Sci-fi shows and films frequently use the multiverse storytelling device to follow various incarnations of superheroes or gods, but actress Jennifer Connelly says she wanted to star in the new series, Dark Matter, because it uses this conceit to speculate about ordinary people's lives.

It is set in contemporary Chicago and follows Jason Dessen (Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who is abducted into an alternate version of his life and fights desperately to get back to what he thinks is his own reality.

Crouch serves as executive producer and showrunner, while Connelly -- who appeared in Top Gun: Maverick, A Beautiful Mind, Snowpiercer and Labyrinth -- plays Jason's artist wife, Daniela.

"I thought it was really smart to talk about a marriage and a man having some doubts within his marriage, or feelings of regret, and to sort of explore those things through a multiverse story," Connelly, 53, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

Although Daniela's lifestyles are quite different in the two different realities -- Daniela is a successful, single artist in one, a devoted wife and mother in the other -- the actress who plays her thinks her core personality is the same throughout both timelines.

"I thought that she was a really warm person, a really kind person who is deeply honest and kind of straightforward, but also playful, has a sense of humor and is really connected to her friends and to her son and to her husband," Connelly said.

Daniela and Jason are seen throughout the series trying to unravel the mysteries of life via their respective, imaginative areas of expertise -- art and science.

"They do different things, but I think there's something deeply creative in physics, as well," Connelly said.

"[This is] sort of asking those big life questions of what we are and what we're made of and how the universe works," she added.

"The surface would suggest that they're quite different, [but] I think that there is a real kinship between them and a really strong love. I do think that's what keeps them together, even across all of these universes."

The actress said she was intrigued by the show's premise because it suggests that just one decision or action could completely alter the paths of people's lives.

It wasn't complicated to keep the versions of Daniela separate in her head, the actress said, because she is finding out what is going on at the same time the audience is.

"Daniela 1 didn't realize that she wasn't with her husband," Connelly said.

"I wasn't supposed to be aware that it was a different version, so I didn't respond differently. It was only when he behaved differently that my character reacts to it and starts to respond."

Connelly said she and Edgerton talked through the script before the cameras rolled, so they would be on the same page when the directors yelled, "Action!"

"We discussed all of it and where they were as a couple and also tracking stages of my character's growing suspicion as she is with Jason 2," she added.

Connelly's 1986 fantasy film, Labyrinth, also told the story of someone who regrets wishing away the life she had for a grab at the one she thinks she wants, but the actress said she didn't too deeply examine the similarities between the two projects.

"I hadn't thought of that," she said. "I don't really look to create through lines. Maybe, in some way, I am telling a story with the choices that I make, but it's not conscious. It's not by design that I am trying to connect the dots."

She does, however, look back fondly on making the cult-classic movie, which co-starred the late rock legend David Bowie and many of Jim Henson's creatures.

"That was an extraordinary explosion of creativity," Connelly said. "Jim Henson, there was no one like him. He was a real genius. It was a real privilege and joy for me to work on that film."