When “For All Mankind” began in 2019, the show had a very simple premise: what would have happened in 1969 if the Soviets landed on the moon first and the Space Race never ended?
Now, almost seven years later, we’re heading into season five, and the show has expanded its reach from international tensions to inter-planetary tensions. Season five picks up 10 years after the events of season four, which saw the crew on the international Mars base Happy Valley hijack an asteroid to keep it in Mars’ orbit rather than sending it to Earth.
Co-creator (along with Ronald D. Moore) and showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, along with show veteran Coral Peña and season five newbie Sean Kaufman, stopped by SCAD TVFest this past weekend to talk about the new season, which premieres on Apple TV on March 27.
Wolpert and Nedivi have talked extensively about using real historical events to set the tone for each season of “For All Mankind” – for example, season two features a Cuban Missile Crisis-esque event, but set in space. For this season, they looked back to the American Revolution to envision how two planets – the recently colonized Mars versus Earth – might engage with one another.
“That created this really great historical reference point for us, which we … love to have,” Nedivi said. “After the asteroid heist at the end of last season, the tensions now between Earth and Mars are huge. That’s what we were really leaning into, and that was the reference that gave us, I think, the most ground to cover.”
Wolpert said the duo’s goals for the show are similar now to what they were when the show first started, but the most interesting discovery for them has come in the characterization. “For All Mankind” started in the 1960s, but this most recent season takes place in 2012. Actors like Peña, who plays NASA Flight Director Aleida Rosales, have seen their characters age decades. Some have even seen their characters’ children become series regulars.
“I think what we realized as we got into the later seasons was just how much this was a story of families and generations,” Wolpert said. “Having that new blood come in – especially in season five, when some of the grandchildren of some of the original characters are coming in and coming into their own adulthood, and having their own stories to tell – has really been a fun challenge and a real gift of storytelling.”
One of those grandchildren is Alex Poletov, the grandson of series star Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), who will be played by Sean Kaufman. Teenaged Alex was conceived on Mars and, after a brief stint on Earth, is back on the red planet in season 5.
Kaufman said what drew him to the job was the prospect of playing a teenager who wants to do the things that every teenager does, but is instead faced with something larger than himself.
“At 18, I was smoking weed and drinking,” Kaufman joked. “But if I was faced with extenuating circumstances, would I fall under the pressure? Would I crumble? Or would I be able to rise above it?”
Coral Peña joined the cast of “For All Mankind” in season two. The daughter of an undocumented immigrant, her character Aleida became homeless after her father was deported to Mexico, and then later joined NASA as an engineer. In those early seasons, Aleida can be a bit prickly, her anxiety often manifesting in anger.
“She didn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t know if she belonged. She didn’t know if anyone would care for her,” Peña said about Aleida’s mindset in those early seasons. “She kind of was used to people not [caring], especially being an immigrant. There’s so much pressure to be a perfect immigrant.”
While Peña promised that Aleida is still a “hard ass,” this season will see a much more relaxed version of Aleida.
“I purposefully created a lot of tension in Aleida in season two, so that I could slowly relax my jaw,” Peña said.
To play a character in her mid-50s, Peña talked to older women in her life, learning lessons about what it means to be middle-aged before she hits that benchmark herself. The result of those conversations – plus Aleida’s emotional arc in season four, which saw her confronting a lot of personal trauma head on – is a much more settled, confident Aleida.
“All the emotional work she did in season four, we get rewarded in season five,” Peña said. “She has done that inner work to show up in the best way that she can.”