!['Rebel Moon' Star Gives a Major Update on Zack Snyder's Next Passion Project [Exclusive]](https://citigist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Rebel-Moon-Star-Gives-a-Major-Update-on-Zack-Snyders.jpg)
It’s a magical thing when a director and actor become regular collaborators. From Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro to Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, and Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, there are times when two creatives become so in sync with each other’s work and style that they’re able to constantly elevate each other to greater heights. For Fra Fee, who has appeared on Broadway, London’s West End, and in the MCU, that perfect partner may be Zack Snyder. After a start on-screen in 2012 as part of the SAG Award-nominated cast of Les Misérables before breaking out as Tracksuit Mafia member Kazimierz “Kazi” Kazimierczak in Hawkeye, Fee got the chance to join the former DCEU head for his two-part space opera passion project, Rebel Moon, playing the tyrant Balisarius. As of last year, the duo is now back to working together on yet another film that’s near and dear to Snyder’s heart — The Last Photograph.
Written by another frequent Snyder collaborator, Kurt Johnstad, The Last Photograph is a more grounded drama that the director has been working on since the mid-2000s. It centers on a former DEA operative who treks to the South American mountains to find his missing niece and nephew after their parents are murdered. Along the way, he encounters a war photographer who last saw the perpetrators and accompanies him into the unknown to find his loved ones. Snyder himself has called his jungle-set thriller a “meditation of life and death,” which goes to some deeply personal places and starts to obfuscate the line between reality and the surreal as the journey gets further along.
Coinciding with a new edition of our behind-the-scenes series, Set Stories, Collider’s Maggie Lovitt sat down with Fee for a conversation about his new series, Unchosen, where he was asked about his experience working with Snyder. “I love Zack, too,” he said. “I found out as an artist, he’s a true, true creative. I haven’t met many people who have such a teeming creativity and curiosity. He’s made me a coffee mug that he made. He paints and illustrates, and it’s just incredible.” Between his respect for Snyder’s many capabilities as a creative and the genuine bond they formed, he considered it “a deep, deep privilege and honor” for the director to tap him for The Last Photograph. Alas, Fee’s own busy schedule on the stage made it complicated and a bit panic-inducing when his friend came calling.
“I was just about to go to Dublin to do The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, which I did last summer — brilliant play — and I was having dinner with my husband, and I just saw a text message come up on my phone: Zack Snyder. I was days away from going to Dublin to do a fantastic play and get paid like £0.02 a week, which is fine, and I saw, ‘Are you about for a chat?’ I was like, ‘Oh god, he’s going to ask me to do something amazing, and I won’t be able to do it because I’m in Dublin doing this play!‘ Anyway, he called and told me about this movie, I think it was called, at that stage, The Horse Latitudes, that he had on his shelf for several decades. It very, very nearly got made with Christian Bale and Sean Penn, and then he got busy with the DC world and everything that he’s done since. He was like, ‘I just want to make this film. I’ve got time to do it now.'”
Zack Snyder Secured Fra Fee a “Deliciously Complicated” ‘The Last Photograph’ Role
The timing for The Last Photograph ended up turning out almost perfect for Fee in the end, though. With Rebel Moon out of the way and no other immediately pressing projects, Snyder had a rare window of time to shoot the drama. Fee revealed that he was currently waiting on Brawler, the high-profile UFC movie he’s directing and co-writing with Johnstad and Shay Hatten in coordination with Dana White‘s sports league and Saudi minister Turki Alashikh. “There were lots of dots to connect, so he had this time, and he was just talking about this thing, and I was like, ‘Yeah. Great, great, great. What is this?'” the actor recalled. “He sent me the script, and he was like, ‘Your character’s name is this,’ and I read it, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is very, very special. This is a great character.'”
