By Gill Pringle
As the trailer for Dune: Part Three arrives, leading man Timothée Chalamet and acclaimed director Denis Villeneuve open up – a little – about what awaits audiences in the big screen climax to the Dune trilogy.
Much like his conquering hero Paul Atreides, Timothée Chalamet descended upon cities around the world – including Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, London, Chicago, Berlin and Mexico City – to spread the word of the latest trailer for the highly anticipated Dune: Part Three. FilmInk joined Chalamet and Dune director Denis Villeneuve in a cinema in downtown Burbank from where they beamed a live fan broadcast. If we’ve grown to embrace Chalamet’s heroic version of Paul Atreides as depicted in the first two movies, then it’s clear from the new trailer – and of course Frank Herbert’s books – that we are now witnessing a changed man. Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown and all that.
“I guess the clues are in the book,” says thirty-year-old Chalamet after entering the cinema to wild applause of Dune: Part Three, which is based on Frank Herbert’s book Dune Messiah. “Frank Herbert and Denis painted a nuanced picture with this warning tale to beware of charismatic leaders…and the proof is in the pudding. It had little to do with me…it’s in the original book and the screenplay.”
Chalamet casts aside notions of him being an outright villain. “I hope it’s more nuanced than that,” the actor says. “It’s one of the great things in Frank Herbert’s book. I read somewhere that it’s why he wrote Dune Messiah as a follow-up to the first book – because people mistook Paul as a classic hero, and he wanted to warn the world what can happen when people blindly follow leaders, and that even the good can be corrupted.”
Set nearly two decades after Paul seized control of the Imperium, we see him now as a ruthless Emperor forced to face the consequences of his reign as old allies return, terrifying new threats emerge, and betrayal lurks in every shadow. Haunted by visions of Imperial collapse and the reappearance of his long-lost love – Zendaya’s Chani – Paul is drawn into a sweeping conspiracy, with Chani at the heart of its unfolding mystery. As rebellion brews and enemies close in, Paul must confront the true cost of power and the fate of those he loves the most.
“At the end of the second film, Chani is obviously feeling a sense of betrayal towards Paul, and how the relationship has crumbled,” says Chalamet. “Without giving too much away, in the third film, it’s all about Denis’ mastery in weaving in storylines that weren’t explicit in the book. This relationship is where Denis took the most creative liberty, but it really ties the story together. And Zendaya – as you see in the new trailer – gives such a fantastic performance in this, as usual.”
Furthermore, instead of regurgitating the same landscapes that we visited already in the first two Dune films, Villeneuve was determined to introduce entirely new aspects of the desert planet, Arrakis. “The thing I said to my crew is: I don’t want us to walk into our own footsteps,” explains the director. “I want us to bring the audience to new parts of Arrakis and something that was fresh and new. And people who know the book know that it’s a very different beast, it’s more of a thriller, and it’s a more intense story, and it’s definitely more emotional as well. This will be the third and last Dune movie, so it is a Dune movie, but it has a very different rhythm, and it’s much more intense.”
Impressed by Villeneuve’s work ethic, Chalamet says that his director “could have taken years between these projects, and instead he buckled in, and we got it done right away. I’m a huge fan of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and I’m trying to imagine the last time someone knocked out three things so consecutively. I’m just very grateful to Denis. In Denis we trust, you know. The first two films were sort of siblings, and then this one is really its own energy, and I love that approach. It’s familiar, of course, but there’s a whole new tone to this.”
Reuniting with Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Isaach de Bankolé and Charlotte Rampling, it’s Anya Taylor-Joy’s Alia Atreides who presents one of the strangest and most compelling figures in the story. The final chapter also introduces Robert Pattinson as Scytale, a shape-shifting “Face Dancer”. A major antagonist, he represents a conspiracy against Paul’s rule, bringing a more psychological and political threat rather than just physical warfare.
“Anya is something special in this movie,” says Chalamet. “Anya is breathtaking, and she’s unbelievable…that’s not media hyperbole. She’s actually terrifying and amazing. I’d worked with Rob before so I knew how good he was too.”
In what represents an almost decade-long journey for the key cast, Villeneuve is especially impressed by his leading man. “In the first movie, you’re a young boy discovering the planet, and in the second, you’re someone becoming an adult, and now you’ve created something very special,” the director says, addressing Chalamet. “I was very impressed by what Timothée brought to the movie again.”
For Chalamet, Dune: Part Three represents much more than the end of a trilogy. “I’ve been living with this for so long, and I’m so proud to live with it,” the actor says. “I’m so proud to work with Denis and this family, so I felt there was a finality in the exercise that I was nostalgic about, even in the moment. And even though I was 29 when we shot this, I still felt like I was losing a part of me.”
With large parts of the film shot in the Abu Dhabi desert, the crew and cast quickly bonded over the years. “With anything we shot towards the end of the film, it just felt like there was a finality in it, and it was just so moving. I felt melancholic to be moving on from this incredible family, and I just couldn’t believe how quickly the experience came and went.”
Dune: Part Three is released in cinemas on December 17.
