In Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child Of Fire Kora, an ex-Imperium soldier, lives on the moon, Veldt. When her former regime, the army of the oppressive Motherworld, descends on the planet, she has no choice but to get involved and repent for her past. In an attempt to begin her journey of redemption, she searches the galaxy for warriors to help her make a stand against the Imperium when they return to Veldt.
Rebel Moon stars a powerhouse cast including Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Cleopatra Coleman, Jena Malone, Ed Skrein, Fra Fee, and Anthony Hopkins. Zack Snyder wears many hats as the creator of Rebel Moon, including director, producer, and co-writer alongside Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten. Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver will debut on Netflix on April 19.
Rebel Moon Sequel Plans Explained: How Many Movies Will There Be?
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon has two movies on the way, but there’s room for even more sequels and spin-offs based on what he told Screen Rant on set.
Screen Rant interviewed Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child Of Fire stars Djimon Hounsou and Staz Nair. They explained how Snyder went through the same training as them to prepare and how he incorporated elements of their own cultures into each of their characters. Nair also teased his character’s connection to animals, and Hounsou revealed that he had worked with Snyder in film school long before Rebel Moon.
Djimon Hounsou & Staz Nair Talks Rebel Moon
Screen Rant: Rebel Moon is finally here. I’m here for it. Fantastic job, gentlemen.
Djimon Honsou: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Staz Nair: Thank you.
Staz, when we meet Tarak, he is working for a rancher who has kind of enslaved him. Tell us a little bit about Tarak’s past, how he landed in that situation, and his special connection with the animals.
Staz Nair: Look, without giving too much away, Tarak has had to sadly flee his world, and he’s kind of been floating aimlessly through the void of space, literally and metaphorically, for probably a good decade when we find him. Many, many, many seasons, as they call it. When we find him in Neu Wodi, which is actually directly behind you right now, yes, he’s indebted, enslaved to an extent.
What I’ll say about the man is if he wanted to break free of those chains, he could. He’s there at his own volition because he holds himself to a type of form of conduct. And sometimes when we lose everything, we don’t quite lose the core ethos of what we are, and he holds himself in a certain level of nobility despite his tattered kind of getup.
His connection to animals comes, again, I won’t say too much from his, but from his home planet. He comes from a planet that is very works and lives quite symbiotically with the earth and the world around it. Not ala Avatar, it’s more infrastructure. It’s less wild and natural than that, but there’s this kind of sensitivity to the earth, sensitivity to animals, which is, I think, is somewhat a theme of this movie.
Djimon, Titus is a legendary commander who was a general who turned on the Motherworld. What did you connect with Titus, and can you talk about working with Zack to create the crafty character?
Djimon Honsou: Oh, the crafty character, what a crafty character. Well, first of all, I think undoubtedly had to be the story, the way how he came up with this epic story that seemed to mimic so much our reality. That is one. I have also met the man when he was in film school and not knowing, in the middle of talking to him about Rebel Moon, he announces, well, it’s great to see you again. It will be great to see you again and to work together again.
I’m like, wait a second. And so that’s when he begins to explain to me how we’ve met and worked together. And again, just that was just unbelievable to meet somebody that long, over three decades now. And yeah, that was quite incredible and commendable as well, you know?
Staz, can you talk about using your own culture to create Tarak’s native tongue?
Staz Nair: Yes, absolutely. Zack is very gracious in this way. He gives us an opportunity to kind of pour as much of ourselves in it. Just as another simple example, this little pendant my wife gave this to me when I booked the job, and I told Zack about this, and he made it part of not my costume, but you’ll find out more about it in Part Two.
I’ll give up some backstory but he allowed it to be embedded in the story. Which leads me onto your question. He found out I’m bilingual, almost trilingual now, depending on the day. My wife wouldn’t agree, but my character speaks a language called Samandrite, and so he said, do you want to have a part in creating it? And obviously I was like, Hell yeah, that’d be great.
So I worked with some amazing language specialists, and it’s an amalgamation of, I’m half Russian, half Indian, so it’s amalgamation of Russian and my wife’s language, Portuguese, because I’ve been learning it, and it’s a way of marrying my past, my present, and what a wonderful way of honoring culture and honoring myself and my wife the way Zack did. It was really, really fun to do that.
Djimon Honsou: I like that. Honoring culture.
Staz Nair: Honoring culture.
Djimon Honsou: Yeah, honoring my own culture as well. Mind you, the whole cast comes from different parts of our world. And that said, I also was asked, one of the requirements on coming on board was to be able to have this war chant, but it had to come from my tribe, from Africa. So we, of course, created something. I mean, Part Two would say so much more.
Staz Nair: It made me cry, put it that way when he said it was very emotional watching him perform that.
Zack has this really unique wave of cultivating this comradery on set, and it’s almost like a head coach where players will run through a wall for him. Talk to me about what’s the key that Zack has to really create that culture on set?
Djimon Honsou: He brings that, well, the physicality of his film. And certainly on this film it didn’t occur to me that it came with a level of military training, right?
Staz Nair: Intensity.
Djimon Honsou: And that in itself brought everybody together, including one of the Rebel who did not want to come to the gym.
Staz Nair: Charlie.
Djimon Honsou: Charlie. So yeah.
Staz Nair: Yeah. I’d second that. I think the level of comradery necessary to go through the level of rigorous training that we did, there’s an instant level of respect between actors. Also, Zack does the training himself. Zack does the diet himself, and he’s with us on set in the trenches that also, like you said, when the captain, the coach is doing the same thing as you have no choice but to follow suit and he’s stressing out. I can feel it.
About Rebel Moon
The highly-anticipated saga that transports fans to a completely new sci-fi universe where a young freedom fighter named Kora must defend her adopted planetoid from hostile intruders alongside a hand-picked band of mercenaries and warriors out for justice.
Check out our other Rebel Moon interviews here:
- Zack Snyder
- Sofia Boutella & Ed Skrein
- Ray Fisher, E. Duffy, & Cleopatra Coleman
- Michiel Huisman & Charlie Hunnam
Rebel Moon
From director Zack Snyder comes Rebel Moon, a sci-fi action movie set in the depths of space and following a colony that is facing the threat of Regent Balisarius. Sofia Boutella plays a warrior charged with recruiting others in the fight against the tyrant, and his unstoppable forces that are dead set on conquest.
- Release Date
- December 22, 2023
- Director
- Zack Snyder
- Cast
- Djimon Hounsou , Sofia Boutella , Charlotte Maggi , Ray Fisher , Jena Malone , E. Duffy , Staz Nair , Doona Bae , Sky Yang , Charlie Hunnam , Cleopatra Coleman
- Rating
- PG-13
- Genres
- Action , Adventure , Fantasy , Sci-Fi
- Writers
- Shay Hatten , Kurt Johnstad , Zack Snyder
- Budget
- $90 Million
- Studio(s)
- The Stone Quarry , Grand Electric
- Distributor(s)
- Netflix
- prequel(s)
- Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver
- Franchise(s)
- Rebel Moon
