Dr. Mann

''' "I tried to do my duty Cooper. But I knew, the day that I arrived here, this place had nothing... and I resisted the temptation, for years. But, I knew that, if I just pressed that button, then, somebody would come and save me."

- Mann revealing his true intentions '''

"When I left Earth, I thought I was prepared to die. The truth is, I never really considered the possibility that my planet wasn't the one."

Dr. Hugh Mann is the main antagonist of the 2014 science fiction film Interstellar.

He is portrayed by the well-known actor Matt Damon.

Role in Film
Dr. Mann was the Project Lazarus leader who convinced eleven other scientists to participate in the cataloging of a dozen habitable worlds on the other side of the wormhole. Mann, however, was stranded upon an icy planet that was uninhabitable and could not substitute earth as the new home planet for life (in Interstellar, the earth is slowly losing its ability to nurture life, forcing NASA to send astronauts and engineers to search for a new home).

Mann is reawakened by the crew of the Endurance approximately 30 years later due to Endurance's time dilation on Miller's planet. Mann was critically low on power at this point and Joseph Cooper had to manually break open his sleep-bag to wake him. Dr. Mann is shaken by the appearance of people coming to his rescue, stating he had not set a wake date to his sleep. It is then revealed that he and Prof. Brand knew that Plan A was impossible and that the only contingency that allowed for human continuity was Plan B.

Once the truth about Brand's Plan A being impossible was revealed, it was decided that Cooper would return home while Mann, Romilly and Brand would proceed to carry out Plan B on Mann. Mann, knowing his planet could never support human life in secret, then attempts to murder Cooper, seeing his death as necessary to the completion of the mission. Mann did not want to let Cooper leave for Earth with the Endurance, as he now needed it to get to Edmunds. After witnessing the explosion of his capsule with Romilly inside, Mann changes his plan to lie about Cooper's death being an accident and instead attempts to maroon the Endurance crew on Mann's planet in order to live and to finish Brand's Plan B mission on his own. He only succeeds in stealing Ranger 1 and docking it imperfectly on the Endurance.

While dismissing Brand's pleads to not do this without the rest of the crew's authority or action arguing that the plan is to save all mankind, he announces "There is a moment" before the airlock depressurizes, killing him and critically damaging the Endurance. TARS and Cooper rush to undo Mann's damage, which they succeed in.