Mary Elizabeth Winstead Says 10 Cloverfield Lane Only Has 3 Actors In Entire Film

01/30/2016 01:25 pm EST

How does a high-profile filmmaker put together a sequel to a fan-favorite movie, starring well-known actors, and do it all without revealing the project until it's already completed?

Well, having only three actors in the whole film can't hurt.

According to 10 Cloverfield Lane star Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the three actors seen in the film's surprise trailer -- herself, John Goodman and Jonah Hex's John Gallagher Jr. -- are the only ones who appear in the forthcoming sequel to J.J. Abrams's hit found footage film Cloverfield. At least in key roles.

"There is this veil of secrecy to it from the very beginning," Winstead told EW. "We were making this movie in this little bubble where nobody else knew what we were doing and there's really only three actors in the whole thing, so it kind of felt like this really intimate experience. Now that it's about to come out, it's sort of crazy — like, 'Oh yeah, people are excited to see this movie.' I forgot that that was going to happen."

That "really" suggests there may be other actors in tangential roles -- perhaps as extras, or performing in motion capture for whatever monsters end up terrorizing the trio at the center of the plot.

10 Cloverfield Lane is due in theaters on March 11 from Paramount Pictures, director Dan Trachtenberg and executive producer J.J. Abrams.

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