Snyder already gave Fee a weighty role to work with in Balisarius, a tyrant in charge of the armies of Imperium and former adoptive father of the rebellion leader, Kora (Sophia Boutella). Naturally, then, he was very excited that his next role under the director was “Another deliciously complicated person, which is so fab.” However, the Banshees of Inisherin helmer’s play again proved a potential conflict with the time frame Snyder initially wanted to work with. He still isn’t sure if Snyder held off intentionally, but regardless, it was a big relief for Fee to arrive for the shoot just in the nick of time and get to have that experience of collaborating with a filmmaker he respects in a locale he’ll never forget.
“And I said, “So what are you going to do?” He said, “Well, I’m just going to try and get some money together and just go to Colombia and just shoot it.” And I told him about the play and that I wasn’t available until September, and I think at that stage he’s like, “We’re going to try and go for August.” I was like, “If there’s anything you can do to start in September.” I don’t know if he did specifically wait — if he did, oh my god, thank you so much — but we literally started the day… I flew to L.A. for training the day after I finished the play, and it was a beautiful experience. It’s so, so special being in that part of the world.”
Fee isn’t the only Rebel Moon cast member Snyder brought back into the fold. Stuart Martin, who played Den in both Netflix films, is set to co-lead, and the “love” between the two co-stars was real. “We just got on so, so well, and he’s fantastic and just a gorgeous person,” he continued. Between their chemistry, the director, the crew, and the idyllic sets, he felt not just fulfilled by the role but also a sense of imposter syndrome over whether he was the one who should be leading this more personal story. Fee told Collider:
“Zack was, like, living out this passion project. There were such good vibes, and the Colombian crew was awesome. The aesthetic was gorgeous. Every location, every set was just a treat for the senses. But yeah, to get back to your initial questions, it’s so, so lovely to be asked to do that. Balisarius was quite a different character. The part of you that, the imposter syndrome part of you, whenever things like this happen, like when you get asked to do something, you’re just like, ‘Oh my god, really? Do you think I’m the right guy?’ You really do. But he saw me in it, and when I got there, I did really feel like in this person’s shoes. So yeah, it was a real honor, and he’s such a legend.”
How Far Along Is ‘The Last Photograph’?
When Lovitt highlighted the sort of respect and camaraderie that runs between Snyder and his collaborators, Fee noted how deep it all ran. Martin, for instance, also worked with the writer-director on his animated series Twilight of the Gods and the Army of the Dead prequel, Army of Thieves. As previously mentioned, Johnstad has been an especially frequent flier, though Snyder’s connections were felt throughout the crew. “So yeah, it sort of becomes just like you’re working with your mates. We really were,” he said. “Kurt, too, wrote the script, and he’s one of Zach’s best mates, and the US crew that came over, which is maybe a team of 10, they were just all Zack’s buddies and collaborators. It was just such a good, good experience.”
The over decade-long wait to finally see The Last Photograph won’t last much longer either. Fee confirmed that “It’s finished now” and expressed his excitement to finally lay eyes on the final product himself. “I think he just completed it very recently with Hans Zimmer and his team, composing the score and all. It is somewhere completed, waiting to be watched.
What Is Fee’s New Series ‘Unchosen’ About?
In the meantime, Fee will take his talents back to Netflix with the British cult thriller series Unchosen. Also starring Sex Education lead Asa Butterfield, alongside Molly Windsor, Siobhan Finneran, Christopher Eccleston, Alexa Davies, Olivia Pickering, and Rory Wilmot, among others, the miniseries centers on a woman named Rosie (Windsor) living in a conservative religious sect with her family. Her life is suddenly thrown into question with the arrival of Sam (Fee), an escaped convict whose presence undermines the very reality the cult has presented. Their meeting begins a journey towards liberation, as she wonders whether the cult really has her best interests in mind, and her relationship with her husband (Butterfield) starts crumbling down.
Unchosen was created by Julie Gearey and is now available on Netflix. You can watch our Collider Set Stories episode with Fee below and stay tuned here for further updates on Snyder’s long-gestating The Last Photograph.
