Creator/Writer Peter Harness, Series Director Michelle MacLaran and Actors Noomi Rapace, Jonathan Banks, Will Cartlett & James D’Arcy talk to The Inside Reel about concept, psyche, perspective and existence in regards to their new science fiction thriller series: “Constellation” on Apple TV+.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:12 You need to help me.
00:13 I need to go back to her.
00:18 No!
00:19 Do I seem the same to you?
00:28 I just don't feel like you're my mom.
00:30 The aspect of the concept of the show,
00:38 it can be done so many different ways.
00:40 What was your truth in trying to figure out
00:44 what the structure needed to be?
00:46 Because it has to be very precise.
00:47 And then to go to Michelle to direct it has to be very
00:51 precise.
00:52 So can you sort of talk about that?
00:53 Because it can operate as a thriller,
00:54 but also as an existential journey.
00:59 Yeah, I mean, I think that really, really
01:03 the key thing for me was getting that relationship
01:08 of the mother and daughter right.
01:12 And that's a very relatable and understandable relationship
01:17 of the kind of fear of being separated from your child,
01:21 a child's fear of being separated from the parent.
01:25 That was really the starting point.
01:29 Because I'd had this weird experience once
01:32 of staying in a cabin in the woods in Sweden
01:35 and hearing this little girl crying out
01:37 for her mother every night and being unable to find her.
01:42 And I still don't know whether she was real or not.
01:46 And then when I came to kind of write a story about somebody
01:49 trapped up on the ISS, that very naturally became
01:54 a mum looking for her daughter.
01:56 And then that little ghost girl from the forest
01:58 became a daughter looking for her mum.
02:01 So it was those two things and working out
02:05 kind of how the little girl ended up in the forest
02:08 and how the mum ended up trapped on the ISS
02:11 and how those joined together.
02:13 That kind of key emotional story was getting that right,
02:18 enabled everything to slot into place as I went, basically.
02:25 I miss you so much.
02:27 I miss you too, Mama.
02:29 Will you be careful out there?
02:30 Always.
02:31 Mummy!
02:45 I'm very happy to be back home.
02:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:49 But things are different.
02:50 I have a piano in my house.
02:56 And I don't play the piano.
02:57 Do you have hallucinations?
03:01 Mama?
03:02 Yeah.
03:06 It's wonderful to talk to both of you,
03:08 especially for such a dynamic series that on the surface,
03:12 of course, is science fiction thriller
03:14 but is about existence in many ways.
03:18 Could you guys sort of talk about that?
03:20 It's sort of interesting because just a few different details
03:24 can change who we are in our reality.
03:26 And this is what this sort of explores.
03:28 Can you talk about looking at the psyche involved in that?
03:32 Obviously, each of the characters
03:34 is different in very specific ways.
03:38 Yes.
03:38 Wow.
03:39 And thank you for your take on this.
03:41 I'm inspiring to hear that.
03:43 I do-- when I was seven, I had a horrible realization that
03:50 made me really sad because no one--
03:52 I was like, no one would ever understand
03:53 what's going on in my head.
03:55 It's just me that knows what this is
03:59 and what's happening in my head.
04:01 And then when I grew older and the more--
04:04 the older I get, what is real and what is truth?
04:08 I might sit here-- me and Johnny might have an argument.
04:12 And then I said, you said this, you did that.
04:14 And he's like, no, I did not.
04:15 And I was like, yeah, but it felt like you did that.
04:19 So what is really real?
04:20 And I think in our--
04:23 when you have an emotional truth,
04:25 it might not fit the physical truth.
04:28 And I feel like this series is really
04:30 exploring different perspectives of life and truth
04:34 and possibilities.
04:36 And I say this, that whatever you're thinking
04:40 may not be the reality of what's going on.
04:42 And we see that happening over and over and over again
04:45 in any given day of our lives.
04:48 You're paying attention.
04:49 We were six seconds into deploying the laser
04:51 at the time of the accident.
04:53 The Cal would have retrieved information
04:56 within 2 millionths of a second.
04:57 Keep it below minus 120 degrees and get a retrieval plan.
05:01 Commander, there's a signal from the Cal.
05:05 Something's coming through.
05:06 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
05:08 Commander Henry Caldera, chief scientific consultant,
05:12 rocket propulsion laboratories.
05:14 Look.
05:15 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
05:17 [INAUDIBLE]
05:20 So we have a serious collision on the ISS.
05:25 We need to discuss a full evacuation.
05:29 Being grounded, like you said, when there's no ground,
05:33 I think each character is trying to find their footing.
05:36 And they just can't.
05:38 They get close to an answer, then maybe something
05:41 is offered to you, like medication,
05:44 to put you in another space, another time, another reality.
05:48 So it's like I'm trying to find my footing.
