WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Expanse Season 5, Episode 6, "Tribes," available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Ever since her introduction in Season 2 of The Expanse, Cara Gee’s Camina Drummer has been known as a tough-as-nails Belter who can handle pretty much anything. Throughout that time though, the show has mostly focused on her professional life. That’s changed in Season 5, where the personal and professional have mixed as she’s become the leader of a polyamorous group that’s also a noteworthy Belter faction. Given Drummer’s connections and function in the solar system, it’s no wonder she’s been put in the impossible position of having to ally with Marco Inaros, whose spectacular acts of terror have made him the primary power in the Belt.
No matter what she’s going through, Gee plays Drummer with a fierce conviction that has made her one of the most exciting characters on the series. In an interview following the release of "Tribes," the sixth episode of the fifth season, Gee spoke to CBR about exploring Drummer’s softer, more intimate side, the fundamental conflict of Drummer’s existence as a Belter and confronting Keon Alexander’s Marco Inaros.
When we start Season 5, we find Drummer in a very unexpected place. What was your response to finding out that she would be part of this polyamorous family?
Cara Gee: Well, I read the books, so I had a bit of an inside scoop that we were headed in that direction and that I would be taking on some of those storylines from the books. So I had been looking forward to it for a long time. And I am really, really thrilled that we are able to represent this polyamorous, queer relationship. I think, especially for Drummer.
It's interesting to watch how her friendship with Naomi played out. And I think the fan response to that and the fact that that relationship was shipped, so to speak -- and nobody shipped Naomi and Drummer harder than me and Dominique [Tipper, who plays Naomi]. You know, [Naomi] goes back to Holden, of course, and their friendship didn't ever go there. To see Drummer finally in a love relationship is so beautiful, I think. It is just so beautiful. As well, I think it's important. We see her be so hardcore and fierce, and to remember that she is human and that she can have a cozy home life and still have all of these badass qualities, and she can still be sexual and still be a ferocious leader, I think that's really great to see.
What has it been like for you shooting those scenes where you get to show her softer side and show her in intimate situations that really have not been a part of the character up until now?
Well, as an actor, it's a dream, of course, to get to show a different side of a character who we've really only seen in a professional context until now. So to be able to show what her home life is like, I mean, that's just getting to flex a whole other side of the work that I get to do. And it's important. I felt a real responsibility, especially with that queer representation, to make sure that we did it sensitively […]. It could have gone a different direction. But to remember that these are all people and their relationship is cozy and tender, I think that that is an important part of showing a respectful, intelligent take on a polyamorous relationship. That it is about love first and foremost.
It definitely comes across that way.
Thank you. I was very fortunate. The cast that I got to work with this season, this show has this miraculous way of just casting some of the most incredible people. And the chemistry that you're seeing onscreen with that group, it's real. It's real. We had such fondness and affection for one another, and the friendship that we share as a group is still ongoing. We actually have the most hilarious and incredible group chat that, like, oh, if only you knew! [Laughs] And that doesn't happen. That's not a guarantee. That's quite a rare thing. We shot that stuff a year ago, and a year later, we still have a very active group chat going. [Laughs]
Drummer is in charge of a new ship this season too, so it's an all-new setting for her. What was it like for you to come into this new set and take charge of it?
At the end of Season 4, Drummer has decided to part ways with the OPA. She feels, obviously, that she's got blood on hands [because of] the ship that was destroyed after Marco did the bait and switch and Fred Johnson gave that intel to Avasarala and the ship was destroyed, and again, innocent Belter lives are lost. And Drummer doesn't want anything to do with that anymore. And so she says, "I want to forge my own path." And I think, starting from that point and then as we are seeing as the season unfolds, she's just getting pulled back in.
And of course, the first thing that happens is that she finds the Tynan floating out in space. And I mean, space is just so vast, which it really is difficult to even wrap my brain around the unlikelihood that she would have found Ashford's ship floating, dark and scrapped and a hull of its former self. So the fact that she had found that ship and is able to get it back up and running is kind of miraculous. And she keeps getting pulled back into the fight.
