Jennifer Connelly "Absolutely Believes" THIS Was the Actual Ending of 'Dark Matter' Season 1 [Exclusive] (2024)

[Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Dark Matter Season 1]In just under three months, that's a wrap on Season 1 of the new Apple TV+ series, Dark Matter. Now that all nine episodes are available to stream, it's time to unpack what we've just seen and start looking at Season 2. In this interview with Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), who costars opposite Joel Edgerton's (The Gift) many alternate personas as Daniela Vargas Dessen, we find out who she really believes stepped out of that box the final time.

Dark Matter, based on the novel by author and showrunner Blake Crouch, is a sci-fi series that's all about the choices we make — or could have made. In the show, Edgerton's Jason Dessen is forced into an alternate world that sets him on a journey to track down his original life, one in which he always wondered if he'd made the "right" choices. Through desperate trials and errors that involve Alice Braga (Queen of the South), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld), Dayo Okeniyi (See), and Oakes Fegley (The Fabelmans) in the mix, Jason does finally manage to step through a door that reunites him with his original family — or so we're led to believe.

What does Connelly think? Collider's Steve Weintraub discusses the possibilities that the Season 1 finale offers up, and the actress shares her own thoughts on which Jason really returned. They discuss what might await the family beyond the box, what potential Season 2 could hold, and why working with Crouch was vital on set. Connelly also talks about Daniela's journey and whether she, herself, would ever enter the box.

You can watch the conversation in the video above or read the full transcript below.

Dark Matter (2024)

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A man is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could've lived, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from a most terrifying foe: himself.

Release Date

May 8, 2024

Cast

Joel Edgerton , Jennifer Connelly , Alice Braga , Jimmi Simpson , Oakes Fegley , Dayo Okeniyi

Main Genre

Sci-Fi

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Blake Crouch

See Also

Die Filmstarts-Kritik zu Die FabelmansThe Fabelmans | Rotten TomatoesSteven Spielberg: The Origin StoryThe Fabelmans (2022) - About the Movie | Amblin

Writers

Blake Crouch

Directors

Jakob Verbruggen

COLLIDER: I’ve got to start with the most important thing. Did you know that they have made a Labyrinth pinball machine, and have you played it?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I did not know. No, I haven't, but that sounds awesome.

David Bowie's all over it, but you really need to check it out just on principle.

CONNELLY: I'd love to. I'll look it up.

If you actually were presented with the box in real life, and you could go in and travel to who knows where and most likely return home, but you don't know, would you actually go in? You could experience wonder and amazement, or who the hell knows?

CONNELLY: Would I be going in by myself, or could I bring my entire family and my Golden Retriever, Wallace?

I think the box is big enough to do all this.

CONNELLY: There's no way I'm leaving any of those people or creatures, so if we can all go and everyone's on board, it's still a maybe. It's still a maybe. It's a hard maybe.

I think that's actually very honest. It would be a maybe for me, as well.

CONNELLY: Yeah, it's a hard maybe. I don't know. Especially the way that it works in our story and how easy it is to influence the outcome of where you wind up. That’s five of us, plus Wallace, to think about frame of mind. She's a pretty fearful doggy. I'm not sure.

Daniela's 'Dark Matter' Journey

This had to be a very cool show to film just because of the layers upon layers of what's going on in each scene. What is it like as an actor — and I'm sure for Joel it was very challenging — for you to figure out different versions?

CONNELLY: For me, it was really fun. I like the different chapters of it. Most of my time in the show I'm playing one iteration of my character, which we called, very creatively, Daniela 1. She has an interesting — I thought it was interesting — journey, where she's presented with this version of her husband who's kind of a new and improved version of her husband, and it's kind of great, but then it just starts to feel different. Then she goes through this sleuthing chapter trying to figure out what's really going on, and then it becomes more and more disturbing. I enjoyed that journey for her. Then also what happens when he comes back and she's confronted with that. I thought that was a really interesting thing to have to try and imagine someone reckoning with and reconciling.

