Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica) on how Denis Villeneuve is updating Dune

Director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) is bringing a new Dune movie to the big screen next year, and star Rebecca Ferguson (Lady Jessica) can’t say enough kind things about his vision.

Dune is set thousands of years into the future, when mankind has explored the stars and inhabited just about every planet along the way. The desert planet of Arrakis, aka Dune, is the only planet in the known galaxy where sandworms can grow into massive behemoths and produce Melange, or Spice, a substance that prolongs human life and can give those who take it the power of prescience, although it’s life-threateningly addictive. He who controls the spice controls the universe, it is said; the substance is at the heart of the story.

Lady Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, a powerful all-female organization hoping to use their selective breeding program to produce a super-human called the Kwisatz Haderach. Many sisters are sent to noble houses to become the partner of a great lord. Jessica is sent to House Atreides to produce a daughter with Duke Leto, but instead, she falls in love with him and gives him his heart’s desire, an heir named Paul, our main character.

Frank Herbert wrote Dune in 1965, when gender politics were in a very different place. While there are important female characters in this story, they’re mainly set apart, and most belong to the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. Speaking to Fandom.com, Sleep, Ferguson says that Villenueve has updated things for his movie. “Something that Denis Villeneuve and the writers have really taken into consideration is [that] this book was written back in the day when women were portrayed differently to what we are expecting nowadays — which we call gender equality,” she said.

"And it’s something that they have taken into consideration making this script. Even though [Lady Jessica] is a concubine to the king, she’s also his bodyguard, his mentor, she can read thought and emotion and she’s the best fighter there is. So there’s a subtle power that she needs to teach her son, [Paul Atreides], played by Timothée Chalamet. It’s a complex story, it’s hard to discuss in one sentence."

One nerdy side note: Lady Jessica is the concubine to a Duke, not the king. Sorry, I had to get that out of my system.

Still, I get the message. As a fully trained member of the Bene Gesserit, Jessica is very, very powerful. She can use her voice to make people do her bidding, cause pain, and even kill. The Bene Gesserit also have their own highly-secretive and deadly form of martial arts, so you don’t want to find yourself in a duel with one.

When it comes to representation for women, Herbert’s novels are actually better than you might expect for a sci-fi writer in the ’60s, with a good lineup of important female characters. Still, an update to a 50-year-old text is a good idea. Happily, Villeneuve has a lot there to work with.

Alongside Ferguson (Chalamet), Villeneuve has assembled an all-star cast, including:

• Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides
• Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho
• Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck
• Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
• Dave Bautista as Glossu “The Beast” Rabban Harkonnen
• Zendaya as Chani
• David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries
• Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam
• Javier Bardem as Stilgar
• Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will hit theaters on December 18, 2020.

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