Noomi Rapace is a ‘force of nature’ in the ISS thriller

A space adventure combined with a study of human psychology, the new series Constellation on Apple TV+, starring Noomi Rapace, James D’Arcy, Jonathan Banks, William Catlett and Davina and Rosie Coleman, is a fascinating exploration of loss, uncertainty, conspiracy and family.

Constellation release date: February 21st
Where to watch Constellation: AppleTV+
Creator and showrunner: Peter Harnas
Directors: Michelle MacLaren, Joseph Cedar, Oliver Hirschbiegel
Form: Noomi Rapace, James D’Arcy, Jonathan Banks, William Catlett, Davina Coleman, Rosie Coleman, Barbara Sukowa, Julian Looman, Rebecca Scroggs
Number of episodes: 8

What is ‘Constellation’ about?

In Constellation we meet the five-person team on the International Space Station (ISS), including Johanna “Jo” Ericsson (Noomi Rapace), who has a husband, Magnus (James D’Arcy), and a daughter, Alice (Davina Coleman and Rosie Coleman) , who is waiting for her at home in Germany.

But when the ISS is involved in a collision, especially affecting Paul Lancaster (William Catlett), Jo goes on a spacewalk to find the source of the collision, and she sees something terrifying.

Although Jo is adamant she knows what she saw, things become more complicated on Earth because no one believes her. Even more bizarre is that the entire reality of what Jo thought her life was has changed.

In addition, the tests that the members of the ISS had conducted included an experiment by Henry Caldera (Jonathan Banks), who was previously an astronaut on the Apollo mission, and Henry insists that the device be recovered for his research into quantum physics. Henry also has a twin brother, Bud, also a former astronaut, but they have led opposite lives after going to space.

For banks, on to Constellation was recommended by one of the series’ directors, Michelle MacLaren, who also worked on it Break bad And You better call Saul with the star.

“Jonathan is an incredibly talented character and can play a variety of roles,” MacLaren said Yahoo Canada. “We needed someone who could… play two different characters, but in a subtle way, and I knew Jonathan could do it.”

“I also felt like it was a step away from what he had been playing for a while. I had hoped it would excite him, and it did. … I love working with Jonathan, he always swings for the fences .”

“You don’t say no to Michelle,” Banks said in a separate interview.

“I’m the biggest ‘yes, dear’ man in the world, once you hold me together. … She put her finger on my chest once, when I was complaining about how long it took her to make a shot, and she put her finger on my chest and said, “Am I making you look good?” And I said, ‘Yes.'”

Being a mother who is involved in her work

Constellation is part adventure story, part thriller, part conspiracy story, but at the heart of the series is a family-centered story.

“At the heart of it is a mother and her daughter who are separated, and how they managed to get back together,” said showrunner Peter Harness. “Obviously they were separated under quite unusual circumstances, but I think that’s very relatable to people. I think the whole family dynamic is very relatable.”

“As long as you follow an emotional journey that you can understand, it gives you the freedom to take a lot of other things with you. And I think we’ve been really keen to anchor it in reality as well. possibly, the ISS and the various space agencies, and the reality of being an astronaut and how that can affect people. So we tried to be very grounded and emotionally centered, to let all these other weird and wonderful things happen. around it.”

As James D’Arcy emphasized, the “beating heart” of the show for the actor was the family element.

“When I first read the scripts, the character Alice… was my way into the show,” he said. “We’re so used to great production value and brilliant visual effects, and everything else. I want to feel.”

“I hope this show is really going to help people on this crazy, complex, twisty journey because they’re invested in the people, in the characters.”

For Rapace, she felt a connection with Jo trying to balance motherhood and a job that takes her away from her family, heightened by the circumstances she faces during this particular incident.

“The endless question that I’ve been fighting with myself, because I’m a mother and… I love my job so much, and I’m willing to go the extra mile, as far as it takes, over and over again,” Rapace said. “Sometimes I seriously hurt myself on set, and my son would come in because he was worried about me or didn’t recognize me.”

“Because I am a mother and I love my work, and that conflict,… Jo lived more and more in that way, and in the most extreme. That is the heartbeat for me. That is the core, that is the backbone of her journey.”

Noomi Rapace is ‘a force of nature’

From the physical demands of playing a character in space, to the emotional toll faced by Jo, both the cast and crew of Constellation quickly discovered that the role required an actor of Rapace’s caliber.

“Noomi is the perfect actress for this role, both emotionally and physically,” said director MacLaren. “And one of the things we learned very early on is that astronauts are constantly practicing ‘what if’ every day they’re on the ISS.”

“So Noomi and I talked about it a lot: OK if the accident happens, they go into survival mode, they know their procedures, they know what to do, so they’re not going to panic even if it does.” Scary, and their lives are at stake… So we had to find the balance between being a trained professional, being strong and powerful, and the vulnerability, the fear, the motherhood wanting to get back to her daughter. She herself is so powerful and strong that she is a force to be reckoned with. I mean, she’s a force of nature. So she embraced this really well.”

As Rapace recalled, to truly embody an astronaut, there were months of preparation filled with a strict diet, specific workouts every day, and general work on “body control.”

“It was all about finding a flow and having so much control over everything, and letting go and liberating the physical attention, and being able to feel and act, and be present in the scene,” said Rapace. “It was really challenging, but I loved it. It was honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

Why ‘Constellation’ brought star William Catlett to tears

But to bring something of this country to the audience and make you feel as authentic as the crew behind the series wanted to do, it took an investment to execute the required details.

As William Catlett highlighted, MacLaren in particular wanted to make sure everything felt “as real as possible,” which he says makes her “one of the best directors” in the business.

“When I saw the first two episodes, I cried a little during the screening because I’ve been waiting a long time to be part of a project… that has the bells and whistles to make the art look like this ,” Catlett said. “So being on the ISS is duplicating the one in space, and talking to it [NASA astronaut] Scott Kelly, and getting his experience, eating with him and soaking it all in, that’s every actor’s dream.”

“It makes it real for the viewer and I think Apple did a great job of giving us the support we needed to make a hit show. They spared no effort to make sure it felt good and that it felt real. You felt that support.”

In addition to the stunning visuals, Constellation really stands out from other drama series because of the psychological component that drives the story. It is human psychology and the human behavioral element that is particularly complex and compelling.

“What really appealed about Peter Harness’s writing was that he took difficult psychological situations and then turned the screw every 15 minutes, making it worse,” D’Arcy said. “And just when you think you have a handle on what’s going on, he’ll show you from a slightly different angle.”

“The nice thing about that as an actor is that normally you can portray any given situation in one way, and that’s it. This show offers a slightly different version of that. Maybe you can even explore the hidden recesses of I think all of our thoughts. Who doesn’t live in multiple realities at the same time?”

“There’s the A-side of the tape and there’s the B-side of the tape. It’s still the tape, but you have a different emotional response to the A-side, and a different emotional response to the B- side,” Catlett added.

As Harness explained, it was a fascination with “altered mental states” and people’s perception of circumstances that was particularly intriguing to this series.

“What Jo is going through is largely based on a real psychological condition called Capgras Syndrome, where people genuinely believe that people are impostors,” Harness said.

“From the outside you can of course look at that and see that that is not true, but what must that feel like from the inside, to really believe that I cannot let go of the idea that you are a fraud and that the world That is not right. I I think the fear of living in there, even if it’s produced by your own guilt brain, or especially if it’s produced by your own brain, is just as horrifying as anything else. … It’s always interesting to try to get over convey what a certain mental status is like for everyone, because everyone’s reality is real for them.