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For All Mankind's Krys Marshall asked writers to kill Danielle: Here's how that conversation went

"We'd come to the conclusion that she was going to die," the actress says of her fate on the Apple TV+ drama. So what happened? And what's to come for season 5?

By

Patrick Gomez

Published on January 12, 2024 10:56AM EST

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 4 finale of For All Mankind, "Perestroika."

Krys Marshall didn't want to to leave For All Mankind, but she was willing to make a hard choice for the good of the show.

"I'm the only dumb actor in all of Hollywood who's like, 'Kill me,'" the actress tells EW of potentially ending her run as NASA astronaut Danielle Poole on the Apple TV+ drama, which is known for killing off beloved characters in its season finales.

Heading into the season 4 finale, Danielle was at odds with Ed (Joel Kinnaman) as tensions remained high between the low-paid Helios workers and the space program workers living levels above them both literally and figuratively. In Friday's finale, a skirmish ensues between the warring factions and Danielle does her best to break up the fight but ultimately ends up the worst casualty, taking a bullet.

But — sigh of relief for all Danielle fans — the astronaut is seen a few minutes later arriving back on Earth alive and well, though still recovering from her injuries.

So what happened? How did things change? Here Marshall, 34, explains how the plan changed at the last minute — and what to expect in season 5.

Krys Marshall in For All Mankind — Krys Marshall on 'For All Mankind' season 4.
Apple TV+

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Wait. So you asked to be killed off. Why?

KRYS MARSHALL: Before season 4 began, I sat down with Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, our showrunners. We went to a Thai restaurant in Sherman Oaks, and I was like, "I have an idea about season 4. Danielle has to die." They were like, "What? What are you talking about?" Let me just preface by saying this: I love our show so much. I love that the people we work with are cool and collaborative. I love that we tell a story that is important and inventive. And I love that our writers' allegiance is to great storytelling, even at the sacrifice of killing off some of our favorite characters. By the end of season 3, I felt it from the audience. I'm reading the Reddit forums, I'm sitting in the interviews, and I'm seeing how much the audience really loves Danielle. It dawned on me that, as much as I love Danielle and as much as she is the connective tissue in our world, it would be the gut punch of the century if we just killed her. So I told them, "I think we should kill her."

Where did it go from there?

We spent the whole season dancing around will she, won't she, will she, won't she. We had come to the conclusion that she was going to die. This was days before they were going to release the script for the finale, and Ben calls me on a Saturday morning and he's like, "Hey." I'm like, "Hey." He's like, "Danielle's not going to die." I'm like, "Nooooo." Of course I'm secretly happy that she won't, but he just said, "We've thought about it. We wrote a rendition where she dies. The whole room was on board for it, and then it just felt like we couldn't do it. It feels too overt and it feels too painful, and I don't want us to do that. I think that leading the audience to thinking that she will die and then having her go on to live is a sweeter relief, and I think we have to do that."

And how did you respond?

I got behind it, of course. Now, having played it and felt it, it feels right. I'm really glad that we didn't. I think it would've been too tragic. Oftentimes when you see alternate history shows, they exist in a dystopic world, where it's post-apocalyptic and the air is made of acid, and everyone is fighting for their lives and living subterranean. I love that our our alternate timeline is not that. It actually is pretty optimistic. It's not euphoric, but it's not dystopic. It felt right in the grand scheme of our world to continue to keep our eyes on the horizon and believe that tomorrow can be brighter than today. I love the choice to keep Danielle, and I love that we left the audience on the edge of their seats.

So now that you have quite literally been given a second life on the show, what can we expect from season 5?

I mean, luckily I can't give anything away, because I don't know. I have absolutely no idea. But based on how things have progressed from season to season, I would imagine that in season 5 there will be a fully-established world on Mars and it will be exploring what it's like to have, basically, a second world. Where Danielle fits into all that, I don't know. I mean, you've seen us kill pivotal characters episode 1, minute 1, so who knows? Maybe she plays through the season. Maybe we off her in the first 11 minutes. I really have no idea.

If that's not the case, are you excited to play a fabulous mid-60s-year-old?

You know, I really love the age makeup. I do. I think it is so freeing to not be held into the boring stereotypes of what it means to be an actress. I'm not worried about "Does Danielle look young?" "Does she look pretty?" "Does she look skinny?" These things are not important. She's an engineer and a commander of missions and a hero. She's got bigger fish to fry than whether or not she's got the right lipstick on. I find so much freedom in being able to play a woman of a certain age, and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I have always been the youngest in the cast. My character was always the youngest of the astronaut candidates, and so this will be the first time for me to really play older in a way. Of course, 50s is older, but it's different than being in your 60s. I'm excited to explore what that feels like physically and emotionally, and the toll of her gunshot wounds, how that plays into who she is in season 5 — if she returns. It'll be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it.

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