For All Mankind, which airs on AppleTV+, picks up ten years after the events in season one. The series focuses on the space program but takes place in an alternate timeline to the real the space race.
Shantel VanSanten, who recently took part in a junket to promote the show, stars as Karen Baldwin, wife of NASA astronaut, Edward. Last season, while Ed was on a mission in space, their son Shane kept acting out, which led to him running off and getting into an accident that eventually proved fatal. Losing their son drove a wedge into the marriage and still affects them ten years later.
VanSanten talked to journalists about Karen’s journey this season, including dealing with her son’s death, as well as other parts about working on the series.
The actress talked to SciFi Vision about how Shane’s death has put strain on the Baldwin family this season and the challenges in playing that during a particular scene coming up. “Oh, of course, it's so hard. It's such a tricky dance to explain…It was tricky. You know, there're times that I think things are going to be challenging. I read a script, and I'm like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a tough scene.’ At first, when I read this eighteen page scene between [the] three of us, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is like, theater; this is what I live to do.’ I was really excited, and then there were parts of that scene that just terrified me. There are parts of it that are ugly, and that's the human parts that we want to shy away from and think that we're better than, when in all actuality, we all have massive emotional reactions, sometimes in life, and understanding where that comes from and really diving into the psyche behind where the each of the characters are, is interesting.