‘The Expanse’: Cara Gee Filmed Season 5’s Camina Drummer Scenes While 8 Months Pregnant

Camina Drummer has earned more time in the spotlight during Season 5 of The Expanse, and for good reason. Her hotheadedness and intense focus have made her one of the few people who could poison Marco Inaros’ plans from within, and ever since Karal joined her crew on the Dewalt, things have only gotten more tense. A recent episode saw Drummer experiencing a breakdown and performing several impressively emotional scenes — all while actor Cara Gree was 8 months pregnant. [Warning: spoilers ahead for episodes 8 and 9.]

A brief recap of recent events for Camina Drummer

Camina Drummer has had one of the most challenging emotional arcs during recent seasons of The Expanse. After letting Klaes Ashford go after Marco Inaros, she was destroyed when she discovered Ashford was dead. 

To make matters worse, Drummer had to face the fact that she’d had a chance to kill Marco Inaros — but instead voted to release him, as did several other Belter parties. This means Drummer is keenly aware that Ashford might still be alive if she hadn’t chosen to let Inaros live. 

What’s more, Drummer was later told by Karal that Naomi Nagata is dead. Drummer, who clearly had feelings for Nagata, takes this very hard. Again, someone she cared for died at the hands of Inaros. 

Drummer returns to her quarters and screams bloody murder, and proceeds to down the entirety of Klaes Ashford’s whiskey. 

Later, Oksana — one of Drummer’s polyamorous lovers — discovers that Nagata may still be alive. She struggles with whether or not she should take this news to Drummer, fearing how Drummer’s reaction may put them all in danger should she go against Karal and Inaros.. Eventually, she relents and informs Drummer both of Nagata’s possible survival, and her concerns about their own safety. 

Cara Gee on Camina Drummer’s feelings

Suffice it to say, Cara Gee has thoughts on Camina Drummer’s emotions and behavior during Season 5 of The Expanse. She opened up about this during a chat with Screen Rant.

“Drummer, back in season 3, has this line where she says, ‘All the optimists I know are dead.’ And she says that to Ashford and Naomi. And now both of them are gone, taken from her by Marco, who she had in a f***ing airlock but didn’t kill when she had the chance,” she told the publication. 

“She feels this immense – almost Shakespearean or Greek Theater – epic grief. The only way to express it in that moment is to just scream; scream and knock that bottle back.I will say, though, the actual execution of that moment was shot very quickly. I think we only did two or three takes of it.”

‘The Expanse’ star filmed while 8 months pregnant

Humorously, Cara Gee was actually 8 months pregnant when she was filmed chugging a bottle of whiskey. The Expanse got a kick out of it.

“And I was eight months pregnant, so there’s something kind of hilarious about pretending to be drunk with a giant baby belly. It was very absurd,” she told Screen Rant. 

She went on to add that she filmed all of her scenes as Drummer sequentially, in an effort to make sure she had time to, you know, be pregnant. 

“We shot all of the Drummer scenes back to back well before the end of the shooting schedule, so that I could get out of there and have a baby. I was extremely pregnant,” she explained.

She went on to add that she felt very supported by her studio, Alcon, while pregnant, and that it’s a model for other studios and how they should treat pregnant performers. 

“I was very well supported in the shooting of it, and I think that’s one thing that I really appreciate about this show. If you want to have a bunch of powerful female characters, I think that doing the right thing behind the scenes is just as important as portraying these strong women,” she explained.