Austin Butler on the "Psychotic Nature" of His DUNE: PART TWO Character and New Photos Are Shared
I’ve got three new photos to share with you from director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two thanks to Total Film. One of them features Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) face off with each other in a dagger fight! Also, in an interview, Butler offers some insight into his villainous role.
Butler shared some details and talked about how he figured out exactly who the nephew of Stellan Skarsgård's Baron Harkonnen is.
"Denis described him to me as having a psychotic nature, but yet there’s something sort of seductive about him as well. And he’s hungry for power. I started thinking: 'Well, how did he grow up? What would his voice sound like? How would he breathe? How would he move?' That was the real fun, where you start filling in all those details, and putting meat on the bone."
He went on to talk about how he played the character and shared that he opted not to do method acting like he did for Elvis. He said:
"With Feyd, I didn’t think it would be healthy to live in that head-space 24 hours a day. So, I created rituals around it in the hair and make-up chair where I could start shifting my mind over.
"That allowed more freedom to feel that I could go further in the film, because I knew that it wasn’t going to get out of hand. Once you know that, then it’s so much fun, because he’s so different from me. There’s a challenge in that, but there’s something liberating about immersing yourself in this other way of being. There were possibilities that don’t exist with other characters that were very fun to explore."
It seems like Villeneuve has created something special with this next movie, and it’s going to be interesting to see Butler in this very different kind of role.
In the first film, Paul Atreides, “A brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.”
This next chapter of the story will explore the “mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.”
The returning cast also includes Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Stephen McKinley Henderson. New cast members include Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot, and Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli.
The movie will drop in theaters on March 1st, 2024. This film will be followed up with one more movie titled Dune: Messiah.
