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Apple TV+ Dark Matter Interview: Joel Edgerton & Alice Braga On Playing Different Versions Of Their Characters
Dark Matter is a sci-fi thriller series based on the blockbuster book by acclaimed, bestselling author Blake Crouch. The nine-episode series features an ensemble cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson, Dayo Okeniyi and Oakes Fegley. Dark Matter makes its global debut on Apple TV+ on 8 May 2024, premiering with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Wednesday through 26 June 2024.
Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series will follow Jason Dessen (played by Joel Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.
Crouch serves as executive producer, showrunner, and writer alongside executive producers Matt Tolmach and David Manpearl for Matt Tolmach Productions, and Joel Edgerton. Dark Matter is produced for Apple TV+ by Sony Pictures Television.
You can head on over here for our full review of Dark Matter.
Courtesy of Apple TV+ Malaysia, we were given the opportunity to interview Dark Matter actors Joel Edgerton (who plays protagonist Jason Dessen) and Alice Braga (who plays Amanda Lucas). This interview has been edited for clarity.
Joel Edgerton: I read the book and loved the book and found out that they were doing a series of it. I got very proactive about wanting to get involved. Blake, who wrote the book and was our showrunner and screenwriter, is so collaborative and so lovely that he invited me into the process of helping sort of break the book into the parts that would be the series, and help somewhat amplify certain aspects of character and backstory. We spent a few days doing that and it was a real honour to be involved in that process, to know that I was sort of helping to develop and build that show.
Alice Braga: Physical challenges, we had a lot. (laughs)
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, yeah. For me, weirdly, the biggest challenge was doing a fight scene with myself. You know, I didn’t realize the actual mechanics and complications that that would throw up. Doing physical scenes with myself or dialogue scenes, actually having to work opposite someone else or fight with someone and then swap roles and help educate the other person about my physicality and rhythm was a real challenge.
Alica Braga: Yeah, I think for me, it was living this journey that Amanda goes through but I think it’s so different from what it is for Joel. I think most of the challenge was just to keep track of these insane worlds that she goes through and how my road is more linear and more one character than it is for Joel. So, for me, it was more of a classic arc from point A to point B. But I think the physical challenges of the scenes that we did was amazing to go through.
Alice Braga: I think it was beautiful that Blake and everyone involved, Matt Tolmach, the producer, David Manpearl, Joel, also the producer and actor, accepted a Latina for a character that’s Latina because it’s actually giving a message to everyone that if it’s not embedded in the story that she had to be born and raised in that place specifically or that background or something, it is a possibility for any actor to play.
It doesn’t matter their nationality, and I think it gives a chance for a Latino to not only to play characters who are drug dealers or they are robbers or they are the stereotype classic Latinos that we’ve seen for so many years. I think that shows that the industry is changing and I think this group of producers and creators gave, for me, I’m very thankful for this opportunity to work with them. But also as a group to inspire the people, to show that it is possible, you know.
Joel Edgerton: I guess I often wonder about, as we all do, we look back at our lives and wonder how different choices have become integrated in who we are and how we present ourselves or how confident or anxious we might be and how many other facets of our personality are a combination of nature versus nurture.
There’s 15 years of difference between Jason One and Jason Two of experience. On one hand, you’ve got a person who’s taken on selfless responsibilities of being a family man and choosing not to pursue his dreams, and having undergone an incredible traumatic grief in his family. And those experiences have won him and edged him in one way.
On the other side, you’ve got a Jason who chose not to have the responsibilities that tied him down so that he could pursue his dreams and become very successful. Ironically, neither of them feels happy, proving yet again that success and money don’t necessarily equate to full happiness. But I feel there’s a confidence and swagger to Jason, and it’s all also really in the words, the idea that Jason Two could, in pretending to be a father with no experience, give the wrong or different advice to a son than someone who has lived and breathed the pressures of being a father and the concerns of that. So, it was very subtle nuances in the characters, essentially looking the same and moving the same but it’s really about intention.
Joel Edgerton: The excitement is getting to look at different aspects of the same character, but the real challenge is making sure that you keep track of everything because being on a linear narrative in a normal story has its own challenges but then when you talk about multiple parallel universes, it really bends your brain into pretzels. It challenges your intellect and intelligence and observational skills.
Alice Braga: I think it’s a huge challenge to keep track of everything. Not only for us actors but for everyone, the crew and every single department, for everyone, even after set, with editors and all that. But I think there’s something very enchanting about this project in my opinion, which is talking about things and subjects that are so common to all of us. If through entertainment and storytelling, we can inspire people or create change, I think that’s always beautiful.
So, in a way, if people recognize themselves with these themes that we’re talking about, just like Blake did in his book with science fiction, I think that’s a wonderful thing because through entertainment, through enjoying the ride, if people ask that question, am I happy and looking really deep and be, yes, I am. Like things are good, when you open a newspaper, I can be thankful for this or I can make this change to open a new path for my life. I think having the chance to work on a project like this as well for me, is really exciting, as much as it was exciting to read Blake’s book.
Joel Edgerton: I’m personally at a stage now where I feel like I trust my instincts and I don’t want to have any regrets. I know people will say like, everything happens for a reason and that’s supposed to make you feel better about disappointment. But I do believe it’s not about avoiding disappointment but being okay with disappointment. And I’ve had a couple of things in my life where I looked back and I used to regret them.
And now I’m like, isn’t everything that I regret also part of who I am today? And therefore what’s the point of looking backwards? Hopefully, this show can reflect on these things too, about not questioning past choices but now the next thing you hit a juncture, you start to focus more on the choice you make and go, this could lead to my multiverse and my parallel universe, and breaking through fear if fear is stopping you from making a choice that your instinct is telling you might be the one that you deeply desire.
Alice Braga: In our profession, it’s so hard because being an actor and doing auditions and stuff like that, you feel judged all the time and you feel eyes on you, and you ask, am I good enough? And it brings up those questions, so I get inspired a lot by what Joel said about instincts, about not regretting, about not looking back, and not judging whoever does regret. I find myself sometimes regretting the decisions that we had in life but I do think it’s important to not get stuck into those, the what-ifs in life should be okay, what if I had done that, maybe through inspiration I can make a change. I think, for an actor, especially for young actors who are figuring out, I think that’s a good thing to be not hard on yourself because the what-ifs can make you go on the spiral.
Check out the trailer below:
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