Oscar Isaac

DUKE LETO ATREIDES

How did Dune come your way?

When it was announced, way back when, I just wrote to Denis saying I’m a massive fan of

Dune. He reached out to me and said there were a couple of different characters that I potentially could play, and what did I think? So I had a read of it, and said, “The Duke is in my lane.” [laughs] It was a really amazing collaboration, just going back to the book, going back to the thing that I loved, and trying to really take on the character as written, but also to bring some of my point of view.

What were you able to bring to the relationship between Leto and his son Paul?

In the book it’s over the course of the story that you really get a sense of how much he loves his son, and how much he’s there for him. But in the film, we had to find different ways of showing that, and different conversations where you could really get the sense of what he is, which is human. He doesn’t have the voice; he doesn’t have Bene Gesserit powers; he is just a man. And he has nobility, in the real sense of what is noble, and what is right.

Did you have any reservations about jumping from Star Wars to Dune, two huge sci-fi sagas?

Not really, because the genre of it is not as important to me. It’s about who I’m working with, and what’s the story that we’re telling? It’s Denis, and it’s Dune. Sure, there’s also some spaceships [laughs]. But that’s really about where the similarities end. [Dune’s] not a typical sci-fi film. It has elements of that, but it’s also a meditation. What Frank Herbert did, and then Denis as well, is to explore those themes of family, of the clashes of cultures, and just put it on a stage that allows you to dream with it.

Who’s the better baliset [a zither-like Caladan musical instrument] player, you or Josh Brolin?

He’s definitely got stubbier fingers. So I’d say I’m probably the better baliset player. But what he lacks in precision, he makes up with in hardcore passion… Something that I did do as a wrap gift for him and for Denis is, I made a record cover that was like an album that [Brolin’s character]

Gurney had released with a bunch of different songs on the back. So that was really fun.