[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for Season 1 of “Dune: Prophecy.”]
It wasn’t sufficient for Legendary Leisure and Warner Bros. to mount three big-budget spectacles directed by Denis Villeneuve based mostly on Frank Herbert’s basic “Dune” sequence. (The primary two have been blockbusters grossing $1.1 billion worldwide. The third, “Dune: Messiah,” additionally starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Rebecca Ferguson, is due December 25, 2026.) The studios additionally teamed up with HBO to supply the TV sequence “Dune: Prophecy.”
Government produced by Diane Ademu-John and showrunner Alison Schapker, the present additionally takes place on a large scale. The veteran who carries the six-episode sequence (which begins manufacturing on a second season this summer time) is Emily Watson, a British character actress who broke out again in 1997 with a Finest Actress Oscar nomination for Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.”
With 28 years of wealthy work behind her since then (Oscar-nominated “Hilary and Jackie,” BAFTA-nominated “Angela’s Ashes”), Watson emerges in a robust function as Valya Harkonnen, the ruthless, driving Mom Superior of the Sisterhood, an early precursor to the mighty Bene Gesserit. She and her black-veiled minions run the universe, wielding their darkish arts behind the scenes. “Dune: Prophecy” is loosely based mostly on Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s “Nice Colleges of Dune” trilogy (2012–2016), which is about 10,000 years earlier than the occasions of “Dune.” We talked at New York’s Park Lane Lodge.
The next interview has been edited and condensed for size and readability.
IndieWire: The sequence is superbly mounted, on each degree. It’s thought-out. It’s good.
Emily Watson: Sure, and we’ve bought each likelihood of it heading in a wise route, as a result of with Collection 1, we had a little bit of strike on us. We bought quite a lot of motion, issues going fairly loopy, shifting personnel.
You had began along with your “Chernobyl” director Johan Renck, who left over artistic variations. Anna Foerster directed the primary two episodes as an alternative. That was a little bit of a wrench?
There was quite a lot of shifting floor. After I signed up with Johan, he’s a singular character, fairly a tremendous man. He had fairly a Lynchian imaginative and prescient. And the studio clearly needed it to belong to this present universe extra. It ended up being a false begin. After which it was getting geese in a row. It went earlier than it was prepared. However they discovered the DNA of what they needed and the way they needed it. After which we had the strike. Now I really feel Alison [ Schapker]’s within the driving seat and she or he’s been confirmed as [successful]. I’m excited to get my enamel into [Season Two].
When do you begin?
It’s mid to finish of August, for me. I’ll begin heading again to Bucharest.
So that you and Olivia Williams as your sister Tula Harkonnen anchor the story. She was on the Royal Shakespeare Firm with you. Have been you associates?
We have been. I’ve recognized Olivia — my husband was at Cambridge along with her. In order that’s like, 25 years in the past?
I really feel like I got here up with you. I used to be at Cannes for “Breaking the Waves,” and such Miramax 90s films equivalent to “Hilary and Jackie.”
We survived, proper?
That was the indie interval. You describe your self as an indie movie particular person.
That was an actual heyday, wasn’t it? It was an odd time. You had to determine what all of it was, and what it meant, and the way you could possibly put your means by it.
However it was treacherous for ladies. Actresses particularly. Did you be taught methods to fend folks off and hold your self secure, guidelines that you just performed by?
I used to be fortunate, as a result of I began with “Breaking the Waves.” I used to be with the function mannequin, Stellan Skarsgård, as my companion in crime. It was a creatively exposing and scary expertise.
You have been uncovered at Cannes with out your director Lars von Trier, who was afraid to fly.
So he didn’t come. I didn’t know what Cannes meant. I had no information of the movie world or something. It was a baptism of fireplace. They despatched me to Dior to place me in a gown, like a chintz couch that was very of the interval.
Do you admire Trier?
I like that he exists, that he’s modified the map, that he’s finished what he’s finished, and, he’s been controversial. Different actresses have had not comfy experiences with him, however that wasn’t my expertise. However simply in the best way that he’s envisaged what a movie is, I didn’t comprehend it on the time, however he was altering issues.
You discovered some issues on that film about movie appearing?
I assume I did, due to the best way we shot it. There have been no setups. We simply filmed. We simply did the scene over and over, and the digicam was like a personality within the scene going round and taking a look at us. So there wasn’t any sense of intrusion of the technical world. We have been simply in it. It was very immersive. And also you be taught in a short time.
“Dune: Prophecy” was sequence tv. It will need to have been difficult so that you can carry it.
It took some persuading to get me to do it.
What was your fear? You had simply acted in “Chernobyl.”
