PRIVATE IDAHO
JASON MOMOA still can’t quite believe he landed the dream role of Duncan
I’d have to say it’s the most loving, artistic experience that I’ve had in film
What were the biggest challenges while filming Dune, apart from having to lift up Timothée Chalamet repeatedly?
I’d say the hardest thing was not smiling. And just having complete joy from being chosen to be playing Duncan Idaho. What a fucking honour. There’s absolutely nothing hard on this film. It’s funny, that scene with Timothée, I’m holding him up when I grab him – watch it in slow-mo, that little punk, he knees me right in the balls. Right when we did that scene, he hits me in the nuts. I’m holding him like, “My boy!” I grab him and he knees me so hard. I’m like, “Bro, you just cracked my nuts, man. You floored me”. And they kept it. It’s amazing. But in all honesty, people have been asking me what’s really hard because it was so challenging on the Lynch one, but it was the most beautiful experience. I loved every moment of it. I didn’t find any of it hard. I thought it was all just a phenomenal experience. I was stoked. How did you get into the project? I was at Sundance, and we were snowboarding. I got a call saying that Denis wanted to talk to me, which was surreal, because there’s no way he should even know my name. He’s the top, pinnacle, favourite movies, favourite director, had no clue why he was calling me. Come down the mountain, get on a call with him and he’s got a 60page Bible of the film. He’s pitching me Duncan Idaho, and I’m like, “Are you pitching me? Listen, you ain’t gonna pitch me. I’ll get you coffee, if you want me to. I’m free. I’ll do anything to be in your movie”. He’s pitching me Duncan Idaho, which is just, it’s the lottery. There’s no reason to play it any more. It’s too fucking late. I’ve already won it, I’m on Dune. This has never happened to me. I’ve never got to work on that level of actors and this is truly an action adventure. But it’s cinema. I mean, it’s truly cinema. And in my opinion, a masterpiece.
How do you bring honourable elements into your role?
I’ve loved samurai stuff my whole life. I feel like I’ve tried to put samurai style into most of my characters, the way of fighting or stances. The honour for me is that this is someone that would, you know, give his soul, give his life to another and to another cause. I only have that in the sense of my family and my boys. I don’t like to use them as a vehicle to get me where I need to be, but there’s definitely moments in this film where I signal my son. There’s this moment where I go like this [does hand to head movement from the trailer]. I learned a little bunch of [martial art] Kali moves with this, definitely a similar calling. That wasn’t in the film, I do that to my son..
What was it like being part of this ensemble cast?
One of my favourite moments was when we’re all lined up – me, Oscar, Timothée, Stephen [Mckinley Henderson] – in Duke Leto’s office and Javier [Bardem] walks in as Stilgar. He strutted in like Mick Jagger, so cool with so much power and so much swagger, and he just eyed down all of us. It was beautiful to watch that man act, I was in awe. I actually have a bunch of man crushes on this movie. I’ve always had a man crush on Josh Brolin, he’s like my brother. We’re very similar, except he’s a little older and wiser. And as for Oscar Isaac, I was so blown away at how amazing and talented he is.
How would you describe Denis as a director?
Beautiful Denis… oh, he knows exactly what he wants. He’s super-collaborative, very supportive. I think there is a safety net that is always there. I feel very supported. I feel very beautiful. Generally, when I work, I’m never made to feel beautiful. I think a great director will make you feel that. There’s enough fears – the mind killer – there’s enough of that, there’s enough of insecurities, so when you can show up to work and have someone that paints it out for you, takes a little bit of the pressure away, and lets you fall into the character that you’ve built... He’s helped you build it. Because he’s so passionate about it, he’s gonna guide you in the right direction. There’s a lot of playful moments that I think are important that may not make the film, but it helps subconsciously kind of bring it to the character. So I’d have to say, it’s the most loving, artistic experience that I’ve had in film, that I’ve had in my professional career. I think even when Denis would direct me, he would look at me like a kid, because he’s seeing Duncan Idaho. He’s seeing his Duncan Idaho, in front of him, which was crazy to be that to him. What I’d like you to take away from this is that, well, this is my favourite director of all time. And this is his childhood dream. And this is my baby, it’s my dream to work with him. I can’t tell you how much we all bled for it. It’s just a rare thing to find cinema on this level, on a huge epic adventure film, and we truly make cinema. I’ve never been on a set that’s this big, generally it’s got bluescreen around. It’s very rare to be on sets this massive, to go to another world, to go to Jordan and Wadi Rum and experience this. It’s going to show up on the film.
Did you get to unleash your prowess in those stunts and action scenes?
Towards the end of the movie, I get to have one of the greatest fight scenes that you could ever want. It’s an amazing moment. I feel like the great thing about Denis is that it’s what’s coming beforehand, it’s the anxiety, the intensity of what’s coming. Why am I on the edge of my goddamn seat right now? Because he’s an amazing filmmaker. That’s why. The prelude to the fight is just so intense. And then Duncan is having that moment… You know, I don’t want to give too much away. But listen, when he gets down to it, I did a lot more than get my balls kicked in by Timothée. But I did learn how to do Kali, which was something that I’ve never done before. So that was a new trait that I learned.
Duncan has a different journey in the books – would you return?
[Gives a look] It would be an honour. I want to say it would be an honour to play this role forever. So I will not, not say I wouldn’t be there. I would love to always play Duncan, Duncan’s a phenomenal character and I’d do anything for Denis. If he asked me to do his laundry I’d do his fucking laundry, you know?
whittled down the time needed to put one on to around 15 minutes.
Form follows function, Morgan says of their desert designs. “We want it to be aesthetically beautiful, but it also has to be believable. It just didn’t even feel like work, it felt like we were coming in to play and create.”
