What if you could see another version of your life? That question is central to Dark Matter, and when I spoke with Alice Braga ahead of the Season 2 premiere, our conversation quickly turned into something much more personal.
Braga, who plays Amanda in the Apple TV series, has spent much of the show’s first season navigating a world where alternate realities force its characters to confront the lives they could have lived. But as we discussed Amanda’s journey, the conversation became less about the science fiction and more about something all of us understand: the “what ifs” we carry with us.
“We all sometimes question ourselves,” Braga said, referring to regrets, ideas, and the roads not taken that can pull us away from the present.
For Braga, working on Dark Matter has even changed her own perspective on those questions.
The series asks whether another life would actually be better if we had made a different choice. But Braga’s answer is increasingly clear: there is no perfect world and there is no perfect choice. Instead, we have to make the life we’re living as great as it can be.
That idea immediately made me think of one of my favorite moments from Season 1: Amanda and Jason One dancing to Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.”
Jason One initially says he doesn’t dance, prompting Amanda to remind him that the other version of him didn’t dance either. So why not just let go, be silly, make a mess of yourself and enjoy the moment?
For me, that scene perfectly captured what Braga was talking about. Sometimes the best thing we can do is stop worrying about the version of our lives that might have existed and simply experience the one that is happening right now.
“You don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Braga said. “Just enjoy what it is right here, right now.”
That sentiment resonated with me personally. Like plenty of people, I’ve had moments where I’ve wondered what my life might look like if I’d made a different decision or taken another path.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I probably wouldn’t change it.
Everything that has happened up to this point—including the decisions that didn’t seem particularly important at the time—helped put me on the path that led me here.
Braga had the perfect response.
“It’s what made you you.”
And that’s perhaps one of the most meaningful ideas at the center of Dark Matter. Seeing another possible life doesn’t necessarily mean it is a better life. Every choice creates consequences, and every experience becomes part of the person we ultimately become.
Our conversation did eventually turn toward Season 2. Without giving away too much, Braga teased that the new season explores the consequences of the Box and how those consequences affect the characters both externally and internally.
“There’s a lot of action, there’s a lot of entertainment,” Braga said, but there are also questions about how the characters can navigate these new realities, survive them, and ultimately find themselves at home.
So while Dark Matter may be built around alternate universes, the questions it raises are remarkably grounded. What if I had chosen differently? What if another version of my life is better?
And perhaps most importantly: What if the life I’m living right now is the one I was always meant to have?
Season 2 of Dark Matter premieres August 28 on Apple TV.
Watch my full conversation with Alice Braga above, and follow The Buzz for more television and film interviews and red carpet coverage.
