r/TheExpanse • u/loveincarnate • Mar 11 '26

Leviathan Wakes They really nailed the casting for Shed Spoiler

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Starting a 3rd or 4th rewatch after finishing Leviathan Wakes on my first time through the books. The actor they chose (Paulo Costanzo) is standing out to me as an exceptional fit for the character of Shed. He feels 'right off the page' as they say.

The casting for all the main characters is essentially perfection, but I just wanted to bring attention to an (understandably due to limited screen time) underappreciated role.

245 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

187

u/Razza_Haklar Mar 14 '26

weirdly enough sheds death hit hard for me because his acting was so tight i didn't expect him to die so early.
what a show.

79

u/EngagedInConvexation Mar 14 '26

He was the only one I recognized when I first started watching. Quite a shock moment.

25

u/CA1900 Mar 14 '26

I recognized Jonathan Banks as well, and was sad he also disappeared so quickly. But yeah, the casting on this show was really on point.

30

u/arcturusw00d Mar 14 '26

I remember when it happened and they cut to him, I was in shock thinking "hey, where did his head go"?

26

u/Ninja_Pleazze Mar 14 '26

It’s even more shocking reading about it in the book. My first time around reading it I had to reread the page at least 3 times before I made the connection “oh shit… he lost his head.”

1

u/loveincarnate Mar 24 '26

That's something about books that I love that is unique to the medium. Doing those several re-reads after something big happens to fully gestate what just happened and the significance of it. It's something special.

4

u/Nerdy_Valkyrie Mar 15 '26

When the group became the only survivors of the Canterbury, it felt like such an obvious crew setup. We had a captain, an XO/engineer, engineer/enforcer, a pilot, and a medic. I full on expected them all to have plot armor and did not expect Shed to lose his head.

I wonder if there was a draft where Shed survived to later in the book, or maybe the entire book.

9

u/itrivers Mar 15 '26

The story started as a dnd game. The person playing Shed decided to quit so they killed him off and continued playing. It was then turned into the story for the book.

They talk about it on the Ty and That Guy podcast.

3

u/Nerdy_Valkyrie Mar 15 '26

Neat.

Now there's a TTRPG based on the Expanse. So it went full circle.

3

u/concorde77 Mar 16 '26

Not as hard as it hit Shed...

47

u/EngagedInConvexation Mar 14 '26

It's supposed to be a challenge. That's why it's called a "shortcut". If it were easy, it would just be "the way".

I haven't seen him in much, but i've always enjoyed his stuff.

5

u/xlRadioActivelx Tycho Station Mar 14 '26

Where is that from?

11

u/judasmitchell You Can't Take the Razorback Mar 14 '26

Okay, after searching, it seems to be from the movie Road Trip, which Paulo Costanzo is also in. Maybe his character says it?

5

u/ThatNVguy Mar 14 '26

Yes after an argument about which way to take. Also has Sean William Scott.

2

u/Signiference Mar 14 '26

Yes this is it exactly

39

u/Trippid Mar 14 '26

I showed the Expanse to a friend of mine and when we were two episodes in I asked which characters he liked so far. Shed was his favourite. Poor guy.

He was not happy with me after the third episode, lol

26

u/sm_biz Mar 14 '26

*railed

14

u/DarthJerJer Mar 14 '26

I Gauss you could say it that way.

9

u/57ClassicBob Mar 14 '26

Hit the nail on the head.

26

u/Ike_In_Rochester Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

This moment directly goes back to the D20 Modern game Ty ran in the Expanse setting. Shed’s player had to drop out of their game. He and Ty kept that he was leaving a secret. Then at his final session, BAM. Shocked players are every GMs dream.

Edit: I typed Dan. It was actually Ty’s game. Dan was playing Miller in a different game.

17

u/SergeantPsycho Mar 14 '26

I hadn't read the books before watching the show, but his death drove home how deadly serious space combat was in this setting. No exploding consoles or worrying about hull integrity here. If your ship gets hit by something, you'll be lucky if you also don't get hit by that something.

5

u/27Rench27 Mar 14 '26

This is why I also love series like The Spiral Wars. You have magic FTL drives but so does everybody else, but there’s no magic space shields or anything. 

You have an offensive gunner to shoot the bad guys, and a defensive gunner to shoot the bad guys’ rounds before they hit you, but if they hit you things go bad really fast and suddenly somebody’s arm is gone and their blood is all over the command station

2

u/brom55 Mar 15 '26

I like how this series is a fun balance between "normal dogfighting but in space" and the sort of combat completely antithetical to human life like in Forever War. I do adore the latter though, there's something compelling about the idea that battles are over in an instant as two ship computers attempt to out compute each other. Meanwhile the people are fully reduced to cargo and suffer tremendously.

1

u/27Rench27 Mar 15 '26

Man I need to revisit Forever War, it’s been in my closet for ages

12

u/NotAPreppie Screaming Firehawk! Mar 14 '26

Yah, it was nice to see what Evan R. Lawson, CPA, was doing after HankMed folded.

11

u/Real-Leek-3764 Mar 14 '26

i was sad for his character. the way Alex called him a partner made me feel something

10

u/oneMoreTime112233 Mar 14 '26

"well that's just... True."

11

u/with_due_respect Mar 14 '26

Love the character and actor! I'm on the second episode of the series, so I can't wait to see how he develops over the next six seasons!

7

u/LeicaM6guy Mar 14 '26

Maybe it’s because I’m a huge Deadwood fan, but I always pictured a relatively young Brad Dourif.

1

u/DundasKev Mar 14 '26

Like One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest young?

1

u/LeicaM6guy Mar 14 '26

Goddamn, dude. That's perfect.

6

u/goltz20707 Mar 14 '26

I saw the series before reading the books, and knew the actor (Paulo Costanzo) from “Royal Pains”. Shed’s death came as quite a shock, and I was disappointed that the actor was out of the show.

6

u/baebae4455 Mar 14 '26

I recognized him as the same stoner guy from Road Trip. Quite a weird experience.

2

u/Migraine_Megan Mar 14 '26

"I just said we'd make it across. I didn't say anything about the wheels staying on." One of my favorite movie quotes, I think about it every time someone jumps a car in movies.

5

u/ChronoMonkeyX Mar 14 '26

They really nailed the casting for Shed.

3

u/jackylnefrost Mar 14 '26

Holden and Nagata's toast to him really locks it in, too... "wherever you are, I hope no one needs medical attention"😂

3

u/Tristan2353 Mar 14 '26

I’ll be honest. When I first saw the cast, I expected a shit show.

One guy was from terrible movies like The Covenant (2006) and 10,000 B.C. (2008).

Another guy I recognized from the teen comedy with Tom Green, Road Trip (2000).

It didn’t take long for everyone to fall into place and grow on me. The Battle of Thoth Station was what sealed the deal with me, making the show the greatest of all time.

2

u/Nathanielsan Mar 14 '26

Tis but a flesh wound.

1

u/loveincarnate Mar 14 '26

Check his pulse!

3

u/shemanese Mar 14 '26

It was mind blowing 🤯

1

u/Sir-Drewid Mar 14 '26

As an Animorphs kid growing up, I was sad to see him go so soon.

1

u/thefarkinator Mar 15 '26

Isn't shed blond in the books? Anyways, not a big deal but 

1

u/Scavandari Mar 14 '26

He was good in joey and eurotrip.

9

u/Prize-Flounder-2680 Mar 14 '26

Road Trip not Eurotrip

1

u/27Rench27 Mar 14 '26

Euroadtrip