It’s time for a This Is Us reunion, as creator Dan Fogelman and Sterling K, Brown team up for a new series, Paradise, coming to Hulu on Jan. 28. 

In true Fogelman fashion, any further details about Paradise are being as closely held as the particulars of Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) death. So, we can’t tell you much about the show (or Brown’s secret service agent, Xavier Collins, might have to kill you). Suffice it to say it’s a major departure for both Fogelman and Brown, who won audiences' hearts playing anxious but loving father Randall Pearson on six seasons of Fogelman's NBC series.

Brown stars as Xavier Collins, a secret service agent to the former President of the United States, Cal Bradford (James Marsden), who is entangled in a morass of intrigue when he is accused of killing his charge. Julianne Nicholson and Sarah Shahi round out the cast among others.

Sterling K. Brown reteams with This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman for Paradise — watch the tense first trailer

Fogelman first had the idea for Paradise over a decade ago, well before he met Brown. It came in the years after 9/11 and the inherent jumpiness that plagued so many Americans in the first decade after the terrorist attack. “I was at a meeting with this guy who's a very well-known businessman,” Fogelman tells Entertainment Weekly. “And as I was sitting in the meeting — I must've been 26, 27 years old — I was thinking to myself, ‘This is the richest person and the most powerful person I've ever been in a room with.’

"As I left the meeting, a crane dropped something in the near distance, and it made a giant boom,” he continues. “It was still close enough to 9/11 where it gave you a jolt beyond just ‘What's going on?’ It led me to think, ‘God, I just left this meeting with the most powerful person I maybe have ever been in a room with and when the s--- hits the fan, we're all going to be in the same boat. I wonder how long loyalty holds with the people who take care of him.”

Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden in 'Paradise'.

Disney/Ser Baffo

This Is Us creator breaks down the big questions of the 'simple' series finale

Years passed and the show remained in the back of Fogelman’s mind even as he moved on to other projects. “I grew up with these great propulsive action movies that are about dynamics but have heavy duty plots,” he explains of the story’s hold on him. “The driving place for me was the relationship between those with ultimate power and the people that are charged with protecting them. I thought it could be best covered by the idea of a secret service agent whose job it is to take a bullet for a president — and the complexity of that relationship.”

Flash forward to Fogelman’s life post-This Is Us and after a well-deserved break, Fogelman started thinking that it might finally be time to write that story. He just didn’t realize he was writing it as a vehicle for Brown.

"I wrote the pilot script,” he says. “And when I inevitably started giving it to people to read, people would start asking me, ‘How long has Sterling been involved with this?’ And I started realizing, ‘In my mind's eye, I have been picturing Sterling, but I've never even spoken to him about this yet.’ I had already set up the show. So, I was like, ‘Now all of a sudden I can't stop thinking about it and Sterling's probably going to be busy or say no, and then what am I going to do?’”

Luckily, Brown fell in love with the script (and already held deep affection for Fogelman). “Dan Fogleman has a certain amount of currency with your boy after six years of no bad scripts,” Brown gushes. “He’s been so supportive. He was one of the first people to rave about Waves. He’s seen me do a number of different things and not only seen me do them, but made it possible for me to do those things in the midst of [This Is Us] production. Black Panther wouldn't have happened; Waves wouldn't have happened if Dan wouldn't have said, ‘Yo, go do your thing.’

"Because of that,” Brown continues, “he knew that one of the things that I was looking for is variety. I was delighted that he wasn't paying lip service to the idea that he thought that I could do other things. Anytime you start off a creative relationship with a sense that the person you're working in tandem with believes in you, it makes it that much easier.”

Adds Fogelman: “There’s nothing I don’t think Sterling can do.”

The 15 best Sterling K. Brown movies and TV shows, ranked

James Marsden and Sterling K. Brown in 'Paradise'.

