Out of this world: Noomi Rapace, Jonathan Banks enter new territory in 'Constellation'

Feb. 16—For Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks, it was the script for "Constellation" that led them to the production.

"I would say a combination of the scripts, the story," Rapace says of the production. "The directors, and working with incredible actors. My character, Jo Ericcson, just instantly felt like she was written and made for me. And that she was waiting for me. When I started reading, it was a bit creepy, how well and strongly I connected with her."

Meanwhile, Banks was also drawn to it because of director Michelle MacLaren.

"(Michelle) and I go back a long way," Banks says. "We got back before 'Breaking Bad.' I've known her since she was a little girl. She's just one of my favorite people in the world. When she came to me and says, 'Here it is.' I read the script and I read it again and then she told me she wanted me to do it. Don't tell her this, but I'm a big fan. I wanted to do it."

"Constellation" starring Rapace and Banks begins to stream on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, Feb. 21, with the first three episodes. New episodes will be available to stream each Wednesday though March 27.

"Constellation" stars Rapace as Jo — a Swedish astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space — only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing.

The action-packed space adventure is an exploration of the dark edges of human psychology, and one woman's desperate quest to expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost.

Ericsson is a member of a five-person team of international astronauts conducting a research mission aboard the International Space Station in Earth's low orbit.

The crew, representing NASA, Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA), has been in space for nearly a year conducting scientific tests, including experiments with NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory quantum physics module under the direction of Henry Caldera, played by Banks, chief science consultant at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a former Apollo mission astronaut.

Commander Ericsson is tasked with studying the psychological effects of long-term space travel and while away, she deeply misses her English husband, Magnus, played by James D'Arcy, a primary school teacher, and their nine-year-old daughter, Alice, played by Davina Coleman and Rosie Coleman, who reside in a suburban home near the ESA compound in Cologne, Germany. Despite regular communication with her family, the extended separation takes a toll on Jo. In private moments, she often reminisces about her family's cabin near a lake in Almedalen in northern Sweden, where they often go on vacation.

One day, during the crew's routine tasks, the ISS collision warning alerts them of an approaching object. The station is struck, causing extensive damage to the life support and electrical systems, ultimately claiming the life of the mission's American commander, Paul Lancaster, played by William Catlett.

While on a spacewalk to identify the source of the collision, Jo is shocked to discover the mummified body of a Soviet-era female cosmonaut that had collided with the station. As she relays her discovery to her colleagues, doubts arise — was it real or a hallucination?

With the ISS life support systems irreparably damaged, the surviving crew face a critical decision: they must return to Earth using the operational Soyuz 2, but one must stay behind and repair the second return capsule, Soyuz 1.

In a selfless act, Jo volunteers to remain on the damaged station. However, time becomes her adversary as her oxygen supply rapidly depletes, leaving her with only 19 hours to complete the task.

Alone and amidst the wreckage, accompanied only by the lifeless body of her deceased commander, Jo confronts the haunting silence of space. Soon thereafter, communication with mission control abruptly ceases, leaving her to rely solely on her training to calculate the precise reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

Against all odds, Jo successfully navigates the harrowing journey, skillfully piloting Soyuz 1 to a landing near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Yet, the ordeal is far from over.

Reuniting with her family, and an impatient Henry Calder, who seeks to recover the mysterious quantum physics device, Jo's physical recuperation in Cologne reveals peculiar symptoms — strange visions, mysterious sounds and forgetfulness. Her sense of reality feels distorted. Is it PTSD from her months in space, or is it linked to the experiment aboard the ISS?

Curiously, Henry is also experiencing unusual phenomena even though he wasn't aboard the ISS. In fact, he hasn't been to space in decades. So how is he sharing the same issues as Jo? And how does his identical twin brother, Bud (himself a former astronaut), currently on a cruise off the coast of California, fit into the events in Henry's life.

Rapace has learned a lot from Jo during her time filming.

The role has been eye-opening, she says.

"(I've learned) to trust my gut feeling to keep looking for the truth and not to not give up," Rapace says. "She kind of reminded me and reconnected me with a lot of things that I've been thinking about a lot, and the series in itself made me really consider and think about choices and who we are and how we live our lives. What if I would make this decision and then this journey will start based on me going into this other kind of taking this route? So choices and decisions are what make and define us. It's something I'm thinking a lot about these days."

Banks gets to pull double duty as two characters and relished the challenge.

"I represent Henry," he says. "I kept trying to find his humanity because he was a man who was obsessed and he was willing to sacrifice human life for his creation. And then you have Bud and he has more humanity in him. There's really such regret and such humanity in Bud."