[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 today and if I am any indication, fans of the sci-fi franchise are going to be clamoring for answers to some of their unanswered questions—especially where Ed Skrein’s and Fra Fee’s villainous duo are concerned. Ahead of the film’s premiere, I had the privilege of taking part in Netflix’s junket for the film, and I came ready to get as many spoiler-filled answers from the cast as possible. You can watch my interview with Skrein and Fee 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 (Sofia Boutella) and Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) readying the people of Veldt to go up against the forces of the Imperium. In the final act of Part One, it looked as if Kora had managed to defeat Atticus Noble (Skrein), but her villainous adopted father Regent Balisarius (Fee) ensured that Noble lived to fight another day. Part Two played upon similar themes and beats from the first entry into Zack Snyder’s ambitious franchise, but the final act is a far more definitive end for a character who managed to side-step death the first time around.

In addition to talking with Skrein about Noble’s grim fate in Part Two, I kicked off the interview with a walk down memory lane with Fra Fee, whose career I have followed since he was one of the “Barricade Boys” in the 2011/2012 cast of Les Miserables on the West End. We also discussed the political influences of their characters, why Fee was able to use his Irish accent to bring Balisarius to life, and naturally—what a great time it is to be Irish.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver Release Date April 19, 2024 Director Zack Snyder Main Genre Sci-Fi Writers Shay Hatten , Kurt Johnstad , Zack Snyder

Is Atticus Noble Really Dead?

COLLIDER: So I wanted to start off with a question for Fra. It’s technically not a question — I wanted to say I have been following your career since 2011 when you were a barricade boy in Les Misérables. I actually have the autograph from when I was supposed to come and see the show, but my mom broke her ankle, so my friends went and got your autograph and the whole cast before the cast change.

FRA FEE: No way!

I just want to say it is such a delight to see how far your career has come.

FEE: Thank you so much. Thanks a million.

Then I do want to talk about spoilers, because this movie had me damn near hysterical when it ended. I was just like, “Oh my gosh, I need more. I need to know what’s happening next.” So, Ed, I want to know, do you think that Noble is really dead now? Is this a wrap for him? He’s defied death once, will he defy it again?

ED SKREIN: He’s dead.

FEE: And scene.

SKREIN: I think in the extended cut it will be more clear because they’ll be able to show the effects of what happened to him. So, yeah, he’s dead. He’s gone.

That was my follow-up question. I was gonna ask, is the extended cut going to show his actual beheading there?

SKREIN: I would assume so, but you’ll have to ask the bosses.

Ed Skrein Wants to Steal My Question For Himself

I did also want to ask about what it’s like playing villains. Both of you are playing essentially two sides to a villainous coin. You have Noble, which is a more savage sort of personal villainy and then you have Balisarius, who is more of a political evil. For both of you, where is your center point in playing those kinds of villainous roles?

SKREIN: Great question.

FEE: Yeah, really, really class. We don’t get to see it too much — a little bit in the flashback in Part One — but Balisarius has risen up the ranks considerably, and was a soldier for the Imperium, so I suspect was pretty brutal on the battlefield and is capable of getting his hands dirty. But like any sort of leader that we know of in the current world affairs, political history, the truly bad guys are the quiet ones, and Balisarius has reached a point where he is this elusive, quiet, understated political player, and that’s his happy place because he’s the master influencer and puppeteer of the people around him. He can certainly make Noble do his dirty work for him. So, as you say, I’m more of a political villain, and so there’s a lot of influence and inspiration to tick.

SKREIN: Sadly.

FEE: Unfortunately.

SKREIN: Yeah, and if you have a political chess player, you have a manipulative dictator such as Fra in real life — sorry, Balisarius — then who better to carry out your work? If you want to be on the end, if you wanna be keeping your hands clean, then who better to have out there getting their hands dirty than someone who wants to be right in people’s faces, who wants to prolong the death, who wants to play with their food like a cat and mice? So yeah, I think it’s well-noted that we’re two different sides of the coin.

You can use that in the future questions that you answer.

SKREIN: Yeah, that’s gonna be our answer now. Why weren’t you first up today?

FEE: Yeah, you’ll see it, like, “Did you hear Ed’s answers to all of the other interviews apart from Collider? It was amazing!”

We can see the headlines. Everybody’s like, “They say they’re two sides of the same coin.”

SKREIN: [Laughs] But what I’m gonna do after this is I’m gonna say to the whole team, “You need to scrap that interview. I didn’t feel comfortable.” And then I’ll just copy it so no one knows where it came from.

There’s that villainous turn right there.

SKREIN: I know. The master manipulator like Balisarius.

So I’m not going to ask specifically which political villains in real life you may have drawn reference from, but I always like learning, when you’re building characters, what kind of influences do you pull from? I’m somebody who really likes creating playlists. Music very much influences me. So, where did you both pull your influence from when you were finding the voices for your characters?

FEE: Well, finding the voices, that’s a really interesting question because I found it fascinating when Ed was speaking about this in some previous interviews — when I was asked to tape for this, it stated very, very clearly that I tape in my own accent. Sometimes that has not necessarily meant that I will then do the role in my own accent if I get the job, but in this case, when I got offered the role, flew over to LA, and I heard that all of the other members of the Motherworld, especially Noble, were speaking in this very sort of high class British pronunciation, Britain being that super famous colonial nation, I suggested, like, “Would you like me to adopt this as well?” Zack was so adamant that I didn’t because Balisarius is actually an outsider in this universe and has managed to make his way up the ranks. So, you know, he sounds like me. [Laughs] There was a wee bit of vocal play, just aging him up a little bit, but not really too much. I reckon he’s about mid to late 50s, in the present day, so he’s not super old. But yeah, I’ve grown to really learn to love speaking in my own voice. I used to hate it.

SKREIN: Really?

FEE: Yeah. I used to always have to put on an accent. I had to sound different from myself in order to just delve into a character, but it’s something that I’ve really learned to love.

SKREIN: Funny that, isn’t it?

FEE: It is. It’s interesting.

SKREIN: At the beginning, you kind of want to prove to the world that you can be all these different things, and you need to divorce yourself from yourself so that you can be someone else; whereas, more and more now I just wanna explore and use my own voice, not through laziness, but through almost representation, as well.

FEE: Yeah.

SKREIN: Strange thing to always have to be really posh, American…

FEE: And it’s great to hear a Northern Irish voice on a world stage. I was saying to Ed, those voices are famously used in stories about violence in Northern Ireland. Why not a political dictator in outer space?

It’s a great time to be Irish right now, too.

FEE: It’s a great time to be Irish! Very proud.

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

Watch on Netflix