Disney/Brian Roedel

With their mutual adoration assured, Brown signed on to what he describes as a bit of a This Is Us reunion — the pilot directors, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, returned to direct the first episode of Paradise and much of the filming occurred in the same soundstages at Paramount where This Is Us shot with a lot of the same crew. “It was like a family reunion and that made it all the more special,” Brown says.

But those behind-the-scenes connections are pretty much where the parallels end. “It's a political thriller,” Fogelman explains. “It's edge-of-your-seat [viewing] with a lot of plot and twists and turns. On This Is Us, the plot was determined by a series of conversations and feelings. This one has a lot more plot. Where there's similarities is the show delves into a lot of backstories and relationships. Ultimately, it’s about families and the lengths we go to take care of one another. But they're very different shows with Sterling and I being a little bit of connective tissue.”

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Sterling K. Brown lists Supernatural as his favorite onscreen death

Brown agrees, noting that while they’re both family men, Xavier Collins and Randall Pearson are extremely different dudes. “Xavier is a much more reserved person,” Brown explains. “Randall's a bit more gregarious. Xavier plays his cards much closer to the chest. He's not a big personality in the same way that Randall Pearson is. After six years of Randall, who just shares all of his feelings as readily as he possibly can, Xavier is often still trying to figure out what his own feelings are for himself.” 

"It's a real muscular role for Sterling,” says Fogelman. “Xavier is a quiet guy. He's internal as opposed to external. There's a real young Denzel action hero in him here, a very alpha old school action hero. [Me and my team] talked a lot about the old Tony Scott type of movies — and Sterling's really channeling something there.”

Brown’s preparation for the role was aligned with what might be required for playing an action hero of that ilk. He did tons of weapons training, so that he would look like a trained officer. Though he also made sure to go straight to the source. “I would actually see security,” he details, “and because I'm the weird guy that I am, I would walk up to them and be like, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ And then just start talking to them about positions of readiness — what are they scanning for? Does the scanning ever stop? What do they pay particular attention to? How do they know when a threat is neutralized?”

Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden in 'Paradise'.

Disney/Ser Baffo

Sterling K. Brown filmed Atlas eyeball torture scene without anesthesia at first: 'Did not like it'

Another thing that’s changed since This Is Us? Fogelman has made peace with being known as a “twist guy.” Directors Requa and Ficarra have long referred to the writer as “M. Night Fogelman,” and the curveballs in Paradise certainly live up to that title.

"I’m older now,” Fogelman sighs, explaining his initial reluctance to the moniker. “I was so nervous about people spoiling anything [when This Is Us started]. It was a different age of the internet. It was a bit of the Wild West eight years ago, and I was newer and so sensitive about the experience getting ruined for anyone.

"I like television that makes you pay attention and that will surprise you,” he continues. “I'm at a point in my life  — and I don't say, ‘I want this to have a twist or I don't want it to have a twist’ — where I like engaging the audience on one level and then asking them to reframe the conversation that hopefully they've been having inside their brain. It’s such a fun way to experience television. My dream for this show would be that it can occupy a portion of a space that doesn't really exist anymore— that water cooler thing.”

Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia reunite and pay homage to their This Is Us characters, baby bump included

Many of the twists and turns in Paradise will come via the murky relationship between Brown’s secret service agent and Marsden’s president — one that’s muddled enough to leave audiences wondering whether Xavier actually is guilty of murder. “His relationship with the president was layered and complex,” Brown teases. “It wasn't always the happiest of relationships. There's a deep betrayal that transpires between my character and the president. At the beginning of the show, they're a bit at odds, and then you go back in time to see how they got to where they are at the beginning of the show.”

Brown and Fogelman won’t tell us much more than that — except to look to the title and its potential double meanings for clues. “Everybody thinks their life would be so much better if they could live in this other place or have a little bit more money or power,” Fogelman muses. "‘What is a person's paradise?’ was an interesting notion to me. One man's paradise is another's hell.”