Terminator: Dark Fate’s Gabriel Luna on Becoming New Villain, Honoring Originals

Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth movie in the Terminator franchise but it is serving as the third as it relates to the franchise’s canon. Disregarding the third, fourth, and fifth films, Terminator: Dark Fate picks up where Terminator 2: Judgement Day left off and brings in Gabriel Luna as a new sort of Terminator. Luna plays a Rev-9, a highly capable robot sent from the future to take out a woman who is the key to humanity’s future. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the story is similar enough to be recognized by original fans, but (like the Rev-9) also offers up new twists on familiar tricks. Luna, who is “absolutely” a fan of the original films, pulled a bit of inspiration for his role from those entries.

“I’d be an idiot not to draw from the iconic performances of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Patrick, so I definitely pulled some of their tricks out of their bags,” Luna tells ComicBook.com in the video above. “Then you just do you, man, you give yourself to the character, you experience everything that’s happened to you in the moment, there’s so much happening, that you’re not thinking about, oh, I got to do it the way Arnold did it in that scene, because it’s just, you know, you’re driving these trucks and doing all the fights and you’re experiencing the scenes as they happen and you just try to stay completely focused and stay precise and you know, no wasted movement.”

Fans will notice one thing pulled straight from the original Terminator films: the signature robotic run. “Robert had great form and it was a sprinter’s run, you keep the hands open, you lean forward and yeah, I definitely was thinking of him, when I did that,” Luna added with a laugh, “and I have to retract my previous statement, I was definitely thinking about him!”

One of the Rev-9’s new abilities is to more or less split itself. Luna’s appearance can step away from the Terminator frame, making any fight an instant two against one scenario. “I play both, so we would just kind of Patty Duke it I guess and just shoot it twice,” Luna explained. “I’d do one at one point, sometimes there’s a reference for the effects artists, like sometimes we’ll have my double, Jason or Morgan stand in for a moment, but then I’ll go back and play the other part.”

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Terminator: Dark Fate is now playing in theaters.