05:50 And how many people in life are in that right now?
05:53 I'm just trying to find my footing.
05:54 And I think the way Michelle captures it,
05:58 and Oliver, and Joseph, these are great artists of our time.
06:04 And they're able to put things on screen
06:08 that are so beautiful, but yet so epic, and yet so poetic.
06:12 Joe, you need to head to the truss
06:14 to fix secondary life support.
06:16 Otherwise, there won't be power or oxygen for the crew
06:19 repairs on Soyuz 1.
06:20 Copy.
06:22 Keep in mind, we have no cameras on the truss.
06:24 They are all down.
06:26 We are flying blind from here.
06:28 OK.
06:29 Heading over to secondary life support system.
06:32 OK, Joe.
06:35 28, 29, 30.
06:36 Stop.
06:37 Clear.
06:38 [BEEPING]
06:40 Start.
06:41 1 and 2 and--
06:42 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:45 Rounding edge of PMM.
06:57 The truss is coming into view.
06:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:02 And for a show so very--
07:13 it's complicated, yet it's simple in its humanity,
07:17 in many ways.
07:19 Could you guys talk about that?
07:20 Because-- and I won't give too much away,
07:22 but it's about the North Star, the truth of each character
07:25 sort of peeing through no matter where they are.
07:28 Without giving anything away, can you
07:30 talk about sort of that notion within each character?
07:33 I would say that this is a very intimate story, actually.
07:37 But it is told in an absolutely epic way.
07:42 You know, it's a genre-bending--
07:47 almost defies description.
07:48 But it's kind of a--
07:49 it starts out, you think it's a sci-fi,
07:51 but it morphs maybe into more of a thriller.
07:54 Or perhaps it's a family drama.
07:56 Or is it a conspiracy theory show?
08:00 And actually, it's all of those things.
08:03 And it's none of those things.
08:04 Because what I think it is--
08:05 and everybody's going to have their own opinion.
08:07 But what I think it is is a complex meditation
08:10 on the nature of humanity.
08:14 And that was, for me, the thing that really hooked me
08:17 into the show was, it's got all this huge production value.
08:20 It's epic.
08:21 And it's incredibly-- you know, the production value
08:24 is incredible.
08:25 But it's really about human beings
08:27 trying to connect in extremis.
08:29 And you know, I mean, just to go back to what happened in 2020,
08:35 that's something that I've been thinking about a lot since then.
08:38 And I know I'm not the only person on planet Earth
08:40 who's been thinking about that.
08:42 So I love that our genius creator, Peter Harness,
08:46 has been able to help us to ask those questions
08:49 and start talking about it more through this huge,
08:52 amazing entertainment.
08:55 I like your hair like that.
08:56 I don't give a lot of consideration to my hair.
09:03 The older you get, the better you look.
09:05 Well, dang nabbit.
09:13 I think I just got a compliment.
09:20 I've missed you.
09:21 I've missed you too, Joe.
09:26 It kind of felt like I was drowning.
09:36 You know?
09:38 Oh.
09:39 Sorry.
09:43 I'm sorry I put you through that.
09:44 No, no, no.
09:47 That's what we shook hands on.
09:49 Right?
09:50 But to go off that, but you have to hold on to something
09:53 with a character to really make it feel real for you.
09:57 Correct.
09:58 100%.
09:58 I mean, that's where Peter Harness' writing comes--
10:01 it's so powerful and so strong.
10:03 It's like a monument.
10:05 You know, we always--
10:06 I felt every day I had like a clear--
10:09 sort of like a roadmap.
10:11 You know the main route, and then it's
10:13 like a lot of things happens.
10:15 Like I'm driving from this place to that place,
10:19 and then you just see a lot of things
10:21 when you look out at like the rear view mirror.
10:24 It's like, wait, what was that?
10:25 And then you look back, it's not there anymore.
10:27 But you're still in your vehicle,
10:29 and it's still very real, and you're still
10:30 a human who is doing something that you can relate to.
10:34 So I think, I mean, the combination with his writing
10:38 has something very substantial and very matter of facty
10:42 about it.
10:43 Well, from my characters, the matter of fact is this.
10:48 Henry wants his machine retrieved.
10:52 That's what he needs.
10:55 Bud wants his place in the sun, and for both of them,
11:01 it's at all costs.
11:02 I'm going to run right over you to get what I want.
11:06 I invented a machine we took into space,
11:09 and I saw something.
11:10 But it seems like it doesn't want to be seen.
11:14 People see things up there.
11:17 And when they get back, they go crazy.
11:21 This isn't madness.
11:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:27 [GUNSHOTS]
11:28 [SCREAMING]
11:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:32 [GUNSHOTS]
11:36 [GUNSHOTS]
11:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]