENHAM: I think very similar. It felt very fresh and different, and as soon as I read the scripts, I was kind of laughing out loud and I just felt very excited when I read the scripts and the world that Emma has created. It just felt something, it felt like something I really wanted to be part of, and it felt very original and different. And I think she’s got such a unique voice and the way she writes is so specific. It felt like a kind of golden opportunity to be part of some, something like that.

ROLLASON: I mean, something I really love about it is that it feels like it’s this absurd world where people have these crazy powers, but also those powers often end up being a reflection of that character’s own insecurities about themselves or their own struggles in their own life, as of course it would be. So on one hand it’s, sure it’s quite magical, but also so real and rooted in the very mundane world, and I find that really, something really beautiful about the show. [TO BALIL HASNA]: Your character, for example, he always wants everything to be perfect, so he keeps on trying to go back time and make things work, but that ends up, of course, being his downfall really.

So what was each of your favorite episodes?

ROLLASON: Do we all have the same favorite episodes?

OXENHAM: To shoot or to watch?

To shoot, I guess.

ROLLASON: Oh, okay. Then that might be different. Yeah.

TYERS: Which is the one with the strip club?

ROLLASON: That’s four.

OXENHAM: Four. I would say, oh, but then I love the school as well.

TYERS: Yeah, I love the school.

ROLLASON: The school was fun.

TYERS: The school is really fun.

HASNA: I was only there for one. I was there for one scene in the beginning. That was actually highly embarrassing when we fell in front of…

OXENHAM: Oh yes. Yeah, tell them about that.

HASNA: The opening scene in episode five is Carrie is having a fantasy daydream about her giving this amazing speech as a returning alumni to her secondary school and Kash comes in and is praising her sort of elocution and her rhetoric, and then twists her around and gives her a kiss, basically bends her down and gives her a kiss. And we rehearsed in front of the 50 supporting artists that were supposed to be watching this speech, and we literally just fell on top of each other and onto the floor in front of all these people that we’ve never met before.

TYERS: Didn’t you see, there was just like, there wasn’t, it was a gasp. There was a gasp.

HASNA: None of them was. Even though we were completely fine, we’re like, “It’s fine guys.” They all went…

OXENHAM: Everyone was so worried.

ROLLASON: Oh God.

OXENHAM: It was embarrassing. “Are they okay? Are they okay?” So we were like, “Oh no.”

Extraordinary is now streaming on Hulu. Check out the trailer below: