‘For All Mankind’ Star Krys Marshall Tried to Change Danielle’s Big Scene With Will

For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 6 “New Eden” shows us that as much things have changed for the better in the Apple TV+ show’s alternate timeline, some ugly things still endure. After everyone is safely landed on Mars, American astronaut Will Tyler (Robert Bailey Jr.) impulsively decides to come out as gay on a live broadcast from Sojourner to the folks back home on Earth. Since being gay in the military is still illegal in this timeline, this puts Will’s status as an astronaut at risk and creates a maelstrom of drama both on Mars and on Earth.

It also forces the rest of Will’s crew to come to grips with their own homophobia. While bigotry hasn’t been fully vanquished in For All Mankind‘s timeline, the show’s characters have always seemed to be far more progressive when it comes to matters of race and misogyny. After all, Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) is a heroic astronaut and Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour) is President of the United States. However, the characters still have the same spectrum of unease with Will’s sexuality that you’d see in our own ’90s timeline. Some of the younger astronauts seem unfazed by Will’s reveal, while Baranov (Alexander Sokovikov) wants nothing to do with him.

Shockingly, when mission commander Danielle Poole pulls Will aside to talk, it’s not a pep talk, but a dressing down. When Decider chatted with For All Mankind star Krys Marshall in the weeks leading up to the Season 3 premiere, she revealed that tense scene was her favorite part of the whole third season. But it wasn’t always.

“When I first read it, I really hated it. It made me angry that Danielle didn’t have his back and it also didn’t seem to ring true to who I knew her to be,” Marshall said. “I thought, ‘Wait a minute, she’s Black. He’s Black. She’s an advocate for the little guy and the underdog. I can’t understand why Danielle would come against him, why she’d reprimand him, this doesn’t seem true to who she is.'”

Marshall’s frustration with Danielle’s actions in the scene prompted a “long talk” between her and For All Mankind co-creator and co-showrunner Ben Nedivi, who defended the script.

“I wrote a very passionate email and was like, ‘We need to change this,'” Marshall said. “And he got back to me and said, ‘No, we don’t. Because Danielle’s a human being and even though at the beginning of Season 1, she is the sort of pinnacle of progression — she’s Black, she’s a woman, it’s 1969 — now, 20 some odd years later, she’s the definition of the old guard.'”

With that revelation, Marshall could see — even though it was initially difficult — what the scene was going for.

“Will is in his twenties and he’s what looks to her like this selfish kid who steps forward and comes out at the sacrifice of everyone else on the mission and she’s looking at him and going, ‘How dare you put yourself first?'”

“So it was tough for me to jive with that because I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how could Danielle be sort of heartless. But that’s the beauty in storytelling, it’s that I, Krys, have to put my shit to the side and remind myself that I’m here to service the story. And it’s important that Danielle not just say, ‘Good on you, Will. I’m so proud of you, now let’s go fight this big gay battle.’ That’s not real life.”