HALLO SPICEBOY
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET was the first and only choice to play Paul Atreides. Without him, there was no Dune
Fear is not something to be run from, it’s something to go through
Dune is your first sci-fi movie. Did you find that challenging?
Man, absolutely. I think that challenge was twofold. First, there’s the reality of the length of that kind of shoot – four or five, six months. I’d never been on any project like that before. I think the longest project I’ve been on before that was three months. Besides that, I’ve only been on projects of a month and a half or shorter. So it brings to bear the idea that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And that’s not something that’s obvious, when you haven’t worked on that kind of movie before – particularly when your scenes involve a lot of emotional climaxes. So there was that challenge from a shooting perspective, shooting schedule perspective. And then secondly, to try to do justice to Paul Atreides in the sort of tension he’s living through, based on the expectation that’s not only coming from his parents from House Atreides, and what would have already in a normative setting been a very stressful situation to be in – but all the pressure on top of that of being the Muad’dib. And also the responsibility that his pre-destiny involves, that would be something that is quite uncomfortable, to say the least! [Laughs] So to try to do justice to that tension day in and day out, and as I was saying to Denis before, to not jump the gun, you know, to not play that too soon. Also, because we’re gonna make a second one of these, and that’s a whole other journey. This story is really about a young adult coming into their own, as I said before, in the pre-destiny, being the Muad’dib, but also in the ways we all go through puberty and all the ways we struggle when we’re at that age, of course.
Where did you meet Denis and what was your first impression of him?
We met at the Cannes Film Festival three years ago. And, I guess I’ve never said it before – and I hope Denis is only flattered by it because it’s only sincere – but I was just amazed by the childlike enthusiasm he had for the book. That doesn’t mean behaviourally, that just means that his enthusiasm was that of someone that was dying to make this movie a year before even making it, and who is pacing around the room with the script and the book. And he already had so many ideas and the thoughts were just coming from his fingertips. So naturally, I was excited. I didn’t have the role offered to me yet, but I was excited about the possibility of working with him. Because I always think the best kind of projects to work on are ones where directors are directing almost besides themselves. I’d read online that Denis had read the book when he was really young, that it was something he was extremely passionate about. I also started to get a sense in talking to people – whether it was my father, or my dad’s friends, or even friends of my age – that they had a huge respect for the book and had been affected by it. A lot of them were supported through their youth by the character of Paul Atreides, by the Litany Against Fear, by many of the themes in the book. It’s one of the things I hope modern audiences take away from it, too. So, anyway, that, uh, didn’t really answer your question! [Laughs] I had a wonderful impression.
Paul Atreides is a complex character with many layers. How was the character building process?
You know, it’s layered, and fortunately I had the time to wrap my head around it, which is not a fortune that every actor gets when they jump on a project. Sometimes they only get a week or something. But I had the time to go through the book, treat the book like a Bible, and appreciate, first and foremost, Paul’s journey within the story. But also the incredible themes across the book, whether it be religious colonisation, or the exploitation of the environment and the planet Arrakis with the spice, which obviously has relevance to the world that we live in today. But first and foremost I stayed very close to the book, and trying to wrap your head around what the experience would be like to become a young adult, the way everyone does, whether it’s dealing with puberty for the first time or social awkwardness. But then, as you alluded to, it’s sort of not being sure of your standing or what will become of you once Paul has to become the head of House Atreides, which is already a huge responsibility. And then on top of it, there’s the predestined visions he begins to have about being the Muad’dib, and sort of a disrupter and a revolutionary within the universe. And if that wouldn’t be a lot on someone’s shoulders, I don’t know what is! So that was the first course of action, getting close to the role. And then I was already a huge, huge fan of Denis’s films. I love Prisoners, I loved all of them. But also just to go back and watch them again, which I think is important for you, working with a director, just to get a sense of the tone and the rhythms. I’d seen Arrival in theatres right around that time, too, right before we started, before we met working on it. So there was twofold. And then lastly – then I’ll shut up! – there was a good aspect of fight training to get into this. The fight scene with Gurney Halleck [Josh Brolin] towards the beginning of the movie, and then I won’t spoil what comes after. But that was great. That was great fun, and maybe fun’s not the right word, because it was tough, but it was important for the confidence of the character to get those sequences down. Because Paul Atreides is someone who, from his youth, had been trained in how to fight and how to lead, the way a young man would have been in Sparta or something.
