Pandemic brings series back down to earth
Actors face a challenge when a TV series returns for a new season, and they have to get back into a character they haven't played in months. In the AppleTV+ series For All Mankind, season 2 was particularly tricky since nine years had elapsed since the events of season 1. The alternate-history science-fiction drama finished its first season with a tiny U.S. outpost on the moon in 1974, and picks up again with a much larger base in 1983.
But for Sarah Jones, playing the role of astronaut Tracy Stevens, the biggest hurdle was a pandemic-induced gap in the middle of season 2. Eight of the 10 episodes were in the can when production was forced to halt in mid-March. It didn't pick up again until August.
“What was left of the second season, the majority of the climactic elements with the characters was Gordo and Tracy stuff. So going from building and ramping up to that point last year, putting it on ice, going through this year that we've all experienced, and then `OK, let's go, action!' It was disorienting in a lot of ways.”
Gordo is Gordo Stevens, fellow astronaut and Tracy's husband in the first season. (Ex-husband as season 2 begins.) He's played by New Zealand actor Michael Dorman, sporting a flawless American accent.
“It was definitely a different playing field,” he says. “When you're in a show you're sort of building it in your body. It's in you as the character. You get to that crescendo where all the great stuff happens. And having to put it on ice and come back was a challenge.”
And while he's great at playing an astronaut, he's not sure he has the right stuff to be one.
“The thing that I find fascinating is their ability to problem-solve on the fly. To save lives. I'd be a terrible astronaut.”
Jones chimes in jokingly. “The same. You wouldn't stand a chance.”
Because For All Mankind is set in an alternate 1983, the creators have rewritten history in numerous ways, some bad — Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union are higher than in real life — and others good. Women's rights and racial equality have advanced more quickly as have email, electric cars and laptop computers. John Lennon survived his encounter with Mark David Chapman. But for the actors, the joy of making the show comes down to the human drama.
“Our job as actors is to keep it real emotionally,” says Jones, “... to make sure that when people watch the show they can relate to the characters. They might even feel understood by watching something that a character is going through ...”
Says Dorman: “What was presented to me in the meetings I had was more based around the relationship between Gordo and Tracy as opposed to the space element or the alternate reality aspect. It was purely the love story of having distance between two lovers and how that manifests and how they kind of deal with those struggles. That enticed me.”
He's thrilled the show has been picked up for a third season, presumably set in the 1990s.
“Every time I've worked on something, I'll always get to season 2 and then that's it. So it was pretty exciting to hear For All Mankind was going for a third.”
What can he reveal about that third season? “I didn't know what was happening in season 2 before we started,” he says, laughing.
Adds Jones: “I don't know if I know what's gone on fully in season 2.”