‘For All Mankind’s Joel Kinnaman and Krys Marshall Really Do Say “Hi Bob!” To Each Other

In For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 2 “Game Changer”, Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) shows his ass. Spoilers, but I’m not talking one of those shots where Ed is injecting anabolic steroids into his aging butt. Rather, I’m speaking of when he drunkenly tells long-time best friend Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) that she only edged him out for command of the first mission to Mars because she’s Black.

It’s a horrific moment where Ed, who has long been seen as one of the few white male characters totally cool with diversity in NASA — remember when he defended the female ASCANs to Karen (Shantel VanSanten) in Season 1?!?! — shows the ugliest, bitterest, most competitive, and most racist side of himself. Dani takes it as the insult it is.

The scene hurts all the more because Ed should know better when it comes to Dani. He knows first hand what an exemplary astronaut and human being she is. They served together through the hell that was the first Jamestown expedition all the way back in Season 1. Together, Ed and Dani not only dealt with the intense mental and physical ordeal of being the first colonists on Moon, but also handling Gordo’s (Michael Dorman) utter breakdown. Their bond is sacrosanct in the show, marked by the recurring inside joke, “Hi Bob!”

For All Mankind Season 3 might be pitting Ed and Danielle against each other like never before, but actors Joel Kinnaman and Krys Marshall told Decider that their real life bond is too strong for that kind of mean-spirited competitiveness off-screen.

“It’s funny how some actors — and it happens a lot more in TV than in film — but they really start to identify themselves with their characters. They sort of adopt the competitiveness that the characters have for each other,” Kinnaman said. “I find that really amusing because we’re all storytellers and we’re telling stories together. Me and Krys, we have a really fun rapport both on and off screen.”

Marshall credits the camaraderie on For All Mankind‘s set to EP Ronald D. Moore, whom she calls “the kind of guy where good vibes really come from the top down.”

“He’s made it so abundantly clear to everybody in the cast and crew from day one that this is a collaboration, that there is no hierarchy, we are all equals in this. Every voice matters and every opinion matters,” Marshall said. “When you have a world where we’re only trying to support and service this story more so than actors or individuals or egos, there is no space for that [competitive] stuff. It’s just not tolerated.

Furthermore, both Kinnaman and Marshall credited the show’s own storytelling for bonding them so tightly together in real life. As it happens, Season 1 Episode 7 “Hi Bob” was a unique experience that cemented Kinnaman, Marshall, and Michael Dorman together forever, much like their characters trapped together in the first iteration of Jamestown base.

“It was me, Michael Dorman, and Krys and it was just the three of us for the whole episode, which means it was three of us for three weeks together,” Kinnaman said. “We had a lot of difficult scenes and you’re doing the first season of the show and there’s a lot of tension and people really wanting to perform.”

“I think we really felt like we went through something together and the three of us, we did bond over that. We still have that baked into our friendship in some way. When we see each other, it’s still, ‘Hi Bob!’ It’s still there.”

“Joel’s 100% right,” Marshall said. “Really early on, he and Michael and I became a little trio and it’s hard not to become close when you’re spending 16 hours a day for two and a half weeks straight in a tin can the size of a Nordstrom dressing room. You’re gonna get close.”

“So there’s moments where we have little riffs and he gets on my nerves and I’m sure I get on his, but then we’d also come back and come together.”

“It’s fun,” Kinnaman said. “We are playing old friends now but we’re also feeling like old friends in some way because we’ve been doing this for three years now and that feels like a long time.”

“I think that like the cast of Friends and like those other iconic shows where people are friends in real life, I think that it can’t help but seep into the work. People feel it. The audience may not be on set with us, but you can feel the vibes coming through the screen,” Marshall said.

To wit, it’s apparent throughout For All Mankind Season 3 that Ed and Danielle are missing a key member of their trio. Michael Dorman’s character, Gordo, died in heroic fashion in the For All Mankind Season 2 finale, meaning he’s no longer on set to banter with Kinnaman and Marshall. Though that doesn’t mean he’s no longer part of their “Hi Bob!” group in real life.

“As gutted as the audience was when Gordo was killed, Joel and I were gutted that we were gonna be losing Michael,” Marshall said. “I’m still not over it. We all remain super close.”

Call it the magic of “Hi Bob!” in action.