Dune touches on many themes, but fear is constant. Was there any fear on your side?
Especially in this role, the terrific burden is on Paul’s shoulders. From the moment the Gom Jabbar scene happens, and prior, I think fear is a big element. That’s what makes Frank Herbert’s litany so powerful and something that stayed with me after the movie, something that I can apply in my real life, because you think about the number of times the word fear is used in that poem. It’s not something to be run from, it’s something to go through. And that was definitely the experience of working on this, whether it was staring at five, six months’ shooting schedule on day one, whether it was the idea of being a lead of a Denis Villeneuve movie, the way great actors, Hugh Jackman, Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal had in the past, or whether it was playing Paul Atreides, who has to take over the universe! [Laughs] But it was a great joy. It was one of the lifechanging experiences, and something I’ll be forever grateful to Denis for, seriously.
‘Women’. Because one of the elements of the book that is quite original and powerful is the sisters and that fantastic character of Lady Jessica, who technically has the burden of the story on her shoulder.
“I wanted to put that up front. Of course, we’re following Paul Atreides, the movie’s seen through Paul’s eyes, but I wanted his mother to be very close by, being almost as important as him in the journey – that there is a story about their dynamic, which is at the very heart of the movie. So I will say that femininity was very important, and we tried to increase it and embrace it in different aspects.”
IT’S ALL IN THE PAUL
The journey of Paul Atreides, who is propelled to his fate by an intergalactic power struggle, required a certain type of actor. So specific, in fact, that the entire fate of the movie rested on his casting.
“When we started, I started with Timothée,” Villeneuve states. “There was nobody else in my mind that could portray Paul Atreides, for several reasons.
“I needed an actor that was young, who would have big shoulders, enough to be able to sustain the burden of such a huge movie. Someone that will not be afraid to go deep into the psychology of the character, that will have the skills to portray the complexity of the character and the strength, that will have the necessary charisma. At the end of the day, Paul Atreides is a rock star who became the leader of a whole planet.
“So I needed someone that will believe that and will have that kind of charisma, I needed someone that had intelligence in the eyes, and most importantly, Timothée’s an old soul. The more you talk with him the more you will find out the sophisticated and mature human being he is – he’s a true intellectual in a sense. He was raised between two continents, in France and in the United States. It brought a lot of culture and a very beautiful human being. And he looks so young on camera, sometimes he looks 13 years old.
“From Paul, I then picked the mother. I went for the second character that isn’t the most important as Paul because for me, Lady Jessica needed to be one of the main characters, just behind Paul. For me the movie’s almost in tandem. The idea that it’s about the relationship of a son and his mother, and the evolution of that relationship on screen. And it’s at the very heart of Dune.
“But I will say that everybody was excited to work on the adaptation of this book, there was some kind of level of excitement. I was kind of spoiled as a director; once I was in contact with an actor approaching, it was kind of easy to bring people on board. I didn’t make any compromise. I’m proud of the casting because, yes it does have a lot of star power but at the end of the day, it’s not important. The most important thing is that these actors are close – each of them – to the description that Frank Herbert did as a character in some way or the other. There’s something very close to the spirit of the book.”
It turns out that he and Chalamet have history – something that his lead actor hasn’t let the director forget.
“I was a big fan of Timothée’s work,” Villeneuve begins. “The truth, the real story – and Timothée loves to put it under my nose from time to time – is that he kept saying I refused him in casting once. It’s a long time ago and I didn’t get the chance to meet him at the time. He was a very young actor, and casting is a very
strange process,” he says of Chalamet’s audition for 2013’s Prisoners.
“The thing is, he wanted to play the part of Hugh Jackman and I said, ‘No, you can’t’,” he laughs. “Casting is all about chemistry. What I was looking for, for that part, was different, but I remember being impressed by Timothée’s audition back then.
“Timothée says that I met him at Cannes Film Festival and he didn’t [then] have the part [for Dune]. I would add that for me there was no plan B. I wanted…” he begins, before stressing, “I was praying that Timothée would accept to work with me on Dune because I had nobody else in mind. It was nobody. It was Timothée or no movie.
“It really, for me, was fundamental. It was essential for several reasons that Timothée and Legendary [Pictures] agreed with that. He was Paul Atreides in our mind and he became Paul Atreides with the cameras.”
As you may have already surmised, it wasn’t just the location and leads that Villeneuve had