Exclusive Interview: Wes Chatham and Nadine Nicole Discuss the Final Season of The Expanse

The Roci crew is back for one final mission. After six enthralling seasons, the beloved sci-fi series is coming to an end.

The final season of The Expanse picks up with the solar system at war. Marco Inaros and his Free Navy continue to launch devastating asteroid attacks on Earth and Mars. As the tensions of war and shared loss threaten to pull the crew of the Rocinante apart, Chrisjen Avasarala makes a bold move and sends former Martian Marine Bobbie Draper on a secret mission that could turn the tide. Meanwhile in the Belt, Drummer and what’s left of her family are on the run and hunted for betraying Marco. And on a distant planet beyond the Rings, a new power begins to rise.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to chat with Nadine and Wes about the final season of The Expanse and the effect their characters have had on their lives.

PC: In Season 6, we see this mentorship form between your two characters. How did you approach the dynamic that we’ll see unfold in Season 6?
Wes: A lot of it came from the amount of time we spent together in Season 5 and the bonding and comradery of freezing to death out there in the great Northern Toronto woods up there in Canada. It was all the work we did together. It was filling in the gap of her character’s story from the transport back to earth, down to prison, and the history that they had during that six-month journey and how it grew. We started getting deep into it in Season 5—that’s when the relationship really started to have that vibe and chemistry.

Nadine: It’s also understanding the layers of both of these characters and the dark past that they’ve both had. We have very different back stories, yet we have similar struggles on the spiritual and emotional level, figuring out who we are as people and where our morality lies. We’re trying to create new paths of trying to better humans; it’s this self-reflection, self-fulfillment, and self-awareness.

In Amo’s journey, you see a lot of that in Season 6 as he becomes Clarissa’s mentor, teacher, and guide. That’s where we kick off the season. Her only trusted comrade on the Roci is Amos and she’s trying to prove herself and build trust with everyone else.

PC: Final question for the two of you, there’s this beautiful moment this season where Naomi tells Holden, “You’ll never know the effect you’ll have on others.” With this being the final season, what effect has playing these respective characters had on each of you?
Nadine: I’m really grateful for this role, but mostly for this project. First of all, Clarissa has taught me that I can go into a role that I have no idea how to play. I didn’t know if I was capable of playing this psychopath at the beginning. I didn’t know if I was capable of killing and murdering people. I was a bit nervous. I was like, “Can I really convincingly do that? Can I do this justice?” I was nervous.

Then, coming out of the other end being like, “If you step in, you work hard, you’re surrounded by people that support you and hold you, you lean into that as you discover the character.” It made me more confident as an artist to be like, “Okay, you can walk into a situation that you’re uncomfortable with and come out the other side, golden.”

As a project, I can only hope and pray to come onto another project at this high of a caliber with the writing, crew, talent, and concept. Every single part of this project has been superb. I really hope to do something like this in the future.

Wes: I just feel an enormous amount of gratitude. I feel honored to have gotten the opportunity to play a character as interesting and complex as this. On so many different levels, this has been so special in my life. We all grew up on this project—we started about eight years ago. I’m grateful for the relationships and the people that I’ve gotten to work with.

On a creative level, projects like this don’t come along too often, from the level of writing to the sophistication of the science to the storytelling to the character arcs and development. My only ambition is to work on things that have touched me in my life and stories that enrich my life. This has meant so much. Hopefully, I’ll get to be a part of something like this again.

Make sure to follow Nadine (Twitter/Instagram) and Wes (Twitter/Instagram). Watch the final season of The Expanse on Amazon Prime today. New episodes drop every Friday.