FEYDRAUTHA AUSTIN BUTLER
What did you think of Feyd’s overall look?
I had long conversations with Denis before we went down the road and, of course, I’d seen the first film and so seen what Stellan had done. I knew that that was the world that I would be fitting into. The first film was just brilliant, and the whole Harkonnen world that Stellan led, I thought was just magnificent. So the first time that I was able to see the transformation, it just helped me to leave this world behind and enter into the Harkonnen world in a way that was very inspiring and exciting.
How do you find the humanity or darkness in Feyd?
Whenever I think of any quote-unquote villainous character in real life, I don’t think that they see themselves as the villain. So for that, it was spending a lot of time imagining the brutality of the life that I would have grown up into as Feyd and the role models I would have had – the Baron being one of them – and the vicious nature that you have in order to survive and in order to thrive. So for me, it was just trying to understand what it would be like growing up in that environment.
As Feyd, I think it’s looking at who has the most power, and that is the Baron in a way – that’s the person that I’m spending the most time around. But also looking back at what childhood would have been between Feyd and his mother, and the lack of love and the feeling of needing to survive by that brutality. So a lot of that was the inspiration for me.
There are big fight scenes – what was the training like?
I started six months before heading to Budapest, prepping in kali and escrima, which are
Filipino stick fighting. That was because I knew I was going to be using two knives, and so in order to have the dexterity and the ability to use two weapons in that way, I worked a lot with Roger Yuan and his entire incredible stunt team. Then from there we started to adapt more of the brutality of the way that the Harkonnens might fight.
So there were times where the image was almost a train coming, where it was not going to be stopped, as opposed to elegance. Then finding the dynamics of that, where there might be subtle movements but then big brutal vicious movements as well. So it’s kind of just finding his particular style, and a lot of that was just rehearsing fights over and over and saying, “What if we try something different, what if we try something there?”
Then also Denis and I talked very early on and he said, “I want you to be physically imposing”, so I started gaining as much weight as I could. That also helped, to just feel heavier going into those fights.
Who was he for you when you read the script?
He grew up with the role model of the Baron being the man with the power, and Feyd is hungry for power, and feels as though he can make a real difference and bring power to the entire race of the Harkonnens. So I think ultimately the main driving forces are power and strength. With that, I don’t think psychopaths see themselves as psychopaths. I think instead, it’s more images for me where if a mosquito lands on your arm and you happen to kill it, you’re not thinking about it. So a lot of it was seeing people in that way, it just has a different hierarchy of morals, that they mean as much to me as that mosquito.