Nemesis Stars Y'lan Noel And Matthew Law Suggest You Pay Close Attention To These Two Moments In Netflix's High-Octane Crime Thriller

Take the classic cops-and-robbers story, light it on fire, and send it careening down the freeway, and you've got a good sense of Netflix's new crime thriller, "Nemesis."

The series, which is now streaming, hails from "Power" creator Courtney A. Kemp and Tani Marole. The pair had been dating for a while when "we were having conversations about what wasn't out there in the marketplace, and things we like to watch that had just kind of disappeared," Kemp, who is now engaged to Marole, tells TVLine. "There's a certain kind of '90s style storytelling that has disappeared.

"The genesis of the show," she adds, "was those conversations."

"Nemesis" follows two men: Los Angeles Police Department Det. Isaiah Stiles (played by Matthew Law, "Abbott Elementary") and professional thief Coltrane Wilder (Y'lan Noel, "Insecure"). Wilder wants to pull off one more giant heist before he retires from the game for good. Stiles is obsessed with dismantling the slick robbery ring that Wilder runs.

The two characters were conceived at the same time — "They were always there to diametrically oppose each other," Marole recalls. Kemp adds that Noel was cast first. "Coltrane has this really great moral center, right?" she says. "He's really very fixed, in terms of his moral center, which is something that Y'lan came in and gave this great masculinity and manhood to that." The right actor for Stiles was harder to find; counterintuitively, Law's background as a comedic performer became the thing that helped him land the role. "He's loose. He's able to adapt in this way where you have this really firm, centered energy with Y'lan, and then you have this fluid energy with Matt," Kemp says.

In chemistry tests, "It was Matt's energy that changed Y'lan in a way that was really exciting and made us lean in," she adds. "Matt can stick and move in different ways as a performer." She laughs. "I mean, obviously: You see that on 'Abbott Elementary.' He's able to handle all that Ava energy, right?"

Law says he found out that Kemp was getting a new show together, and his first thought was: "I want to be there. I want to be involved. She's a visionary." At the same time, Law immediately connected with his character. "I saw a human being that was hidden underneath all of this scar tissue," he says. He remembers thinking: "I know exactly who this guy is, and I have something to bring for him."

Noel didn't immediately clock who Coltrane was... but when he did lock in, the analysis was slightly unsettling. "Whether I like to believe it or not, the thing that we do share a little bit, what I've learned from him, is how control needs to be monitored," he says. "I say that because I do have a relationship with control that is a little bit too tight... I'm learning to let that go a little bit and witness all the miracles that happen when I do that."

I sat down with Noel and Law — and got input from Kemp and Marole — to go deep on the series' central characters and what makes them who they are. Read on to see what they had to say.

Where you know Law from: Ava's IT sweetie O'shon on "Abbott Elementary," smooth (yet crooked) pharmacy owner Kareem on "The Oval"

Why Stiles does what Stiles does: Before the series begins, Stiles' police partner is killed by a member of Wilder's robbery gang, which sets the cop into overdrive to bring the thieves to justice. "Here's a person who feels like a prophet when others think he's a madman," Law says, adding that Stiles sees Wilder as everything he's not. "I think there is something about the mirror image of this nemesis who he is fixated on, where he's placing all of this pain and hatred and obsession."

In the series, Stiles' singlemindedness begins to damage his marriage with Candace (Gabrielle Dennis, "A Black Lady Sketch Show") and son Noah (Cedric Joe, "Good Trouble"). Law shakes his head as he thinks about it. "This guy was — I had to decompress afterwards, because I realized just how temperamental he was... His arrogance, his volume, his violence — it was a lot to step into and then also step out."

Stiles' biggest blindspot: Isaiah isn't prone to much soul-searching, Law says, because he's so sure he's on the right side of every situation. "He thinks he's alleviated of any responsibilities because he's doing good," the actor observes. "'I'm doing good, so you should give me a break. Can't you understand that I am saving the world here?'"

Pay attention to...: ... the Episode 3 scene in which Stiles and Wilder come face-to-face for the first time at a charity gala. Given the chase nature of the series, "That was the first time that Y'lan and I had a scene together," Law says, noting that the scene took place three weeks into filming. The interaction ends with Coltrane definitively besting Isaiah; Law grins sheepishly as he admits that he tried to get the conversation to play out a different way.

In the moment, Stiles quickly realizes that Wilder "is even closer than Isaiah realized and more powerful that Isaiah realized," Law says, recalling that he wanted his character to "fight back, bro!" He even took his entreaty to play around with the dynamics to showrunner Courtney A. Kemp. "I come from an [Upright Citizens Brigade] improv [background]," he says. "Courtney let me riff, and she was like, 'Nah. No, you're gonna take that.'"

Kemp laughs when the conversation is brought up. "Our bargain was, you are not gonna win this one, because you're not in a position to win this one," she says. "But, Spoiler Alert: You may be in a position to win the next one."

Where you know Noel from: Daniel, Issa's love interest on "Insecure;" heartbroken Ferdie on "Lady in the Lake"

Why Wilder does what Wilder does: When we first encounter Noel's character, he's presiding over a high-stakes robbery pulled off with panache (think: a sexy cover story, brazen cockiness, thieves in bejeweled masks). Though he tells his wife, Ebony (Cleopatra Coleman, "The Last Man on Earth") that he wants to be done with the criminal life, it's easy to see that's not the whole truth.

"There are quite literally life-and-death stakes to what he does, but that's the addiction, though," Noel says, likening his character's adrenaline rush to that of a free solo rock climber. "What is it like when you're able to live on the cutting edge of the thing that you love to do most?"

Wilder's biggest blindspot: That need for control that Noel alluded to earlier? It takes a major hit when Wilder and Ebony experience a major loss shortly before the series begins; in the premiere, they're both still reeling from a late-pregnancy miscarriage. "Before we get to meet him, he's experienced the grief of that, but also the shame," Noel says. "And the way he deals with that grief is he doubles down on this thing that he is good at, that he does feel like he has control of" — namely, amassing ill-gotten goods via increasingly more elaborate heists.

Pay attention to...: ... the moment at the end of the premiere in which Stiles is talking to a television reporter, but he's really addressing Wilder through the lens. "He basically says, 'I'm going to haunt you,'" Noel says. "He's looking dead into the reporter's camera, and he's talking to the [robbery] crew, and that's insane behavior!" He laughs. "Who does that?!" But Stiles' choice to communicate that way "is enough for Coltrane to be like, 'Hm, that's different. I'm gonna make sure I stay on my toes with this one.' And then it just sort of amplifies from there."