Production designer Patrice Vermette knows a thing or two about creating, having brought the entire universe of Dune to life – and for the most part, physically.
“We tried to make everything as immersive as possible for the actors and for Denis,” he explains, recalling an early meeting with Legendary Pictures where the response was, “It’s good, but how the hell are we going to do this?” Vermette’s reply? “I don’t know. But we’ve all got to figure it out together.” Some of the solutions he and the filmmakers came up with, he says, while vast and beautiful, were also straightforward.
“They’re different, but they’re still sets. We do plans, we build them, and some of them were a bit bigger, but still would sit on a massive soundstage like Stage Six at
Origo Studio.” For reference, that’s the biggest stage at the Budapest facility: 305’ long, 154’ wide and 48’ high. Big. Huge, even.
“We don’t have all the money in the world, obviously. So we build all the way up to the first 25 feet, then beyond that we build the sets, but made out of fabric with no texture. Some of the sets we built outside, between stages.
“Obviously actors, when you give them immersive sets, they will be happy and they will show it on the screen. They will bounce from the environment to give a better performance, I believe.”
WORLDS APART
Vermette says the beauty of the novel is that it has details, but not too many. “You can make it your own, which is great. You can create your own world with that. Honestly, I find that quite exciting. When there’s not too many details, there’s a basis for the understanding of the world that you need to illustrate, but there’s still not enough, there’s just the right amount of detail to put you in the right direction. But it also allows you to make it your own.”
This led to characteristically detailed conversations with Villeneuve as to how each element, each faction, each planet of Dune would look. “We spoke about the environment. What should Caladan telegraph as a feeling? “I suggested that maybe Caladan could be a place that resembles our Canadian Falls, on the coastline with tall trees, always fog, not too warm, not too cold,” he recalls. “Something that would give the idea of nostalgia, a bit of romanticism, the death of something, the passing of a season.
“Arrakis is – being a more obviously austere place – something that would be overwhelming for Paul Atreides when he arrives there.”
Like everyone else attached to the movie, Vermette speaks about his time on Dune with genuine affection.
“I was in Budapest when we started building, when these things became a reality. From that day, until they called a wrap on the beach of Norway, I had this immense smile on my face that nobody could have ever taken down. Because it was obviously my biggest movie ever, as a production designer. And I was surrounded by the most amazing team that helped me bring that vision to life.”
He gasps, remembering a specific point in the production. “My god, when we flew in two ornithopters, they had to be driven from BGI [Supplies] at Longcross [Studios] in Surrey, where they built them, all the way to Stansted.”
Flown intact to avoid having to rebuild them on set, one measured 75 feet, the other 48 feet. “They were flown to Aqaba airport and when those things came out, and then you installed them on desert dunes, it’s fantastic. It’s a fantastic feeling.”
A return to Arrakis is – almost – inevitable, with the book split in two and the on-screen name for the film given as Dune: Part One.
“I’m responsible for that, because I came with the idea,” Villeneuve explains. “I asked the studio at the beginning, when we all agreed that I’d be the one to direct and to create Dune. I said to them that I cannot make one movie, that would be the biggest mistake, because if we do that the chances of failure are high, because it’s too dense. There’s too many aspects. The beauty of the book is in details. “I wanted the movie to keep all the elements, the religious element, the ecological element, I wanted this. So it was so dense that I needed more than one movie. And to my great, great, great pleasure and relief they said, ‘Yes’, spontaneously. They said, ‘No problem, we understand.’
“Now, the truth,” he says with a pause. “My dream was to shoot both movies at the same time. That was my plan A, which was refused because it was too expensive. They said, ‘We’ll focus on one and then see how it goes’. I’m so happy it didn’t happen this way, because I would be dead right now. The first movie was so difficult and physically demanding to work on, because I insisted to go in the desert for real,” he laughs.
“We were all exhausted after the end of this movie, everybody happy, big smiles, but exhausted. It was a really very demanding shoot, so I cannot imagine what it would have been like to shoot both back to back. I don’t know how Peter Jackson did it,” he says of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand that. He has all my respect right now. It’s so exhausting. So much. I think that’s the best way, just to make sure that I set the ground and open the door of the first room and everything is working when the guests come inside. Then next I will open the second door for the next room, but not build a whole house at the same time.”
Does this mean Patrice Vermette designed the entire world of Dune – both parts – at once?
“No. When we were doing the first part in pre-production, we were going to go, at the beginning, a bit further with the story,” the production designer explains. “So I do have, in the bank, some ideas for part two. But right now, I’ve been gathering imagery for the past two years, right after I finished working on Part One.i have some ideas, a proposition that I want to make to Denis. I can’t wait to start. Hopefully it will be soon!”
TO BE CONTINUED?
When asked about what’s in store for Part Two, Villeneuve laughs. “You can read the book, it’s, like, everywhere.” He says that they’ll know “by December” if Part Two is to go ahead, but that it would have to go “really badly” for it not to happen. He says that the script is relatively well advanced and that it could start filming next autumn.
Despite excited suggestions from star Jason Momoa, the director says there’s no six-hour cut of Part One and the theatrical release is the final version, adding, “I have never done a director’s cut of any of my films.”
He describes the movie as “a love letter to the big screen” and says that while it’s the biggest, and most challenging, movie he’s ever made, Dune is an appetiser for the second part still to come, which he describes as “the main meal.” But what about dessert – or should that be [sorry] desert…
“There is Dune’s second book, The Messiah Of Dune, which could make an extraordinary film,” he says of potentially continuing the series. “I always saw that there could be a trilogy. After that, we’ll see.”
Dune is in cinemas from 21 October.