Zack Snyder and the Rebel Moon cast talk mythology, female empowerment, and griffin taming

"The concept of mythology was really one of the places where we started," Zack Snyder tells GamesRadar+ of his sci-fi epic Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire. "We have myths for all the origin stories of the Motherworld, what they believe. Basically the Genesis of their Bible, we had to write, and we wrote it out pretty extensively."

Rebel Moon is the beginning of an all original universe, and it's on a huge scale. While the story revolves around a woman's quest to save the peaceful moon of Veldt from the armies of the Motherworld (the brutal ruler of the universe), along the way, we get tantalizing glimpses at the sprawling mythology and history underpinning this  world. There are shades of Arthurian legend in the worldbuilding – Part One includes a princess with mysterious powers, noble, robotic knights who've laid down their weapons, and a tragically slain king. 

"That allowed us to evolve to characters like the robot, the Jimmys, and all those things that were really products of that mythology," Snyder continues. "They really had this worldview that was very specific, and I really loved that exercise, because I love Arthurian legend, and I love all that stuff, and I love trying to get it into something like this, because this is like science fantasy. It's not hard sci-fi, as they say. It's pretty soft, in the best possible way, because it really allows mythological symbolism to be everywhere. No one cares about how the spaceships work, you know what I mean? Everything's much more impressionistic. It can all mean something, and I think that's what we were trying for." 

Connecting to the world

Sofia Boutella's Kora is at the center of Part One as she sets off to recruit warriors to defend Veldt. Each fighter she finds has a curious past of their own, which opens up the world and its mythology even further. Staz Nair, who plays a character named Tarak – who finds himself in indentured servitude, despite a regal past – tells us how his own heritage helped influence his character's place in the universe. 

"Zack allowed me to work with the language coach and the language specialists to create a language that was based on my language – or half my language, I'm half-Russian, half-Indian," says Nair of developing the Samandritan language, his character's native tongue. "And my wife's [language] is Portuguese. So he allowed me not only to put myself into it, but put my wife [in], so it's a mixture of Portuguese and Russian. He doesn't have to do that. And it's a wonderful way to insert yourself into the character, and before you even start, personalize the character. So I was very, very grateful for that." 

Nair also has a particularly awe-inspiring introduction that involves taming a Bennu, a majestic, griffin-like animal – and, this time, he found his own way to connect with the material. "What we have to do is find a bit of realism, because I've never had to tame a 50-foot griffin creature," he says. "But what I connected to is, I used to train pit bulls that were aggressive, trying to get them trained so they can be re-homed. And what I realized is, to do that, you have to have a sense of strength, but a sense of intimacy, and calmness, and respect when it comes to taming these kinds of animals. So it was a lot of fun. And, also, the bird – Zack and I agreed – it represents Tarak in many ways. Tarak is trapped like this bird and this is his moment of redemption. He finds a creature that's from his home planet, and he realizes this is the moment to step up and stand up to the plate." 

Ray Fisher, who plays the revolutionary Darian Bloodaxe, had a similar method of finding his way through the vast scale of the universe. "With Zack Snyder, you just go big, right?" he says. "You go big. And for me, what I like to try to do is, I like to try to make the world a bit smaller for myself. Even though we're in this big galaxy, my character comes from one place, and figuring out what the culture is, how that flow is, and really making it specific to me in that environment allows me to live more freely in that space without getting overwhelmed by like, 'Okay, spaceships, planets, different aliens, different culture, different races of this and that.' It helps to really make the performance more nuanced, and my understanding of it a bit more nuanced."

Of course, Fisher has some experience joining a vast Snyder-verse: he previously played Cyborg in the DCEU. "It was great," Fisher says of returning to work with Snyder. "The work, obviously, that we've worked on before with Zack Snyder's Justice League was phenomenal. Any chance I get to be on a Zack Snyder set, I'm there. [I said,] 'Look, it doesn't matter. I'll take a walk on, make me a zombie in Army of the Dead 2, or whatever.' It's a great thing to be around good people in the business who make good work – work you respect. And I'm a huge geek. I know Zack's a big geek for this kind of stuff, too, so we just connect on a very easygoing level." 

