Mina Sundwall Knows What She Wants for Penny in ‘Lost in Space’ Season 3: A Monkey

Being the middle child in a TV family is tough enough for the kids that aren’t roughing it on hostile, barely habitable planets. You think Jan Brady was going through some stuff? Try being Jan Brady, but on a spaceship filled with your super-scientist family! Such is the plight of Penny Robinson (Mina Sundwall), the middle child on Netflix’s out-of-this-world sci-fi series Lost in Space.

Penny may not be a doctor like her older sister Judy or a fledgling scientist with a mystifying connection to an alien robot like her younger brother will, but that doesn’t mean she can’t pull her weight on the Jupiter 2 crew. Of all the Robinsons, Penny proved herself to be the most grounded of the bunch in an action-packed Season 1, always ready with a sarcastic comment and to make a rash decision for the right reasons. The majority of viewers will most likely never have Maureen Robinson’s brain or John Robinson’s brawn, but we can all aspire to have Penny Robinson’s wit.

Now that the Netflix sci-fi hit is back for Season 2, there’s even more for Penny to learn as she and her family are put in even more peril than ever before. And in a surprising development, a lot of that peril comes from master manipulator Dr. Smith (Parker Posey). But could Smith be more than a frenemy for Penny? Could she be… a friend? Decider got the chance to ask Sundwall about her character’s unlikely kinship with the nefarious Dr. Smith, as well as plenty of other SPOILERY plot points from the fast-paced Season 2. Horses, monkeys, trash—we covered it all!

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Decider: What were your hopes for Penny’s evolution going into Season 2?

Mina Sundwall: At the end of Season 1, I felt that Penny didn’t know her place or didn’t know what she could bring into the mix. She’s not the science one, for sure, and she always struggled with feeling compared to her siblings and her parents. Judy is a doctor, and she was supposed to be this role model for her younger brother and he kinda leapt directly over her and into the arms of an actual hero.

This season, I wanted her to grow into a little bit and discover what she brings to the mix—and she did. [My expectations were] definitely met. She had a lot of growing to do, for sure, but she’s starting to see that she is a people person. She’s starting to understand people. She’s a writer. She thinks differently than her family and she can see the bigger picture and write it down. It was gratifying.

Is that similar to you? Are you a writer type or people person?

Yes. I’m a psychology major, so I’m definitely interested in people. The weirder the better.

Did the writers take note of that and write that into Penny? Are you kinda merging into one now?

We’re definitely merging into one in more ways than one, which is slightly concerning but… Its actually quite coincidental because when we Max [Jenkins] is very interested in science and geology. I like science. I find it very interesting. I’m not very good at it. I’m not a particularly science-oriented person. I’m more of a writer and a reader, understanding people. And so we kind of stumbled into the same path, which is great. I don’t have to memorize the science lines.

What was it like when you noticed that you have a lot of scenes with Parker Posey’s Dr. Smith this season? Was that just a dream?

It was so much fun and Dr. Smith is so much fun. Little manipulations and watching Parker work her way through the situations and find a little look here, a little smirk there—playing into that and being able to let yourself see the seduction to the dark side, that was so much fun.

How was it to play a scene where you’re the one that has to manipulate the manipulative Dr. Smith?

Oh, it feels so good especially after reading and being in an entire season where you are taken down by the other person. To be the one who is underestimated in so many other points and stand up and just say, “Nope! I’m sorry, excuse me and sit down. It’s my turn” felt really good.

Is there anything you’ve learned from watching Parker Posey so closely?

How much fun [she’s having] and doing [a take] 15 different times and 15 different ways, and then pulling elements of different things and reacting to different people, saying it one way and seeing how they react and playing with that. She doesn’t just play the manipulation. She’s very good at knowing you and understanding you and seeing what you’re thinking and using that in Dr. Smith’s mindset. It is amazing to watch her work.

Do you kinda view Dr. Smith as sort of a dark possibility for Penny’s future?

