Supergirl's Chris Vance Says Non Uses His Wits, But No Compassion in Tonight's Finale

Tonight, Kara Zor-El will square off against her uncle Non and his kinda/sorta girlfriend Indigo, with the fate of National City and the world hanging in the balance.

Non, of course, is played by Chris Vance, whose mission to bring his wife's vision to life on Earth has resulted in tragedy after tragedy, including the loss of his wife Astra herself.

ComicBook.com had a chance to talk to Vance about tonight's finale, and the experience of playing a new take on an iconic DC villain.

So, first thing's first: why do you think Kryptonians so often have English accents?

[Laughs] Well, I would imagine -- particularly in Non's case -- it's something to do with the British make the best villains. They all have that accent that is villain-some, do they not?

Previous incarnations of this character have been the "big, dumb guy," but you're playing a kind of mastermind. Is it interesting to play a character with so much history, but really nothing that you can use to inform your performance?

You know, that's a good question. My job in this one, in my opinion, was to fulfill the producers' vision for the first season of the show and their vision for this character. Andrew Kreisberg, in particular, we've had lots of conversations about this. His notion was not to immediately kick off with the big ol' stupid guy and to chase a little of Non's potential backstory, which is that he's a very intelligent person and a military commander. And if you combine the two, he becomes a very dangerous character.

Now, what arc and what journey, I can't expose for Non, but if you go back to that, it was much more fun to play out the producer's vision than to sort of find my own vision of it. They have such a great handle on this material that I just want to slot in and do what I can within the context.

It seems like we've just scratched the surface of what's going on with Non. Are we going to get a little more of what makes him tick in the finale, or would that have to wait for a potential season two?

I think it would have to wait for a potential season two, but I also think that what I brought to the table with Non, is I wanted to find, if you'll excuse the irony, the humanity in this Kryptonian. Then, you start breaking a villain away from his one-dimensional territory. Once you start finding the humanity of this guy and his passion for Astra and his grief and his mourning and his desire to fulfill Astra's vision, it begins to become very complex and very fun to play, and it's not predictable.

"Unpredictable" is a good way to characterize it. You've seen that he and Indigo aren't entirely on the same page because he still feels loyalty for Astra, which Indigo just can't comprehend becuase Astra's gone.

I think that's absolutely correct, and I was hugely interested in Non's conviction that if he fulfills Astra's vision, therefore his destiny as such, and therefore his love for her, by continuing with Myriad, it opens up a very interesting dynamic. His absolute conviction is that Astra was right, and that conviction is placed in such that you can only save the planet by getting rid of the human race.

It's an interesting philosophical question, given where we are on this planet as a species. Are we parasites? Are we causing all the problems because we're the apex predators of the planet? Or have we got something more to look forward to as a species, perhaps if we can become more spiritual or kinder to the environment and to everyone around us? Is the planet going to be more successful for human beings being on board or not? Certainly Non's conviction is not.

I feel like that's an element of Krypton's history -- that it was a man-made crisis that destroyed the planet -- that hasn't been reflected too much in the non-comics media before recently. You guys are the first ones to really explore it in depth, that the Zods and Astras of the world are addressing broader, human social issues.

I agree. I think it's a genius stroke by the producers and very brave move as well -- especially in this genre, where as you said it hasn't really been established. I think they're handling it beautifully as a writing team, to coax it out there and make some fundamental, philosophical questions underneath the entertainment and the superheroes and the fun of it.

Obviously, Batman V Superman just happened and it was very dark and divisive -- but both The Flash and Supergirl are heralded as being kind of bright and populist. It seems as though Andrew Kreisberg has reall found a balance of being able to speak to bigger issues without losing the fun and the breeziness of superhero stories.

Yeah, I think it's genius on Andrew's part. I remember one of the first conversations I had with Andrew was that he was spelling out this vision and I was like "Right, I'm in. That sounds really interesting." Not only to play a villain, and a supervillain at that, but when you have this vision and this underlying textuality and depth, it gives you so many places to go with the character that I wanted to be part of it.

You've had a handful of action sequences, but you haven't been punching and flying as much as your men this season. Are we going to see some more of Non as a combatant in the finale, or are we still going to be seeing him primarily as a military commander?

Primarily, I woudl suggest more of a military commander. He's using his intelligence at this point and his wits -- not much of his compassion, I would say, if he has any left -- to ramp up the stakes for Supergirl because now obviously she has to save every man, woman, and child on the planet. And he's going to run her ragged doing that in the finale, and I think the writers have done a good job reaching a finale that's satisfying.

But no, Non isn't going to run around very much himself. He's really more of the puppeteer in this one.

On the other hand he seems to be open to being manipulated a little by Indigo, who fed him information that pushed him to where she wanted him to be last week. Do you think at this point that righteous anger has pushed him to a very dark place, or do you think he's redeemable?

I think it's far more interesting that he would be redeemable in some sense. And what I tried to do with Melissa's character and Non is to never stray too far from the fact that he's her uncle and there's a very deep family connection there that transcends their planet's history and their planet's loss. They're isolated here as Kryptonians, and I felt I would lose a dimension if I was playing that there was no love whatsoever for Kara. I thought that would be more dimensional. I brings conflict to Non because he admires her, he's surprised by her, he underestimates her, and then goes back to admiring her again as his niece -- as his family.

That is superseded though by his love for Astra and fulfilling what he sees as her destiny and vision, which is to save the planet. So he's caught somewhere in between and with the information that comes, he has to change and question his own convictions and I think the writers have done a really good job of keeping that rolling along and being interesting.

I guess part of what makes the Kryptonian subplot so vital this year is the fact that Supergirl actually knew them. When they show up in a Superman movie, these are people with no connection to Clark at all.

Yeah, absolutely, it's essential. It's interesting to be in a full-on conflict with someone who's family and that you in some sense love.

When you started this, how much of the backstory and the fact that this is what they tried to do on Krypton informed your early performances, versus what came later through the script?

I'd say 50/50. Andrew did a great job explaining his vision for the arc that I was in, and obviously as they get going with the writing team, there's an ongoing craziness to put together 20 episodes of the show and they find nuances as it grows and sometimes it's delightful and surprising to find those nuances as the show develops. You get some bits you really like and some bits that you don't understand at the time, but it all came together really well.