Rebel Moon Stars Sofia Boutella & Ed Skrein Reveal How They Maintained Rivalry on Set

Rebel Moon: Part One: A Child of Fire hits Netflix in just a matter of days, and viewers are definitely excited to pick apart the lore of Zack Snyder’s new epic. At the center of the film’s ensemble is the adversarial relationship between Kora (Sofia Boutella) and Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) — and now we have a bit more insight into how that dynamic was crafted. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Boutella and Skrein spoke about what it was like to keep their rivalry afloat, even when they weren’t actually filming.

“For me, first of all, what I’m defending was very, very powerful,” Boutella explained in our interview, which you can check out above. “So that itself was holding me. But also it was just the whole team around Ed did such an amazing job, and he did such an amazing job at building that. So that made it very easy for me. He looked terrifying. He was so intimidating and he just carried that with him. And so it made my job easier. You know what I mean? I just had to look at him and breathe and let it come out. You try as best you can to be yourself between takes. But no matter what, you’re so immersed with the character, it’s really, it’s really hard. You still feel that that’s not Ed, so you have to let it go. We’re not going to connect today.”

“So we’re back to being silly and giggling,” Skrein echoed.

“And then when we do take, after take of us strangling each other, suddenly him strangling me,” Boutella continued. “It’s hard to get out of it and tell your body ‘It’s not true, like it’s true.’ You maintain that just by what you had to do. And also aside from that, you’re being pulled different direction, so it was impossible to see Ed as Ed, no matter what. I always saw him on set for nine months straight, I only saw him looking that way, so [it was] easy to maintain. And then I saw him in Sao Paulo. He arrived and he was just fresh as a daisy and like, ‘Oh, you are actually back.’” 

“The first thing Zack said to me, he was like, ‘Oh, you’re human again,’” Skrein revealed. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, I actually am.’ It’s taken like a year to get it out of my system, but I am truly human again and there is no part of Noble in me. Not one molecule anymore. Thank God.”

Will There Be a Rebel Moon Director’s Cut?

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snyder revealed that both film installments of Rebel Moon will have R-rated director’s cuts, which will be released on Netflix at a later date. According to Snyder, elements of the grand Rebel Moon story are completely different in the longer cut of the film.

“It’s a full hour longer,” Snyder revealed. “It’s not just slightly different or a little bit more. There are big chunks of the movie that are different. A lot more stuff is fleshed out.”

“Zack is a world-builder,” producer Wesley Coller explained. “He loves the layering of a world and the details of a story and the nuances of a character. His process always has him doing so much exploring what’s under the hood, not just what we see on screen. Having the opportunity to take this fresh idea and build all of that out, asking this question over here and finding the answer to that over there, was the most exciting part to him.” 

What Is Rebel Moon About?

In Rebel Moon: Part One: A Child of Fire, when a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Motherworld, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.

“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder said in a statement when the film was first announced. “It’s my love of sci-fi and a giant adventure. My hope is that this also becomes a massive IP and a universe that can be built out… I’ve spent the last two or three years building out this universe. Every corner has to be painted in. I’ve been doing designs, constantly drawing and really cultivating its fertile ground to make this world fully realized.”

Are you excited for Rebel Moon? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Rebel Moon: Part One: A Child of Fire will be released exclusively on Netflix on Friday, December 22nd.