Summary

• Requiem for a Dream was a pivotal project for Jennifer Connelly, and one that she fought for.
• The film's creative atmosphere, innovative cinematography, and powerful music made it an electric and groundbreaking experience for Connelly.
• In Apple TV+'s Dark Matter, Connelly portrays different versions of herself in a reality-hopping romance with Joel Edgerton, from writer Blake Crouch.

We spoke with Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly about her new Apple TV+ series with Joel Edgerton and Alice Braga, Dark Matter, which proposes the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to create a reality-hopping romantic epic. In this reality, however, we're fast approaching the 25th anniversary of Requiem for a Dream, one of Connelly's most affecting performances (in a career of many, from Dark City and Little Children to A Beautiful Mind and Top Gun: Maverick). The Darren Aronofsky film is well-known for being one of the most harrowing and upsetting of all time, but Connelly looks back on it with palpable joy. (Watch our interview below.)

"It was an amazing experience," said Connelly when thinking of filming Requiem for a Dream. "For me. I remember feeling like I fought so hard to get that job. I auditioned so many times, and I was so excited. I just felt like, what a great role and opportunity. And even though the content was really intense, I felt so — there was so much to think about and do, and I felt so kind of excited by it and fulfilled by it." She continued:

"And there were so many people on that job who were kind of like, just exploding with creativity. I think that Darren had so many amazing ideas, and [cinematographer] Matthew Libatique, you know, the way he was shooting, it felt really pioneering. And the music! So it was a really exciting project to be involved with at that time. It felt like people were making really brave choices, and it was like, it was kind of electric on that set."

If you haven't seen Requiem for a Dream, the film was the big breakthrough of Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler, The Whale) after his masterful indie picture, Pi. The movie starred Connelly alongside Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Marlon Wayans, and focused on the ramifications of drug use on both a recreational and pharmaceutical level (and its relationship to genuine happiness), the tragedy of loneliness and desperation, and the ways we let ourselves get exploited in pursuit of connection or comfort.

Connelly plays Marion Silver, who is in a heroin-addled romantic relationship with Harry (Leto), and is eventually convinced to do sex work to fund their addictions. Meanwhile, Harry's mother (Burstyn) descends into amphetamine psychosis after trying to lose weight and appear on a game show. Requiem for a Dream is understandably considered one of the most depressing films to watch, the apotheosis of Aronofsky's obsession with pain and misery.

Jennifer Connelly Plays Multiple Versions of Herself in Dark Matter

Nearly 25 years later, Jennifer Connelly is playing a woman involved in a very different relationship, in Dark Matter. Nonetheless, this is also a project that meditates on romance, albeit in a very different way. She plays an art gallery curator and long-time wife to physics professor Jason, played by Joel Edgerton. When Jason is thrust out of his own reality and sent into one where he's not married and is instead a famous rich scientist, the confused man embarks on an often terrifying quest to return home to his original reality.

We get to see a few different versions of Connelly along the way, and it's fun and fascinating to see her as a long-time mother and wife, a single and renowned artist with sultry confidence, an art gallery owner decked out in platinum blonde hair, and even an infected survivor of a deadly pandemic. It's a great acting exercise for Connelly, but at the end of the day, it's her main role in the show that is tenderly and subtly portrayed.

The series will premiere globally on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, followed by one new episode weekly through June 26, 2024. You can watch it through the link below:

Watch Dark Matter