In terms of playing the different versions of the character, for me, it was really fun. It was not the same kind of endeavor as it was for Joel, who had to do scenes with different versions of himself, and it was much more to wrangle in that way. For me, they were really separated by time, by episode, and were quite distinct from one another. So it was just sort of fun, honestly, for me, that process.

What are you actually most looking forward to audiences seeing because there are a lot of layers to this show?

CONNELLY: I think it has a lot going on in a really fun way. I think it was a smart way to use the idea of a multiverse in this show. I feel like I haven't seen this use of that idea before. While I've seen other multiverse stories, I haven't seen it used in this way where it's like these characters, who are kind of working through, frankly, a marriage, like a 20-year marriage. They've come to this place in their lives where they're taking inventory of how they've lived, the choices that they've made, the regrets that they have, and the things that they've gone through, and it's playing out in this multiverse story. But they're not going to these far-off places. They're going to different versions of their own lives and different versions of the city that they live in, and meeting different versions of themselves that are sometimes even just slightly, slightly off. I thought that was a really fun ride in the book, and I thought it was a fun ride when I read the scripts, as well.

Jennifer Connelly "Absolutely Believes" This Was the Ending of 'Dark Matter' Season 1

What do you think about the very end of the series? You can look at it where Jason makes it back to his family, but you can also look at it that it's an alt version of Jason and an alt version of his family that are just slightly different, but no one will ever know.

CONNELLY: I felt like it was our original version of Jason and our original version of Daniela who came back together. I absolutely believe that.

That’s what Blake wants the audience to feel.

CONNELLY: I absolutely believe that. I absolutely believe that, but I don't think that they know that initially when they first are reunited. I think he knows that, but I don't think that she knows that. Once she realizes that there are other versions of all of us somewhere, I don't think she believes that or trusts that. But I think in that time that they spend together, I believe that she found him again and knew that it was him again and chose him again.

Sure. You can also make the argument, and this is me just playing devil's advocate, that one of the 100 standing there is actually the Jason. It could just be a five-minute difference. You never know.

CONNELLY: That's true.

It’s crazy. That's what's great about it is that you can play those mind games.

CONNELLY: That's true.

Yeah, who knows? At the very end of the show, you guys are reunited; you walk through a doorway and go into a new world. Did Blake or anyone tell you what that world was, or is it sort of like everyone's imagination?

CONNELLY: I don't think we know what it is yet because we were just sort of stepping through the portal. We didn't talk about it because literally all we do is kind of take one step. So, we'll have to see.

I'm just curious, as an actor, were you like, “Blake, where did we end up?”

CONNELLY: No, weirdly. I didn't. I didn't have that conversation with him. For better or worse, whatever that says about me. No, we didn't have that conversation.

One of my favorite shots, it’s Episode 8 or 9, and you are in the locker and you were looking at the alt money, the John F. Kennedy bills, the $2,000 bills. I love that because it's little subtle sci-fi. Did you end up borrowing any of those bills?

CONNELLY: [Laughs] I didn't. I should have. They were really great. But no, I didn't.

Author Blake Crouch Kept 'Dark Matter' From Becoming "Disjointed"

What do you think would surprise people to learn about the making of the show that maybe was unique to this, or is every show basically the same with slight variances?

CONNELLY: I don't know. I don't have enough experience making shows. I've really made two, so I don't have enough experience to say what's unique and what's a common thread. One thing that's different, obviously, is the amount of time that you spend making them, so those relationships with the people that you're working with become really important because it's not two months or six weeks, even, that sometimes you have on a film. We started filming in September and I think we finished in, like, April. It's really a significant portion of time that you're spending with them, so those relationships become really meaningful.

And in this case, it was a really happy experience making the show. Everyone was lovely. Blake is great to work with. He was on set every day, and he was really our onset leader and point person. It was so great to have the person who had written the book there as our showrunner and writer, whom we could ask questions of. Obviously, he holds that material, so it was really wonderful to have him there. It felt like in him, we had a real throughline. I know sometimes shows can become more disjointed as different directors come in, but with Blake, we had that stability and it was really tethered in that way to that origin story and his viewpoint. So, I really enjoyed that about the show.

All nine episodes of Dark Matter Season 1 are available to stream on Apple TV+.

Watch on Apple TV