TONY SHALHOUB

The Emmy-winning Monk star, 68, returns for season four of The Marvelous

Mrs. Maisel (Feb. 18 on Amazon Prime Video). He’ll reprise his role as Abe Weissman, the father of Midge (Rachel Brosnahan), as he deals with his new job as a theater critic and a new living situation.

What’s up with Abe? He’s experiencing a midlife crisis. That’s how I see it and how I frame it. I think all the big changes that happened with Midge—starting from the pilot, all the upheaval in her life—had a ripple effect. For Abe, it has to do with trying to recapture something from his youth that he feels he lost.

Does his crisis make him more understanding of Midge’s choice to pursue comedy?

I don’t think he’s approving of it yet, because it’s still show business and not something that he ever envisioned for a child of his. On the other hand, he’s starting to see that the whole culture is shifting. His mind is starting to open to the fact that Midge is becoming an independent thinker and an iconoclast in that period.

You revisited your Monk character to do a COVID PSA. Any chance of Monk being rebooted for a new series or a movie?

There are conversations going on about the possibility of revisiting it in terms of a TV movie. It would be so interesting to see that character all these 12 or 13 years later, and also given the fact that COVID has taken over.

Did you get any tips from your friend [and Big Night co-star] Stanley Tucci’s cooking show, Searching for Italy?

I’m actually not a bad cook. I’m certainly not Stanley Tucci in the kitchen. But I love to cook when I have the time.