A BARON WORLD

Stellan Skarsgård is cutting to the chase with his Baron

What was your previous relationship with Dune?

I still haven’t seen the previous movie, not because I don’t like it or because I was afraid that it sort of influenced me in a bad way. It was just, I had some books that I had to read, I didn’t have time! [Laughs] But I read the book, I hadn’t read it before. I read a lot, but I don’t read much sci-fi. But this was fun to read. It’s obviously written by someone who took a lot of drugs in the ’60s, right? But also was familiar with Machiavelli’s writing, because the power mechanics of that novel is fantastic and very entertaining. It’s a kind of sci-fi world that I hadn’t seen before. It’s a little mystical and a little magical, but it’s quite sensual at the same time. The Denis version is, of course, 10 times as sensual.

Denis is such an incredible director, was he part of the draw for joining this project?

Of course he was, of course. I mean, the role is not that much. I did it in 10 days, and compared to the book it’s extremely reduced, by necessity, because you have to cut away a lot and he becomes – like in any Hollywood movie – a kind of evil function. Nobody’s interested in his childhood or his psychological background, or how his parents treated him. And that’s fair. But then I was fascinated by the idea of creating, in very little space, this monster that had to be strong enough visually – because there was so little dialogue – to be remembered for the audience throughout the film and looming as a threat in the background, even when they don’t see him. It’s not a fake head, it’s my head. You can see my face, you can see it’s Stellan Skarsgård in that fucking monster. And you can read my reactions in the face, in the eyes and everything, which is fantastic because you make a human monster. I think I concentrated very much on what you would look like and to avoid anything that would be sort of normal evil man clichés.

Fans of the book will notice some slight changes…

They took away a lot of things, and they also took away the paedophile side of him that is in the book. I don’t miss it, and you don’t need it. But when it comes to his psychology, I know the audience don’t give a fuck how his childhood was and I don’t either. I concentrated on the presence, the still violence in him in every scene, a threat of a resting tiger. So, slow movements, dense physicality. There’s no psychology whatsoever.

Did you get a chance to spend any time with actors on “the other side”?

In my scenes basically I work with David Bautista and David Dastmalchian, and when I work with them in those scenes I, as the Baron, don’t give a fuck about them and they’re totally expandable. Then of course, I meet them between the scenes. But the problem is having the kind of make-up that I had, which took eight hours, and then you had to be sitting in a tent that they had to put in air conditioning in my ass and stuff. So I couldn’t hang with them. I saw them now and then, passed them in the hotel, they had so much more time off than I had! [Laughs] It was a great cast. And then there’s not only lovely actors, but also lovely people. But also Denis Villeneuve, he creates an atmosphere on the set that is sensual, relaxed, not aggressive at all, unstressful. And it’s just a joy to be there… except for the suit.

Denis has created a very physical real world – what was it like working on a physical Dune set?

The first time I worked on a physical Dune set I just said “Wow” because of the size. It was a lot of my sets and they are all huge and are reflecting my stark power and everything. But it also has a very simple elegance. Everything is beautiful in a brutal way. Patrice Vermette, he’s such a brilliant designer. But I also saw, immediately on the first set, I thought, “Yeah, this is not the regular fare, this is Denis Villeneuve’s fare”. I could feel that.