Newcomers find plenty to embrace in Apple TV's ‘For All Mankind’

For actress Ines Asserson, there was a crash course in the previous four seasons.

“I just devoured season after season,” she says. “It was so incredible I forgot that I was I was going to be a part of it.”

Co-star Barrett Carnahan also was a newcomer to the show’s revisionist history.

“It was on the list of shows I was going to watch, and I hadn’t gotten around to watching it. And then when I booked it, I had an excuse,” Canahan says.

Sean Kaufman, who plays the son of Kelly Baldwin, one of the series’ key characters, had to convince himself not to worry about how he was going to react in given situations. He consulted Coral Peña, a series veteran, and she convinced him, “just take your time, take up your space,” he says.

Because “Mankind” speculates on a world where Russia beat the United States in the space race, there are key changes — different presidents, different world issues, different outcomes. The series takes place over seven decades.

“It’s such a rare thing to see characters through so many different stages in their lives,” says Ruby Cruz, another newcomer. “That was such a huge part of what drew me to the show in the first place. You get to see these characters in times of their lives that you never would have imagined.”

The “butterfly effect” (or the idea that a small action can lead to unexpected consequences over time) made everything understandable, she adds.

“We are all here because we are a product of all the small decisions and mistakes we’ve made,” Kaufman says. “Anything that would have changed, would have made me not me.”

Carnahan has a key example: “If my janitor didn’t tell me that they were making a movie in West Virginia, and if I didn’t go and be an extra in it, I never would have met this girl, who was also an extra. She wouldn’t have become my wife and we wouldn’t have two kids today,” he says.

Instead of doing a deep dive on all the characters, Carnahan carved his own path.

“I took the reins myself because (his character) Haskell was in his own bubble," he says. "I didn’t get this chance to mingle with all these legacy characters, but it made it more thrilling because I was thrown into the deep end of the pool. We have our own thing going on here.”

Because “Mankind” jumps forward each season, there’s an expectation for the actors. Kaufman (who plays the grandson of one of the originals, Ed Baldwin) and Cruz (who plays the daughter of Miles and Amanda Dale) feel the pressure of keeping the series afloat.

“There were times when I had to remind myself, ‘Who’s the president?’ Is this person still alive?” Kaufman says. “The show does a great job with that” and informs the audience about the shifts.

In the beginning of the fifth season, there’s a recap that puts it all in perspective. And then? It’s full speed ahead.

“It’s such a great supportive group of people,” Asserson says of the cast. “It’s very thorough and present. What I discovered is I can have a voice with it and be part of the collaboration. With a big show, that’s not always a given.”

And the twists and turns “Mankind” takes? Those are on a need-to-know basis.

“They don’t tell us anything,” Kaufman says.

“They’re actually the most secretive group I’ve ever worked with,” Cruz adds.

“We are in spacesuits all day, playing pretend that we’re on a different planet,” Kaufman says. “There are people out there who are suffering so much right now. It’s hard not to look at what we do and just be like, ‘We’re the luckiest people on Earth and we’re having so much fun.’”