Part of understanding who you are and what you might be good at, you’re looking for validation anywhere you can get it in a way. Part of the tension of this season has to do with Penny and [her mother] Maureen [Robinson], and being the middle child. It always feels like Will is Maureen’s favorite and Judy is John’s favorite and Penny never has someone saying, “You’re doing a good job. What you’re doing is right.” And Dr.Smith acts as that validation for her in a way and there’s a part of her that says, “Well, you also understand people and you are a manipulator, but that’s because you know what they’re thinking before they’re thinking it.” And she sees a bit of herself in Dr. Smith, which is terrifying—but at the same time she kinda likes it.

I also have to ask about your other scene partner in the show: the horse. Was there an actual horse on set?

I love that horse. There was a real horse on set and it is—first of all, I’d never thought that in two seasons that there’d be a chicken and a horse. They say don’t work with dogs, don’t work with children—a chicken and a horse is fine. And it’s so cool to see this horse be calm and very well-trained and very friendly and sweet. We could go up and play with it and pet it for a bit, and then all of a sudden there’s like a [clicks tongue] and it freaks out and it’s horrifying. It was so scary. All of us—we didn’t know if it was acting or not and we called cut and the horse was fine. Oh so you’re method? Okay.

Penny admits that she was pretending to be a horse girl when she was growing up so she could get close to her mother. Were you a horse girl growing up?

I was a horse girl growing up. I went—I used to drag my parents to two hours outside of the city to go ride horses. I loved it.

Did you get some riding in between filming?

I didn’t. I wish. There’s also a part where they went to [film in] Alberta and they all had horses in Alberta, but Penny is on the ship when that happens and I was— I didn’t know there was going to be horses in Alberta! I would’ve made a bigger deal about it.

Another big moment this season is the trash compactor scene with Penny’s ex Vijay. When I watched the scene I realized that filming a trash compactor scene may actually feel like being in a real trash compactor. What was it like being in garbage?

I was so grateful for the visual effects team for filling [the bags] with foam. I will never forget—they do put this goopy texture liquid on you so that you look like you’re kinda sweating and gross, and that never gets out of your hair. It’s still in my hair.

But the trash compactor was a set filled with trash bags full of foam. The walls did actually close in on you and so we would do tests before we were filming, of the walls closing in. And you can do as many tests as you want, when walls are closing in in the middle of a scene and you’re thinking, “Oh, we’re rolling. No one can actually go in and get me right now.” It’s horrifying, so there’s very little acting. There was a real ladder that went up to a platform up top and a thing full of trash bags.

I also loved doing scenes with Ajay [Friese] and we always bounce off of each other really well. When they would call cut, we completely forget that we’re in a scene because we’re having so much fun with each other. It was really fun to shoot. The trash compactor was scary but it was fun.

Penny’s relationship with Vijay is so much fun this season. You’re totally in charge, and that’s a different kind of relationship for a teen girl to have with the cute guy. I’m sure that’s rewarding to play as well.

Yeah, to be a little bit on top every once in a while? One-hundred percent. And that’s part of—Ajay is equally sassy and very fun to be around as a person. Every once in a while we’ll be in a scene and he’ll say something and I’ll snap back and it’ll be like a little bit of a power move, and it feels good—especially when it’s a friend then you get to play around like that.

If Lost in Space comes back for season 3, what do you want for Penny?

Monkeys are my favorite animal and that original Lost in Space had Bloop. I’ve been trying to convince the writers—I asked for a monkey and they gave us a horse, so we’re closer than a chicken. But I’ve been trying to convince them to add a monkey.

But for Penny, I love the writing. I love the fact that she’s writing books and that she’s taking in everything and thinking about it differently. I wanna see more of her writing, even if it’s on a bigger scale, because I wanna see where she can go with it. That is her strong point and to see her settle into her own as she gets a little older and more mature, that’s what I wanna see for sure.

Lost in Space Season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.

Stream Lost in Space on Netflix