Now that Dune is available in theaters and on HBO Max, fans of Frank Herbert's best-selling sci-fi novel will finally be able to see how Denis Villeneuve adapts the many mystical elements of the saga, including the Bene Gesserit Voice. And as Rebecca Ferguson reveals to Polygon, the director allowed the cast to experiment freely with the Voice until they got it right.
In Dune’s universe, Ferguson's character Jessica is part of the Bene Gesserit, a secret sisterhood with impressive powers, including commanding people to act against their will by modulating their voices. While a simple description might work in the novel, the movie needs an audible solution that tells the viewer what is happening. According to Ferguson, Villeneuve didn’t know exactly how to showcase the Voice and asked her and other cast members to try different things on set. In Ferguson’s words, “Denis didn’t really have a clear idea of exactly how it would sound, which gave such a freedom for me and everyone else to interpret it the way they wanted to, and that’s a creative freedom.”
With creative freedom comes weird ideas, like trying to mimic Donald Duck. As Ferguson tells it:
“I actually started doing like, Donald Duck sounds, and I don’t know where I was going with it. I thought, ‘If I can play around and animate a sound, I think Denis will go, ‘Oh, that’s amazing. Let’s do that, Rebecca!’ Never happened. So we focused mostly on where the energy came from. It’s like yoga, it’s like meditation. If you are in complete calm, and in line with your thoughts and your soul and your body, there is a directness, when you cut out all of the other stimulants around you. And to be able to talk from that point, whether it is ‘Start your interview,’ or whatever it is, it will become very pure.”
Villeneuve’s Dune will adapt the first half of Herbert's best-selling original novel. While co-writer Eric Roth has said that he has written a complete treatment for a possible sequel, no plans for a follow-up have been announced by Warner Bros. However, a sequel is more than likely considering the movie has already crossed $100 million in the international box office markets, in the select markets where it was already available. If Dune becomes a box office success in the U.S., Villeneuve could birth a new movie franchise from the original Dune series that spanned six novels, with sixteen other books written by authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
Dune’s impressive cast includes Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, DaveBautista as Glossu 'Beast' Rabban, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, and Javier Bardem as Stilgar.