Joseph "Coop" Cooper is the main protagonist of the 2014 science fiction drama film Interstellar.
He's a former NASA test pilot who becomes a farmer after his wife's death, raising two children, his daughter Murphy and son Tom, with help from his father-in-law Donald. When Earth faces an agricultural crisis threatening the survival of humanity, he joins a space mission with a group of astronauts through a wormhole near Saturn, seeking a habitable exoplanet for human civilization.
He was portrayed by Matthew McConaughey.
Biography
In a dystopian and post-truth mid-21st century, Earth is becoming uninhabitable due to devastating dust storms and crop failures. Former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper, now a farmer and widower, lives with his children Murphy and Tom, and his father-in-law Donald. Society has rejected space exploration as propaganda, and Cooper even faces criticism for defending the existence of the Apollo missions on behalf of his daughter. During a dust storm, Cooper and Murph discover strange gravitational patterns in her bedroom, which she initially believes are caused by a ghost. These patterns reveal coordinates leading them to a hidden NASA facility led by Professor John Brand. There, they learn that a wormhole appeared near Saturn 48 years ago, offering access to twelve potentially habitable planets near a black hole called Gargantua. Three explorers - Laura Miller, Wolf Edmunds, and Hugh Mann - had already ventured through to assess these worlds.
Cooper joins the mission to pilot the Endurance spaceship through the wormhole, carrying frozen embryos to establish a new human colony. Meanwhile, Professor Brand continues working on a gravity equation that could enable mass evacuation from Earth. Despite a young Murph's protests, Cooper leaves, giving her his watch to track their time apart based on dilation.
The mission team - Cooper, AI robots TARS and CASE, and scientists Amelia Brand (the professor's daughter), Romilly, and Doyle - reach the wormhole after two years. They investigate Miller's planet, where time moves much slower than Earth's. The planet proves treacherous, with massive tidal waves that claim Doyle's life and damage their vessel.
Upon returning to the Endurance, they discover 23 years have passed. With limited fuel, they choose Mann's planet over Edmunds'. Messages from Earth reveal Tom's life milestones and show Murph working alongside Professor Brand, who regretfully confesses on his deathbed that the mission was never meant to return - he knew solving the equation required data from inside a black hole.
They revive Mann from cryosleep, and he claims that colonization is possible on his planet, despite the extreme environment. However he proves treacherous, and it is revealed that he falsified his planet's data to secure rescue. He tries to kill Cooper by breaking the glass on his helmet, thought Cooper manages to communicate in time as memories of his children flash before his eyes. Mann later attempts to steal the Endurance, resulting in Romilly's death, and later, his own demise during a failed docking maneuver. However, Cooper manages to save the station.
Low on fuel, Cooper and Brand plan and attempt a slingshot around Gargantua, knowing it will cost them 51 years in time back on Earth. Cooper and TARS sacrifice themselves to lighten the Endurance, allowing Brand and CASE to reach Edmunds' planet. Inside Gargantua's event horizon, Cooper unexpectedly finds himself in a tesseract showing infinite versions of Murph's bedroom across time. Realizing future humans built this structure so that he could interact with the 4 dimensions, Cooper uses it to send his daughter the quantum data through her watch via Morse code, revealing him as the "ghost" all along and enabling her to complete Brand's equation.
After the tesseract closes, Cooper awakens on a habitual space station orbiting Saturn. He visits his elderly daughter on her deathbed, who urges him to find Brand. Cooper and TARS depart to join Brand and CASE, who are establishing humanity's new home on Edmunds' planet.
External Links
- Joseph Cooper on the Interstellar Wiki