Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: for all mankind

For All Mankind: Wrenn Schmidt on Margo's S05 Journey, Changes & More

For All Mankind star Wrenn Schmidt on her five-season journey as Margo Madison on the Apple TV sci-fi drama series, Graciana, and more.

Given how much time passed on the historical revisionist series For All Mankind, it's rare that cast members are last given the hazards of the space-themed drama and the decades each season covers. With Joel Kinnaman's Ed Baldwin's passing in season five, that leaves Wrenn Schmidt's Margo Madison as the sole survivor, but her excuse is that she's largely out of the drama concerning Earth and Mars as she's serving prison time in a US prison for defecting to the Soviet Union despite being framed. Schmitt spoke to TV Insider about Margo's journey, stepping into the makeup chair to age her character, what she could do from afar while in prison on Earth, and trying to make amends with former colleagues, however she can.

For All Mankind: Wrenn Schmit on Navigating Margo's Season 5 Journey from Prison

To age Margo up nearly 30 years of Schmidt's actual age through the magic of makeup, "I feel like the prosthetics process is always kind of intense, especially on this show, because it has to be subtle, and sometimes it takes a while to figure out, 'What are the things that you tweak or change?' But this past season was definitely really hard," she said. "It was four and a half hours of time in the chair, and it's a weird thing. I think that's a weird thing, as an actor, to suddenly have so much of your face down. So it was a bit of a process, figuring out, 'Well, what is this like?' Because in previous seasons, you could see so much more of my face, even though I was wearing a lot of old-age makeup… It was an adjustment for sure."

As the only other cast member to remain since season one and staying on that journey into season five, "It's weird, honestly. It's exciting, but it's also strange because you become attached to those things that are familiar. I mean, I think back to losing Michael [Dorman] and Sarah [Jones] in Season 2 and coming back for Season 3. It was like, it is not the same without Michael Dorman and Sarah Jones, so it's weird, but it's also exciting to see what comes out of that," Schmit said. "And I can definitely say it was weird for me at the beginning of Season 5 when it suddenly dawned on me, 'Oh, I actually don't know how to play Margo like this,' because I'm used to always approaching playing her from a point of view of work and pursuit of something, and she's so dedicated to her career, and suddenly, there's no veneer of that anymore at all. It's kind of like drop-in, so it was like a pretty big shift, and I like to think I'm a very smart, perceptive person, but every time I have a job that changes like this, or just a new job, I'm like, 'Do I know anything about anything?' It was like a really big shift."

When it came to navigating Margo's arc with Graciana Diaz (Olivia Elena Aguilar), trying to help find out the fate of her mother Aleida (Coral Pena) among the Martian chaos, "I think, initially, Margo's just completely caught off guard that Graciana is there and that Graciana thinks that Margo can do the impossible. I think that really freaks her out because she's being asked to do something that she knows she will fail at," she said. "There's no way she can achieve this thing, and I also think that's really difficult to be confronted with something like that. If you're a person who's always had agency and has always, despite the odds, just been relentless about pursuing a solution, to suddenly be in a position where there is no solution — 'There is nothing I can do, but because I love your mom, I'm gonna try' — but I think that's just such a tough pill to swallow. I think ultimately, she tries, because if not her, who? And also, why not? The worst that's gonna happen is like she's gonna eat a giant piece — actually not a piece of humble pie, she's just gonna eat the whole pie."

As far as how that contrasts Margo's growth from season one to five, "I think that's actually one of the lovely surprises about playing Margo is in the very first or second episode of Season 1, she's doing that interview with Gene Kranz. She's like, 'You don't worry about me. I don't want to have a family, I don't want to have kids, I'm not interested in that.' In Season 5, that's suddenly like, 'Oh no, actually, she cares about that a lot.'" For more, including how Schmidt feels about Beyonce's "Run the World" introducing her character in season five, diving more into the Margo-Graciana relationship, and her outlook for season six hopes, you can check out the whole interview.

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