Lewis Pullman on His ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Emmy Nom and Overcoming Science Anxiety

Lewis Pullman was about halfway through shooting the second episode of the Apple TV+ limited series “Lessons in Chemistry” when he got some unexpected news: Showrunner Lee Eisenberg and the rest of the production team were so impressed with his performance as Calvin Evans, the brilliant, socially awkward chemist who falls in love with Brie Larson’s equally brilliant and socially awkward chemist Elizabeth Zott, that they decided to write more episodes for him.

Originally, Calvin’s story arc was supposed to end after tragedy strikes him down in Episode 2, but now, he’d be making intermittent return appearances and getting his own stand-alone episode explaining his character’s backstory.

“It was such an honor,” Pullman, 31, said during a recent Zoom interview. “It was such a good working experience. I didn’t come home feeling like I was dragging any sort of demons with me. It was a very warm and loving experience for me that I was excited to keep going.”

Eisenberg made the right call: Pullman’s performance earned him his first Emmy nomination, for supporting actor in a limited series, and has turbo-charged a career that was already on the rise thanks to standout performances in “Bad Times at the El Royale,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and the Prime Video series “Outer Range.” The son of actor Bill Pullman and modern dancer Tamara Hurwitz, Pullman fils has since joined the MCU family to play superhero Robert Reynolds/Sentry in 2025’s “Thunderbolts*”. On nominations day, he shared the joyous moment with his folks who were, yes, “very proud,” he said. “I went over there that morning and had a good little celebratory coffee.”

You have been acting for a while now, but the Emmy nomination is bringing a new level of attention. How has that been?
It hasn’t been that bizarre until last night. I did a Zoom with all the other fellow nominees [in the category], and it was a frame of all these incredible actors who I have grown up watching and respecting so much and who all did such good work. I really got very nervous. I just wanted to listen, but then you don’t want to just be listening. You’ve got to chime in. Yeah, that definitely felt like impostor syndrome. I was like, Why am I in that box on this stream? I got a lot of great phone calls and people reaching out and that’s been nice. But you know, other than that, I’ve just been at my house doing the same old same old. [Laughs]

You’ve said that you read the book [by Bonnie Garmus from which the show is adapted], so how did that Calvin compare to the Calvin from the scripts and your own idea of him?
It was sort of a quilt of all three of them. The scripts did justice to the book, so that was one of the easier things to meld. The hardest bridge to gap was my distance from this kind of world, this type of intelligence. As my mom would often remind me, the spectrum of intelligence comes in many different colors. And just because I was a horrible student in science and math doesn’t mean that my intelligence was any different. So I was telling myself that while trying to convey genius on screen. It’s not easy to fake and it’s easy to mess up. That was the part that I was most worried about because it’s so often talked about: Calvin’s brilliance and he’s just a golden child. You gotta walk in the room and make them believe it.

I am terrible at math, too, so I understand your pain. You do deliver a lot of science-speak in the show. Was there a moment that was the most difficult for you?
Yes, there was. I was giving a speech at a college.

Oh, the Harvard scene?
Yeah. There were hundreds of extras. I had it down pat because if you don’t understand what you’re saying, it’s like you’re just regurgitating gibberish. I tried my best to get a toddler-level explanation. [Laughs] We had some brilliant chemists on set and I had one of them record some of my lines. I wanted to replicate the pedestrian kind of nature of the delivery. I start on the chalkboard, I turn around, and there are, like, 100 people. It was just like, I’m a fraud! The words evaporated into thin air, like a beautiful magic trick. Brie could absorb the information and regurgitate it brilliantly and really quickly. It would take me quite a long time, but she’s such a great scene partner and collaborator that there was very low pressure in those moments. If we messed it up, we could try again and make fun of ourselves.

You also have to absorb a lot of Elizabeth’s scientific dialogue and convey that you’re falling in love with her while listening to her. Was that difficult or could you just focus on the emotion?

There’s nothing more attractive than intelligence and somebody being so absorbed and passionate about what they love. And when they’re soaring in that state, it’s the most beautiful thing. I tried to appreciate the beauty of this bouquet of thoughts that was forming. And she just played Elizabeth so damn well, so she really did have that glint of excitement in her eye. It’s easy to listen to somebody talk when they have that glimmer.

There’s a moment in the first episode that I love. It your reaction to Elizabeth when she’s on stage in the [Miss Hastings] pageant. She’s just being herself, saying she’s never going to get married and not playing into any of the pageantry. It’s a split second reaction where, almost despite himself, Calvin is smiling. This is not a guy who’s been smiling much so far. I’m wondering what the direction was or what you were told to convey in that reaction?

Yeah, if I remember correctly, but I think I reacted almost like it was Tourette’s or something, something that was against his own will. Then I think I tried to — I don’t remember if this is the take they use — but I remember trying to look around after because I assumed everyone else would be appreciating the anomaly of Elizabeth. And then kind of confusion of, why isn’t everyone like, on the edge of their seats? This is a unicorn here.

Right. They are already in their own world of two. So, Brie brought games to set to play between takes, I learned. What kind of games? I imagined she’s a pretty fierce competitor.

She’s a fierce competitor, but there can be those fierce competitors that make you not even want to play the game. She’s very encouraging and isn’t afraid to give you tips if you’re falling behind. But yeah, it was a really helpful way to work. They were her games. She had a great collection that — some of them we never even got to the bottom of the basket. We played quite a bit of Boggle and quite a bit of Catchphrase, my favorite. I think that one helped us most — or helped me most — [because] there is some kind of, like, mind reading almost that you have to do with Catchphrase. There is that element to Catchphrase that is like, you have got to be on same frequency.

A version of this story first appeared in TheWrap’s awards magazine.

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