Rebel Moon: Charlie Hunnam Reveals How Character’s Backstory Appealed to Him

Charlie Hunnam is taking on a different kind of challenge with his mischievous new role in Netflix’s new blockbuster. The actor, best known for Sons of Anarchy and Pacific Rim, stars in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire as Kai, an unpredictable space pirate who seems to enjoy chaos more than most. With this kind of character, Hunnam gets to be the most playful character in the room, a role he seemed to enjoy taking on from the first time he spoke with Snyder about it.

While speaking to ComicBook.com ahead of Rebel Moon‘s Netflix premiere, Hunnam was asked about working alongside Snyder to take Kai from page to screen.

“You know, it never occurred to me, I never gave him the opportunity to tell me about Kai, I just told him so much about who I thought Kai was,” Hunnam said with a laugh. “So it was like that, and I finally stopped talking and he went, ‘Yeah, I think you understand this character?’”

Hunnam went on to say that a lot of his influence for Kai came from the nomadic Irish Traveler community, which he has been very interested in for quite a long time.

“I loved, loved him,” Hunnam continued, speaking about his character. “I loved him on the page. And there was just some cultural references from the UK, specifically the Traveler community, that I’m obsessed with and have always had so much admiration and been sort of a moth to the flame. And for some reason, I don’t know if I was projecting this onto it, but I’ve always wanted to bring that energy into a character. I read Kai and I thought, ‘Oh, this. This guy feels to me like he’s from that Traveler community.”

Kai may seem like a trickster to many, and fans could have a hard time trusting him, but Hunnam told us that he believes all of the different sides the character shows in Rebel Moon are genuine.

“I think he’s very, very sincere,” the actor said. “I just think, you know, he’s a survivor. Seriously. I couldn’t believe that he was anything other than generous of spirit and was actually very sincere. He’s got a few different facets and if you were to believe that one of those facets were more dominant than the others, then it would have been very one note, the character, and I just chose to believe that all of the different faces he shows you are genuine.”

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire debuts on Netflix on December 22nd.