What happens when you have to look at yourself in the mirror and see who you are? What happens if there are a lot of mirrors? Dark Matter, the Apple TV sci-fi action drama, takes every version of who you may or may not think you are and puts you dead center on the front of yourself.
LISTEN NOW: Dayo Okeniyi on 'Dark Matter'
Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels and celebrating the 10th anniversary of its release this year, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. Alongside Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly, Dayo Okeniyi is the one you have to watch out for. His character, Leighton, chases his grand vision of creating a perfect world.
Dayo sat down for a Romeo International to share insight into the character and how he was able to separate himself from himself.
When the writing is in front of you, you have to split yourself between the same individuals. How do you balance that in a single series? Because technically you are playing multiple versions of yourself.
"No, I hear you, man. I think that’s a very astute observation, bro, because the truth of the matter is I love playing polarizing characters. The moment you play a character that people are going back and forth about and they're sold about and they're like, 'oh, do I like this guy?' You're onto something. That means the audience is still on their back foot. They're still trying to figure you out. And I think that means that we're tapping into the complexity of people, man."
"Sometimes I like myself, sometimes I don't like myself. Since I was like, 'damn, bro, why you see that dumb s***, bro?' You know, sometimes you're like, 'yeah, I'm the man. Yeah, I'm him.' And you look in the mirror, you big yourself up. So like, to me, I always like playing a character that kind of is, I mean, he ultimately speaking latent is me. So I should like him equally and not like him equally. I should be able to hold him accountable for some of the things that he does and I should be able to root for him for the things where he wants to be better."
"That is what the whole show is wrapped around. You know, 'Dark Matter' is just wrapped around, who would you be if you had made different choices, right? I guess somebody would argue, it's who would you be if you had made all the right choices in life. And I think I think people come to find that you might not really necessarily like that version of you that made all the right choices or you might love that version of you so much that you start to resent who you are. It's the complicated nature of us in general. We all sit down and wonder, what if I'd married that girl or gone to that school or, all the different things, you know? So I think that that's just what it is. And if people are polarized on Leighton in that way, I feel like we're doing the right thing because, it's never that simple. You shouldn't just look at a character and go, 'oh man, he's all evil or he's all good. Nobody in this world is all evil. So yeah, we love the complexity of that.
Dark Matter season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV.
'Dark Matter' season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV
'Dark Matter' season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV
