Chris Messina reveals why he was drawn to his role in new murder mystery

Chris Messina is in the middle of a personal renaissance, as the people of Twitter say.

But he wouldn't know that.

"I've stayed off social media. It's probably the one good thing I've done in my life. I've stuck to it. I don't get to read the nice things, and I get to stay away from all the bad things," Messina tells TODAY.com.

Messina, 48, has already had a string of high-profile roles this year alone. He cursed out Matt Damon in "Air," he accidentally unleashes a monster in the horror movie "The Boogeyman," and he invites a serial killer into his home in Peacock's "Based on a True Story," out June 8.

(Peacock is part of our parent company, NBCUniversal.)

He sees a connection between the horror movie and the comedic TV show, released within days of each other.

"Both characters let the boogeyman in. Both really different, but both difficult times. They're extremely vulnerable and desperate. In 'The Boogeyman,' characters are dealing with grief and are lost and stuck. In the TV show, (my character is) dealing with grief of who he used to be," he says.

Finding these connections is part of why he loves being an actor, he says.

"It’s so interesting why scripts kind of hurled through the universe and find themselves on your lap. There’s always reasons, and there’s always tons to learn from," he says. "It's why I love this job. It's such a great job. I'm so lucky to do it."

Written and created by Craig Rosenberg, “Based on a True Story” is a genre-shifting madcap noir that's part satire, part nail-biter. Messina and his on-screen wife, Kaley Cuoco, play a couple with a baby on the way and bills piling up. When they have a chance to use their proximity to a known, but yet-to-be-caught, killer for a true crime podcast, they launch.

Messina says he was drawn to "Based on a True Story" for a chance to act alongside Cuoco.

"I was a big fan of hers," he says. "I thought we would have fun — and we did. I love the idea of people who have fallen so far apart from each other that they choose the most ridiculous, stupid, darkest and most twisted way to find their way back."

He says the process exceeded expectations and made him "want to do much more" with her.

"We had so much fun making this. Kaley is so, so talented and such a great person. We laughed a ton off camera," he says. "The tone of (the show) was really hard to find, but if I just followed her lead, she would always take me where we needed to go. One minute she can be really funny and comedic, then really, a turn of a dime, she has you moved, and your heart is breaking for her. If I followed her, we were OK."

As they get drawn deeper into their scheme, they relish over being "nervous" again.

"I love that section. You find them at a point in their lives where they're looking in the mirror and not looking at what they thought it would be, which is extremely relatable. What one dreams of doesn't always come to fruition," he says.

Messina's character "loves her" so much that he's willing to do "the most ludicrous idea." He becomes a true crime star.

As for whether Messina is into the genre himself?

"It's not where I choose to go," he says. "But I completely understand the obsession of it. I've had moments where I couldn't turn things off, like 'The Staircase' or even the TV show of 'The Staircase.'"

"It's like driving down the road when you see a car accident," he adds. "You look out the window. You hope everyone's OK, but you still slow down. You're still staring. You're saying, 'Thank God, it's not me,'" he says.

And he definitely wouldn't have done what his character does.

"If it was me, I would have gone to the police," he says. "But then there'd be no TV show."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com