And my heart aches for her, that she wants her life to be something that's not political and yet her very existence is political. And I certainly relate to that as an indigenous woman. That no matter what I do, my very existence and my survival is political. So I think that Drummer has [an insight] into that point of view, I think, into what she's going through as well.
Drummer has always been a very proud Belter. She's always led with that to some degree. But she's definitely not on the same page with Marco even though, like you said, he’s pulling her back into this fight. She is trying to do the right thing for her family but it is definitely not easy. What has that been like to tread those fine lines?
Yes. That is my favorite thing about the show. Back before I was a part of the show, I had watched Season 1 just as a fan. Long before I auditioned, even. It was completely separate. It was a dream to then be able to step into this role. But my favorite thing about the show from the beginning has been that no one is completely right, no one is completely wrong. I think what we're seeing, the atrocities that we're seeing [Marco] commit this season. It's always, always, always devastating to see innocent life lost. And I think that Drummer and I are on the same page that that is absolutely wrong. Nothing good can come of that. But at the same time, as an oppressed people -- and Belters have seen their own people being killed, oppressed. All that to say that it's a very complicated story in regards to how Drummer is navigating her position on the Free Navy.
But I think that it is worth remembering that, while Drummer and I are very much aligned in that no innocent life should ever be lost and the murder that Marco has committed is atrocious, but as an oppressed people who have seen their own people being murdered by, of course, the inner planets -- and whether that's through taxing them or restricting access to clean air and water until they die -- that kind of oppression is costing innocent life as well. And so, for me, I think it's important to remember that what nation‐state isn't just an extremely successful terrorist organization? I think that history is written by the victors. And here we are watching this unfold. And the tensions that have existed between these groups from the very beginning, we're seeing, I think, this is what it has come to.
Given the difficulties of all that and her feelings towards Marco, how does that impact her response to having Karal, who’s loyal to him, on her ship now?
I don't think she likes it. [Laughs] And I think that as the season progresses, probably everything's just going to go really smoothly from here on out. I can't imagine anything bad is going to happen as a result of that. [Laughs]
You've been friends with Keon Alexander, who plays Marco, for a long time. What's it been like acting opposite him given you're playing these characters who are at odds?
I know, right? Isn't that crazy? There is some magic in the air with this show. It is so wild that I get to do this with him. Yes, because he has been a dear friend for a long time. I mean, it's great. I think that, I mean, everyone on this show is so nerdy about the show. And we talk and talk and talk and talk. And we get together and we rehearse on our own time. And whenever we go out together the conversation is about the show and about the story. So to be able to have that kind of depth to draw on when we do get these incredible juicy scenes we're just so excited to be able to pour everything into that.
This was especially exciting to shoot this stuff with him. The stuff that we see in Episode 506, we got to have a sort of face-off moment. And there's so much humor underneath it. I think they get to play with all these different levels of what you're showing and what you're hiding. It's an actor's dream really.
One of the things that happened in Episode 506 was that Filip almost let slip that Naomi is on the ship with Marco and him. And Drummer has a very interesting response. What was it like for you to play that? And what went into your thinking with that moment?
Well, I think first and foremost for Drummer in that moment, she wants to let Filip know that his mother is a good woman, a good person. And I think that she knows that Marco has turned him against her, and she knows that Naomi is completely estranged from him. So she wants to plant those seeds very carefully. I don't think she picks up on the idea, the thought that Naomi could be there because that's just so crazy to imagine. But definitely the moment where Drummer first sees Filip was really fun to shoot. I kept practicing a really over-the-top kind of slapstick double-take. [Laughs] It didn't make the cut. But oh, my God, could they have found someone who looked anymore exactly like if Dom and Keon had a baby? Jasai [Chase-Owens, who plays Filip], he looks like them. He looks like them! And I mean, what an incredible actor he is. To have discovered him is, again, one of those magical, special things that happens with this show.
An adaptation of the novel series of the same name by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse stars Steven Strait, Cas Anvar, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Frankie Adams. New episodes of Season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Amazon Prime Video.