Recently, season one of Cross premiered worldwide on Prime Video. The series, which is adapted from James Patterson’s best-selling Alex Cross book series, was created by showrunner and executive producer Ben Watkins. Aldis Hodge stars in the title role as the complicated and brilliant detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross, who delves into the minds of killers and their victims to identify and catch murderers.

Cross also stars Isaiah Mustafa as Detective John Sampson, Cross’s partner at the D.C. Metro Police Department. Recently, Mustafa spoke with the press about working on the series.

Although the actor was “very aware” of his character from the books, he didn’t pull anything from it. “I wanted to give [Ben Watkins] just the respect of creating this character solely based off of what he came up with in his scripts and also based off of the discussion he and I had about the character and who he was,” Mustafa told SciFi Vision.

 “We had a very, very deep conversation about who John was and some of his aspirations and his fears and the way he respects what Alex has as a family man and the way he looks at that family. Those conversations kind of helped me breathe life into this character.”

Mustafa also spoke with the site about working with Hodge. “Honestly, working with him has been so effortless and at the same time, so challenging, because he holds everyone to such a high standard,” said the actor, adding that Hodge always brings his “A game.”

For more from the star, watch the full interview below. All eight episodes of season one of Cross is available to stream now on Prime Video.