‘Lemony Snicket’ Primer: Neil Patrick Harris Shares 5 Things You Need to Know About ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’

You’ve read the books, you’ve seen the Jim Carrey movie. Or maybe you haven’t. Either way, there are a few things you need to know before deep binge-diving into Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events series on Friday, and Yahoo TV got the scoop straight from Count Olaf himself, Neil Patrick Harris.

Actually, as seen in the video above, that is scooplet No. 1: NPH plays Count Olaf, “a wildly famous actor [who] finds out that these children have lost their parents, and is hellbent on taking their money, at the expense of their physical well-being,” he says.

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He also assures all fans of author Daniel Handler’s writing that the TV series “is all about honoring the books.” Each book will unfold across two episodes of the series, meaning Season 1 will cover the first four of Handler’s 13 books.

And if you want NPH’s take on the series’ tone and intended audience, check out that video, in which he also shares how much he loves playing a villain.

“To play someone that looked awful, and [that] I could hide myself in this dark, messed-up performance, and yet it was still comedy — there’s a lot of chewing on the facial scenery,” Harris says, providing an example of how you have to overact when donning heavy makeup and prosthetics.

Harris’s co-stars in the series include Patrick Warburton as the titular Lemony Snicket, as well as Joan Cusack, Aasif Mandvi, Don Johnson, Alfre Woodard, Catherine O’Hara, and Malina Weissman, Louis Hynes, and Presley Smith as Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events premieres Jan. 13 on Netflix.