I’ve by no means finished something that’s a returning [to a franchise]. I’ve finished tv earlier than, clearly. She was an exhausting character to play. She was robust and exhausting. And my pure display screen presence is mostly empathetic and receptive, and she or he’s not. I needed to attain for it a bit. As soon as I’d discovered it, then she was there. However it was additionally main a crew of younger actors and actresses, quite a lot of them have been fairly inexperienced, simply attempting to show folks how you can survive: “That is how exact and concentrated and in it it’s a must to be to outlive the truth that you’ll solely have a few takes, possibly, and it’ll all go by in a whirlwind, and it’s not going to be what you assume it’s going to be, as a result of they’ve bought to try this, they usually’ve bought to try this, they usually’ve bought to try this.” Serving to folks nonetheless really feel like they’re doing one thing significant and actual, and creating a way of an organization.
I bought a kick out of Valya. She’s ruthless and highly effective. Did a part of you get pleasure from that?
It was fascinating for me, taking part in a personality like that, as a result of I grew up in a non secular, bizarre cultist state of affairs [The School of Economic Science]. I’ve expertise of charismatic leaders and the way they recruit folks, how they inform younger those that they’re particular, they’re chosen, and that is the trail. That’s her story. She’s misplaced, she’s weak. She’s highly effective, proficient within the sense that the foreign money of that universe is psychological prowess and acuity, and she or he’s bought that in spades. And the chief picks her out and says, “You’re the one. You’re going to assist me change the universe.” And that’s how the momentum of these issues collect, as a result of these folks assume they’re particular in a means that the tip of justifies the means. It’s the constructing of a cult, which turns into in 10,000 years within the Paul Atreides universe, the Bene Gesserit.
What does she assume her mission is? What’s driving her?
She’s utilizing eugenics to pair the best people, in order that the best chief, who’s going to save lots of humankind, will set them on the best path of peace and justice and prosperity and goodness. We’ll make that occur by controlling. However to assist that work, we’ve the sisterhood and all of the truthsayers, who’re in a position to discern fact from lies and hold everyone making good selections. However we even have a really subtle community of spies and underhand strategies of manipulating folks in order that we make ripples that make folks assume that they’re accountable for occasions, however in truth, we’re manipulating folks’s reactions in order that issues occur.
You realized one thing about what a robust despot might be. It’s well timed, proper now. You’re watching it play out in the true world.
Frank Herbert wrote these books again within the ’60s, however these items don’t go away. It’s a cycle. The sisterhood, on the floor, they discern fact. However in truth, they manipulate it. They management it. They create the parable. They create the circumstances when what they need is favored. Within the present age, there’s a necessity to take a look at that.
This sequence jogs my memory of “Wolf Corridor.” It’s royal intrigue!
When Olivia was solid, I stated, “We’re going to go to the Nationwide Portrait Gallery in London and we’re going to take a look at all these girls, Elizabeth I and all of the Mary’s, all of the individuals who lived in that totalitarian fear-driven place.” These corridors of energy have been so paranoid.
What’s coming in Season 2?
Subsequent time, you’re going over to Arrakis. In the course of the [Season 1] finale I’m going into what occurred to Desmond [“Vikings” star Travis Fimmel]. He’s had a pondering machine put into his eye. I do know that anyone is manipulating him, and anyone intentionally set us up.
He’s reunited along with his mom, Tula. What’s the concern virus?
Within the finale, I get him to intentionally infect me. He may have a look at you, after which later, you’d begin burning. The concern virus works by concern. You inflame it, after which it takes over your physique chemistry and burns you from the within.
Actresses usually complain so much about in regards to the roles that they’re supplied, however you’ve had a very good run.
I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been on the best aspect of that change. I’m a personality actor; that liberates me from a sure trajectory. It has modified with the appearance of streaming. Fifty p.c of the viewers are girls. And the route is now not being dictated this man, this man, this man, this man, this man. There are 5 individuals who could make a bankable film in Hollywood. It’s not the identical for tv. However it’s been the mentality for a very long time that it’s a must to have a bankable male lead, and that has modified as a result of it’s you and me sitting in the lounge with the buttons going: “That’s boring. I don’t need to watch this.”
You could have arising Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet,” based mostly on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 bestseller.
I’m taking part in Mary Arden, mom of Shakespeare, who’s a typical lady of her day attempting to outlive, married to a person who’s a drinker. She encounters this younger lady, Shakespeare’s spouse Chloe [Jessie Buckley], who’s magical, witchy, related. She will be able to inform issues about folks by holding their hand. It’s in regards to the demise of Hamnet, their eldest. They’d a pair of twins, however Hannah died when he was 11, and it’s a narrative about giving delivery and dropping kids and the ladies round that.
