In the high-concept world of Apple TV+’s critically acclaimed sci-fi series Dark Matter, crossing alternate realities isn’t just a plot device; it’s an intimate examination of human choice, trauma, and identity. At the center of this season’s expanding universe is actor Dayo Okeniyi, who plays Leighton Vance, the ambitious billionaire tech executive whose company funds the creation of the mind-bending “Box.”
While first-season audiences initially met Leighton as a cold, sharp-suited antagonist, the second season peels back the layers on his character, with Okeniyi stepping into the shoes of multiple variants of Leighton across parallel realities, ranging from a hedonistic heir to a spiritual traveler searching for God in the cosmos.
In the core storyline of Dark Matter, Leighton Vance is the CEO of Velocity Laboratories, a wealthy visionary who funds the creation of “the Box,” a technological doorway capable of stepping into infinite parallel dimensions. While early episodes framed him as a ruthless corporate titan driven by ambition, season two dismantles the blanket-villain trope by diving deep into his backstory. Viewers learn that Leighton lost his parents at a young age, was raised under the strict eye of his grandfather, and harbors unresolved personal trauma that drives his obsession to build a “perfect world.”
Speaking in our interview, Okeniyi shared how season two radically reshapes our understanding of Leighton’s inner world.
“This season, we dive into his past — lost his parents when he was young, we learn about his grandfather who raised him, and we learn about some trauma around that,” Okeniyi explained. “We get a really good sense of the deeper motivations of why he wants to create the perfect world. It’s not purely altruistic, out of philanthropy for the whole world — he has some skin in the game.”
He added that season one painted Leighton as a blanket villain, but season two complicates that entirely: “It’s not as easy as good guy, bad guy.”
Playing multiple versions of the same person across the multiverse forced Okeniyi to explore the classic debate of nature versus nurture. Each variant, he explained, carries the same underlying addictive personality, but it manifests differently depending on environment.
Raised by his grandfather, O.G. Leighton becomes the stoic, business-focused executive audiences met in season one. Raised instead by wealthy, absent parents, he becomes what Okeniyi calls “Diddy Leighton,” hedonistic, uninhibited, and by his own description, “a scumbag.” And in the reality where Leighton walks away from his inheritance entirely, he becomes Oluko, a guru-like seeker who leaves the world of the one percent behind to travel in search of God and a better way to be himself.
Asked whether inhabiting a multiverse story stirs up curiosity about his own alternate lives, Okeniyi admitted that actors naturally obsess over the paths not taken, though he stays grounded in the one he has.
“If anybody says they wouldn’t want to look, they’d be lying. We would all look,” he said, pointing to Hollywood’s own parallel-universe trivia, like the world where Will Smith plays Neo in The Matrix, or the one where Denzel Washington takes the Brad Pitt role in Seven. “I don’t think I would trade my life for another version of my life, but I would at least peek. I’d look. I’d definitely look.”
Dark Matter season two is currently streaming on Apple TV+. Check out the full interview below.
