When discussing how he prepares each episode of Only Murders in the Building, cocreator John Hoffman sounds a bit like Anxiety from Pixar’s Inside Out 2. “I start imagining every crazy scenario,” he says. “What if something happened between the delivery of that episode to when it airs and it’s the wrong version? When I work on each episode, I get very specific. I’m watching for sound, color, the editing, and the this and the that. All of it feels like a mountain I have to climb so that we know that we got it right.”

At 9 p.m. on Monday, August 26, in Los Angeles, Hoffman was braced for the show’s fourth season premiere. “I watch each episode almost immediately, and by the time it’s over, I’m like, Okay, I’ve done everything I can. I put that episode out into the world, and that’s the one we agreed was the best version of it.”

Season three will be a hard act to follow. It earned 21 Emmy nominations, including one for outstanding comedy series, with lead-acting nods also going to every member of its core trio: Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. Matthew Broderick and Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph earned guest-acting nods as well, while Meryl Streep was recognized for outstanding supporting actress.

The star wattage is exceedingly bright in season four. Streep returns as Loretta, the love of Oliver’s life, now in a bicoastal relationship with him. Joining the ensemble this season are Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, and Zach Galifianakis as the actors portraying Charles, Mabel, and Oliver in a proposed movie based on their podcast; Melissa McCarthy as Oliver’s sister; Molly Shannon as a studio executive; Catherine Cohen and Siena Werber as the film’s deadpan identical twin directors, the Brothers Sisters; and Richard Kind, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Kumail Nanjiani as residents of the Arconia’s west side (a.k.a. the Westies). All are drawn into the investigation of last season’s murder of Sazz (Jane Lynch), Charles’s longtime stunt double.

Hoffman gave Vanity Fair a spoiler-free preview of season four and discussed doppelgängers, Easter eggs, and the 2023 Slate hit piece on Martin Short that went viral for all the right reasons.

Vanity Fair: What did you learn from season three that you brought to season four?

John Hoffman: Four words—keep stepping it up. I’m not made of the cloth that says, We can have an easier ride this time. I don’t start sentences that way. I think, What ambitious thing shall we try here? But it always has to come from a narrative that sparks my creative interest and feels right for the show.

Season three was a season built around the theater, so I’m excited by the connections we found for a 10-episode arc that deals with doppelgängers. Looking at reflections of yourself on film, reflections of yourself in a doppelgänger playing you in a film, reflections of yourself in a script written about you, a podcast you created about murder that has now affected a very close dear friend—all of that felt like really interesting territory.

In addition to Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, and Zach Galifianakis portraying Charles, Mabel, and Oliver, there are other doppelgänger images this season. What was the inspiration to expand the Arconia-verse to introduce the Westies?

We all do the same thing: If you look out the window [at your neighbors], you immediately contextualize someone based on what you see them doing every day. You put a stamp on who those people are, and then the fun of it is when you go in those apartments and dimensionalize them. Once we knew there was a shot that took out a beloved character at the end of season three, we quickly went to, Where did that shot come from, and what part of that building have we not explored?

All the murders take place in the Arconia, but this is the first murder to really hit close to home. How did you decide on Sazz to be the victim?

We had a few different possibilities we bantered about. [Executive producer] Jess Rosenthal came into my office. We were about a month away from wrapping shooting on season three. It was very late. He came in and pitched this idea. I was equally horrified and delighted. My rational brain thought, Wow, if she’s dressed like Charles, it opens up the possibility that Sazz was not the intended target. What that did for a character square center of our television show could be both great comedic fodder and poignant. That hit me first. I had to go talk to Jane Lynch on set and say that this is what we were thinking. She popped out of her seat and said she loved it.

All of the episode titles are taken from the titles of films with cult or niche cachet. I’m personally excited about the prospect of people being inspired to check out Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man (the title of episode four).

I knew Richard a little bit during the last 10 years of his life. He was lovely and we had great talks, hung out, and had dinners. That movie was one of those big-swing leaps that I like, and anyone who knows the first seven minutes of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West [the title of episode one] will know why I feel I have to bring that to the consciousness of a new generation.

Some controversy broke out last season with a clickbait article aimed at one of your cast members. So I’ll ask you: Why do we keep putting up with Martin Short?

[Laughs] What was great about that whole thing was the outpouring of love for him on social media. I’ve gotten to know Marty so well, and he’s beyond just being one of the funniest and most talented people. He is a bighearted guy with real intuitive sensitivities to what is most important in life: friendships and family. In some ways, it took Marty a beat to come around to realize the real story there became the wild defense of Martin Short, not the actual article. I felt incredibly delighted. The outpouring went on for days and, God love him, nobody deserves it more.

Only Murders has never had a problem attracting A-listers to the show, but how did Meryl Streep elevate matters?

It was a magic injection that you can’t ever count on and expect. Here is the greatest in a part about someone who never got her shot, and all of that was mixed in with the love Meryl shared for the cast and the show itself. There was no bigger transformative moment than watching the way she worked and the way she elevated everything around her.

What can you tease for the audience that might increase their appreciation of the season?

I love that. I do try and add layers as much as possible that either are scripted or that we come up with in post as we go along. I love getting to write the ends of our season because, all of a sudden, the things that felt random click into place. Every season we drop Easter eggs into every episode’s opening title sequence.

Beyond that, the big one for this season are the homages to the movies beyond movie posters [used as set dressing]. This season revolves around the making of a film based on the podcast, and there were big discussions about certain homages to movies that have been integral to the development of this series—Rosemary’s Baby, Rear Window among them. We talked a lot about certain looks, vibes, and specific shots that feel right for an episode. [In episode one,] our trio goes into the elevator to Charles’s apartment where Sazz was murdered, and we go to a Dutch angle and everything looks askew. It has a bit of noir to build tension. We use techniques that we haven’t used in the show before to create a more cinematic experience this season.