Joel Edgerton & Alice Braga Call Dark Matter “The Multiverse For The Middle-Aged Man”

Summary

• Dark Matter
  explores the multiverse to delve into questions of choice and regret, focusing on the humanity of its characters.
• The show’s unique take on alternate realities allows characters to go on internal journeys, questioning their paths and finding empathy and self-love.
• Actors Joel Edgerton and Alice Braga discuss their approach to playing different versions of their characters, emphasizing the importance of intentionality.

Jason Dessen is a college professor and family man living in Chicago whose life is turned upside down when he is abducted and shunted into an alternate reality in Dark Matter. Desperate to find a way home, he begins the impossible task of traveling across the multiverse in search of his reality. However, while he will face many threats, he’ll soon learn that his most dangerous foe it in fact himself.

Dark Matter is based on Blake Crouch’s acclaimed novel of the same name which debuts in 2016, years before the multiverse boon. Crouch served as executive producer and showrunner of the adaptation. Dark Matter uses the multiverse concept to explore questions that everyone grapples with at some point in their life, “What if I made a different choice? How would that have changed my course in life?”

Screen Rant interviewed stars Joel Edgerton and Alice Braga about their new Apple TV+ series Dark Matter. Edgerton explained how he approached the different versions of his character and how Dark Matter stands out from other multiverse projects. Braga discussed what drew her to the project and how Amanda’s story is more internally motivated while the other characters are driven by an external desire.

Joel Edgerton Explains How Crafting The Different Versions Of Jason “Came Down To The Intentionality”

Edgerton’s character, Jason, is at the heart of the multiverse in Dark Matter, with one version stealing the life of another. He explained how he approached playing these different versions of Jason given their lack of physical difference. Braga praised Edgerton’s ability to add depth and nuance to Jason2’s story.

Joel Edgerton: Well, the one thing we kind of realized early on was that if Jason2, as I call him, was going to pretend to take over or be part of the life of Jason1’s family, they couldn’t really look any different to each other. So the pressure was off there. So it really came down to the intentionality of things. And I think the show is very smart. It doesn’t give you any sense of a Chiron or anything to tell you, now we’re in this, well, now we’re in there. It’s really about the subtle differences of intention.

I really thought a lot about the book, which I love, but there’s a certain coldness to Jason2, and almost lack of remorse. I thought it was good for the show that there’s a journey for him to experience guilt and the fear of being caught, but certainly guilt of stealing something from another person, which is their life. And what those feelings that can then evolve into feeling the regret of making that decision and moving closer towards an empathetic position of going, I have to acknowledge that I’ve done the wrong thing, potentially.

I’m being relatively cryptic and hopefully not spoilery about it. So really the difference of the characters was about intention. One character is just lost, questioning his sanity, and then realizing he needs to find his way home. There’s a desperation and a real determination to that. And on the other side is really just this person hoping to not be discovered, for the family not to realize there’s a double agent in the house, so to speak.

Alice Braga: But it’s wonderful that, I remember when we first started reading that you always were careful to not make Jason2 a villain. You have the humanity of it because it’s just a different point of view and a different way of living, but to not make him an obvious mean person. It’s just like he had different reasons. I always admire that in Joel’s work, but I was seeing from close it was that it shouldn’t be, Oh, he’s a villain. This is the good guy. I remember feeling that from you.

Joel Edgerton: This is true. Alice said something earlier about for all the differentiation of different characters, every character essentially up until a certain point is, I think you described as the trunk of a tree. The base level qualities are the same. It’s just the different branches that they move out on through experience creates a different direction of personality or complications and all that stuff. So I do believe that all of the Jasons at their core are decent people, and I really believe that about all human beings, their decent people by circumstances make decisions that creates judgment potentially of, You’re a bad dude.

Braga revealed that she read the book after reading the scripts for the first couple of episodes of the series. She also discussed how the humanity of the characters, which is at the heart of Dark Matter, is what drew her to the project.

Alice Braga: I read the two first episodes and then I read the book. Finally, I got to read the book afterwards, and I completely fell in love with Blake’s work, especially because he’s a writer for science fiction, but all his books and all his work, it’s very much character driven and emotion driven. I thought it was really interesting to jump in a world like this, what Dark Matter speaks, but with characters that go through what everyone all of us go through. Which is about regret, about life choices, about family, about love, about longing, about desire, about all of these details that all of us as humans we go through.

Getting the chance to play a character like [Amanda] in a world like this and going through everything that she goes through sounded like a nice, beautiful challenge to kind of create this journey with a character that is going through so much. Which is what Jason’s goes through, which is being hijacked from one world, put into a different world, and trying to go back home. So I thought it was a wonderful story to be told.

Dark Matter Uses The Multiverse “As A Way To Look Inward”

Multiverse stories have taken over the box office and television screens, especially in the superhero genre, but projects like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Dark Matter use the science fiction frame of the multiverse to focus on the humanity of the characters. Dark Matter is a human story about loss, regret, and the desire to go down the path one did not travel. Edgerton explained how Dark Matter stands out.

Joel Edgerton: I call it the multiverse for the middle-aged man. In all seriousness, I loved Everything Everywhere All At Once. I love this general concept of being able to explore alternate realities. Quite often, they become big, expansive things that explore these crazy visual effects worlds. We do a little bit of that, but for the most part, we’re using this multiverse alternate reality concept as a way to look inward to ourselves about the road not taken, about what ifs, about all of these deep human things that we think about.

I think we all wonder about key decisions in our life, and how we would’ve evolved down that road instead of the road we chose. We use that concept, and I joke about multiverse for the middle-aged man, [but] alternate realities in a suburban, everyperson, average human being way become a really interesting story to tell. We don’t need to have capes flying off our backs and laser guns in order for it to actually be a really rich narrative.

While both Jasons and Leighton are searching for something specific as they travel through different dimensions, Amanda’s journey isn’t as straightforward. She begins her journey out of a desire to help the displaced Jason and then is forced to question her future and where she fits in the universe.

Alice Braga: She ends up in this journey because she wants to save Jason1 from what she feels completely a part of that has gone to a terrible, wrong direction than what she believed in the beginning was meant to be. But also throughout the journey inside the box with someone that she’s clearly deeply admiring as a human being. She understands that there’s a lot about her life also that she was hiding from herself. And then through this journey, she starts kind of working it out and deciding to go on a new path.

So I think that’s why it’s more internal, because it’s not about one has a drive to go back home because of the love of his life, because of the love for his son, for his family, from where he is. That’s his life. The other one, depending on what Leighton we’re talking about, is very money driven, success, business, and wants that material thing. I think for her, she finds herself on a road of empathy and self love. Maybe when we see her first, she’s lost in her own world and then she finds her journey with this man on what she really wants for herself.

I think what Joel was saying about this type of alternative realities that we’re talking on the show [being] different than superheroes and all that, it’s a huge possibility for people who are watching the show, even if it’s entertainment, they really question themselves and understand that choice led to something positive or really opening someone’s heart and mind for that. I think it really brings proximity to the audience because we’re not wearing a cape, we’re just a psychiatrist. We’re just a teacher. I think it can inspire in that way instead of being somewhere wearing a cape or having superpowers.

About Dark Matter

Based on Blake Crouch’s international bestseller. Jason Dessen is abducted into an alternate version of his life. To get back to his true family, he embarks on a harrowing journey to save them from the most terrifying foe imaginable: himself.

Check out our other Dark Matter interviews here:

Dark Matter

debuts on Apple TV+ on May 8.

Source: Screen Rant Plus