As for the risk of getting lost in the universe, it comes in handy that Snyder is something of an encyclopedia of Rebel Moon lore. "And it just helps that we have Zack who really lives for this stuff, and lived with it for decades," says Michiel Huisman, who plays Veltdian farmer Gunnar. "He really knew up till the minutest details the story he wanted to tell and the story that he was telling. So there was never a moment where we would ask him, like, 'Where does this come from?' Or, 'How does this work?' and then he wouldn't have an answer."

"And we had the benefit of having so much of his imagination brought to life: the practical sets, the costumes, the props," chimes in E. Duffy, who plays revolutionary fighter Milius. "So it really becomes a lived experience." 

"Sometimes if we were working against a green screen or something, and we would ask him, like, 'What exactly are we looking at?' He would actually make a drawing, and show us what it would look like," says Huisman. ("If it wasn't drawn already," adds Fisher.) 

Meet the rebels

Like the others, Kora has a shadowy and painful past of her own; she's also a formidable warrior. "Zack loves to empower women. You can see in all his movies, women have their own voices," says Boutella, pointing out that even 300 has Lena Headey's Queen Gorgo. 

"Zack is really inspired by his mother, she was such a tough and strong woman," Boutella adds. "And you can see that he loves putting women up there. And I just love that he was given the opportunity and allowed to give this movie a woman as a lead. And not only that, but a woman with a strong ability, but that comes from a very, very particular and complicated past, that gives her that vulnerability."

"We were so lucky that we had characters that, if we had no fight scenes, would have been so interesting to play," adds Ed Skrein, who portrays the terrifying Admiral Noble, who arrives to subjugate Veldt. "There's so much emotion and so much range and so much tension, that as an acting job alone, it was delectable. And then the fight scenes: we get to do fight scenes and be shot by Zack, and work with Spider and Mel [Jin], and the greatest stunt guys in the world. We're so lucky on both levels."

Kora begins her journey with Huisman's Gunnar at her side, and the bond the duo share has a profound effect on the farmer as the movie goes on. "It was one of the things that really drew me to the character, the fact that he starts out being a pretty naive guy," Huisman says. "And he makes a mistake early on, a misjudgement, early on in the story. Part One is really about redemption for my character, so it's a big journey for that character, and one that I was very eager to take on." 

In contrast to Gunnar's naivety is the legendary, but jaded, General Titus, who, like Kora, once fought for the Motherworld. Kora seeks to recruit him to her cause, though, when she finds him, he's had something of a fall from grace. "[General Titus] seems to have a traumatic past," says Hounsou. "And obviously, that traumatic past has so much to do with the fact that he once worked for the Imperium and obviously committed tremendous atrocities back then for the Imperium. And so at some point, he had a conscious awakening, and he was asked to exterminate a group of people. And at that point, he had an awakening and that awakening made him change heart, and certainly he became devoted to the more oppressed and innocent people." 

Also looking out for those oppressed and innocent people are the revolutionaries of this universe, led by brother-sister duo Darian and Devra Bloodaxe. One of their fighters is a warrior named Milius, portrayed by Duffy. "They are a very dedicated member of the Bloodaxe resistance," says Duffy of Milius. "And they found their way to the crew, in a similar way that all the other soldiers of the Bloodaxe resistance do, which is people with a sense of loyalty and spirit, and looking for a sense of purpose and cause. All of that is very vague, but you will find out way more specifics in Part Two." 

Skrein and Boutella have a similar tease about what's to come. "[Snyder] didn't write a story that was just a go-to story, that was just pre-thought, pre-written storylines," Boutella says. "It's really different, what's written in this project. You'll find out more in movie number two of their complexities." 

"And in the extended cut," adds Skrein, to which Boutella agrees: "Even more so in the extended cut." 

So, while there's plenty to get your teeth into in Part One, don't forget that those extended director's cuts and Part Two are right around the corner – with even more of this vast universe waiting to be explored. 

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire arrives on Netflix this December 21 in the US and December 22 in the UK, with a limited theatrical release from December 15. For more, see our interviews with Snyder and the cast on Part Two, and Snyder on the future of Army of the Dead. 

In the meantime, check out our guide to the best Netflix movies streaming now to fill out your watchlist.