‘Rebel Moon 2’ — Will Kora Ever Find Love After THAT Death?

[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for Rebel Moon: Part 2 — The Scargiver]Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver is officially streaming on Netflix and hopefully fans of Zack Snyder‘s sci-fi epic came prepared with tissues—because it’s quite the heartbreaking follow-up to the franchise starter last year. Ahead of the film’s premiere, I had the opportunity to take part in Netflix’s junket for the film, and I opted to go the spoiler-filled route because I had a lot of questions for Snyder and the cast. You can watch my interview with Sofia Boutella and Michiel Huisman in the player above or read on to see the full transcript of our conversation.

Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver picks up on the heels of Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, with Kora (Boutella) and Gunnar (Huisman) preparing the people of Veldt to go up against their oppressors from the Motherworld. Kora fully believes that she rid the galaxy of Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) following their epic battle in the final act of Rebel Moon, but that belief is quickly shattered when the newly-mended Noble arrives on Veldt looking for blood. While Part Two plays upon similar themes and beats from the first entry in the franchise, the final act is a far more definitive end for a handful of characters who escaped death the first time.

With those definitive ends in mind, we discussed Gunnar’s tragic fate, if he might have a secret twin brother somewhere so Huisman can return to the franchise at a later date, if Boutella thinks Kora will ever find love again after Gunnar’s death, and the surprising source of inspiration Huisman drew from when crafting Gunnar’s distinctive accent.

Will Kora Ever Find Love Again?

COLLIDER: So this entire interview is going to be spoiler questions because that movie damn near emotionally devastated me, and I know people are going to want answers to their questions once the movie is out. My first question is for Sofia. So, we learned in Part One that Kora had somebody that she was in love with in the military that had died, and now she’s lost Gunnar. Will she ever be open to love again now that she’s lost two people she cared about?

SOFIA BOUTELLA: I think yes. She has to.

MICHIEL HUISMAN: What?

BOUTELLA: I mean, you should be happy for her!

HUISMAN: The answer should have been that Kora never gets over Gunnar. I’m out of here.

BOUTELLA: [Laughs] No, come back! Listen, if Gunnar, from heaven, would want that for Kora.

HUISMAN: Yes, of course.

BOUTELLA: Let me tell you the truth, because he’s that good of a man. But yeah, I think she would 100% be open to love again. She’s learned that now.

I love that. Michiel, did you know that this was going to happen to Gunnar before Part Two, or was this kind of part of the sell when Zack was pitching the idea to you?

HUISMAN: Yeah, I knew from the beginning that this would happen. It’s sad, but it’s also, as an actor, a very dramatic moment, and it’s nice to sink your teeth into that.

It is. I hate that he’s dead, but I love how his death was handled. I love the beauty of him getting to leave Veldt and see some of space, get to kind of be an action hero, and then still ultimately die in his home world. I’m curious for you, what is going through his mind in that moment as they make it back home?

HUISMAN: I think he’s found some peace, and I think he’s very grateful for the time and the moments he’s had with Kora.

Does Gunnar Have a Secret Twin Brother Out There, Somewhere?

I know during the press for Part One, Charlie had his little bit that Kai had a secret half-brother or twin brother out there. So, what are we going to do to bring back somebody who looks like you if there’s a Rebel Moon – Part Three? What’s the new bit going to be?

BOUTELLA: Please tell Kora that he had a twin brother. [Laughs] No, I’m joking!

It’s not bad enough that she would move on, but move on with his brother. [Laughs]

HUISMAN: Yeah, that would be good, actually. I don’t know, but who knows? I mean, in this world anything can happen, really.

Maybe there’s a cloning facility somewhere. Who knows? Something I really love about talking with actors is learning about what their process is with getting into character. I’m somebody who really likes to do playlists and maybe journal a little bit, but for each of you, how did you get in touch with who your character is as you were building them?

BOUTELLA: I do playlists, also. Music serves me quite positively towards finding the depth and emotions or the strength that I need. I use it for acting scenes, for fight scenes, because you have to stay on all the time and sometimes you have to bring those energies at seven in the morning. Depending on where I am, especially if it has to do with holding a gun and going into a fight scene, like war stuff, I’m like, “I need it to be on right away,” and music really, really helps me.

I journal a lot, also. I write backstories, and for me, the more I write, the more it’s just in my back pocket then. Then, when I’m on set, I can just let it go. And I don’t necessarily go back and read, ever, what I write down. I don’t know if you do that, but just the simple fact that I write it down, it creates a sense of almost printing it into my brain, in a way. What else do I do? I read the script a lot over and over and over. I mean, there’s a lot of other secrets.

HUISMAN: You don’t have to spill them all.

Everybody has their secrets.

BOUTELLA: I don’t have to say it all, no. [Laughs]

HUISMAN: For this one, I mean, Gunnar is maybe, perhaps the most regular guy out of the whole ensemble, so I didn’t have that much trouble identifying with him. I focused on understanding all the farming that we had to do, because I thought, “Okay, that’s his forte.” When it came to one of the things that I had to work on a little bit, it was the dialect. So everybody in the village of Veldt has a slight, what I would call Nordic sound, like some Scandinavian. I listened to different interviews and podcasts and sound samples of Mads Mikkelsen, and the way he sounds when he’s not working. So there was a line, there was something that I listened to every morning. In one of the recordings he’s talking about soccer, and he says as about whether he wants to be an actor or a soccer player, and he says something like, “If Barcelona calls tomorrow, I’ll do it.” [Laughs] I listened to that every morning, and that got me in the mood. “If Barcelona calls, I’ll do it.”

It’s so interesting that you say that, too, because I did pick up that intonation in the way that you were saying words. I was like, “I wonder if that was a reference at all for the dialect,” so that’s great to have confirmation there.

HUISMAN: Yes.

BOUTELLA: That’s nice.

What Are They Looking Forward to in the ‘Rebel Moon’ Extended Cuts?

I’m personally really excited to see the extended cut of both Part One and Part Two, but are there specific moments that we see in Part Two that you’re excited for fans to see in the extended cut of those moments?

BOUTELLA: In the extended cuts, I think it’s not so much the length in which you will experience some scenes, it’s just completely new scenes. And the sequence in which it is edited, I think, will be different. You will get to find out more in-depth about what the Imperium is like, and what people in Veldt are like, and their dynamic. It’s like you really go at it with a thin brush and understand the world a bit more — a lot more.

Michiel, are there any moments with Gunnar that you’d like fans to be excited for, to see more of in the extended cut?

HUISMAN: No, I like the way Sofia put it. That was a nice way of putting it: “with a thin brush.”

Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver is streaming now on Netflix.

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