PARTING SHOT
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER
HE KEPT A TIGHT LID ON HIS EMOTIONS AS THE OBSESSIVE DETECTIVE ON the USA comedy Monk (a role that earned him three Emmys), and again when playing an Egyptian conductor in the Broadway musical The Band’s Visit (for which he won a 2018 Tony for best actor in a musical—a fourth nomination). But finally, as Abe Weissman on Amazon’s hit series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Tony Shalhoub gets to let it all hang out. The first season, which takes place in 1958, stars Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan as aspiring stand-up comedian Miriam “Midge” Maisel. She’s a hard act to top, but as her tightly wound math professor father, Shalhoub delivered some showstopping meltdowns. “For once,” he tells Newsweek, “I get to unleash all of my pent-up frustration.” Sometimes on a piano. He hesitated when creator Amy Sherman-Palladino offered him the part, mostly because there wasn’t much Abe in the pilot. “They assured me he would expand,” says Shalhoub, and so he did. Get ready for more fireworks when the show returns on December 5. “I think people will be stunned by Season 2,” he says.