Shy Baldwin (LeRoy McClain) is back…and he’s more miserable than ever.
Just to hold space,Maiselwants to use you.
We don’t know when, and we don’t know how many episodes, et cetera.
Philippe Antonello/Amazon Prime
I didn’t know in what capacity, what the storyline was at all.
When you get the script, a lot of times it’s when you find out.
It was a complete shock to me.
How do you think he made peace with that?
Or do you think he’s made peace with it?
I don’t think he’s made peace with it.
His business acumen leads him in that direction.
He has to do whatever he can salvage his career.
That’s where you find him, right?
It’s the perfect recipe for a reckoning when he’s confronted with Midge during this critical moment.
He’s also been pretty isolated by his team.
Reggie and his band are gone.
How alone do you feel like he is in this moment?
For the longest time, Reggie was his anchor.
Shy, he’s a tricky character.
He’s a bit of an enigma.
He lets very, very few people in and Reggie’s definitely one of them.
Midge is definitely one of them.
Without Reggie, you see him without an anchor.
He’s very much alone.
Or, “Fine cut everybody else but Reggie has to stay”?
There’s a deep love and a deep connection between these two.
We’ve invested all this time, all of this commitment, and you got to see it through.
Shy has a lot of great qualities.
However, there is a level of indecision there.
There is a level of care that is needed.
He needs someone there to guide him in that path.
As hard and as brutal as it is.
Shy and Midge have this poignant, yet tense meeting in the bathroom.
So do you think he regrets how the whole thing was handled with her firing?
I’ve actually thought about that a lot, especially when I got the script for that episode.
There is a true, genuine friendship that develops between he and Midge.
It’s a devastating ending, what happens at season 3.
So how much of a blow for him is hearing that in that moment?
I remember when I read the scene the first time.
That is partly due to him really missing her.
And also due to his absolute loneliness; he literally has nobody.
But hearing that news, Shy at his absolute rock bottom.
It’s absolutely devastating.
And it took a lot out of me, just that wordless image of him smoking.
That was really, really tough.
And he literally has nothing at that point.
I remember when I got that bathroom scene as LeRoy, I wanted to say so many more things.
If that would’ve been me, it would’ve been a laundry list of wrongs that I felt.
But what’s challenging and really beautiful about the scene is, that’s just all under the surface.
It’s all repressed.
It’s all revealed in that really awkward small talk that they have at the very beginning.
But his loneliness and his despair for him in that moment is the overriding factor.
Of course he blames her for having to do this whole sham wedding.
An argument could be made he couldn’t stay a bachelor forever.
At some point, there would’ve maybe had to have been some sort of reckoning.
There’s a lot of resentment and a lot of bitterness there, of course.
In your mind, do you think he ever learns about Midge refusing to take the hush money?
It doesn’t seem like it in that final shot we get of him that he knows yet.
To his new handlers, keeping Midge away from him would probably be the prudent move.
I would be surprised if they were to ever tell him.
That’s just a harsh, brutal reality that he’s now in, right?
Any knowledge that Midge rejected that money would run counter to their ends.
Do you think he and Midge will cross paths again at some point?
Oh gosh, I hope so.
Rachel and I messaged each other the other day saying exactly the same thing once the episode came out.
And then those that were also forced to live a lie as a sacrifice for their fame.
Some fared better than others.
It comes at a terrible cost.
Anytime you have to deny an essential part of who you are, it just eats away at you.
But he found a way through, he found a way to cope.
And I can only hope that Shy finds the same.
There’s a big blaring question mark on that.
A lot of times we only get to see the gloss.
I’ve grown so close to this character and it snuck up on me.
I wasn’t necessarily anticipating that it would.
As a performer, you just want to get out there and do right by the character.
