Dune: Timothée Chalamet and Jason Momoa’s adorable on-set friendship

Dune director Denis Villeneuve weighs in on the adorable friendship between Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides) and Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho) on set.

If Dune were still going to be released this year, it would no doubt be the cinematic event of 2020. But thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic was delayed for almost a year. It’s understandable but still a bummer. Happily, we have plenty of a behind-the-scenes tidbits to entertain us in the meantime.

Take the relationship among the (incredible) cast, which includes people like Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides) and Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho). “I felt like Timothée was deeply seduced — or maybe not seduced, but I just felt it was like a kid being with older brothers,” Villeneuve told GQ.

"He was younger, he was the little one on set, and everybody loved him. There’s a scene in the movie where Timothée runs into the arms of Jason Momoa, and Jason grabs him like a puppy and lifts him into the air like he was a feather. And that’s real! They really loved each other. It was very beautiful to see this young man being influenced by these people he admires."

We know the exact moment he’s talking about, from the trailer:

Other big-name actors in the cast include Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck) and Dave Bautista (Glossu Rabban Harkonnen) so Chalamet had plenty of older bro-types to pal around with.

At the same time, Chalamet had to make some space for himself on such a huge set. “I think for him the big thing was to learn how to create his own bubble on set,” Villeneuve said. “So that he would not have to try to be the friend of everyone. When you’re on a smaller set, when there’s 25 people, you can be friendly with 25 people. When there’s 800 people around, you cannot be friends with 800 people. It’s too much. So how to save your energy, how to focus, how to give himself permission to be in his bubble and make sure that his bubble is respected.”

Villeneuve says that Chalamet was his “first and only choice” for Paul. We’ll have to wait until we see the movie to know for sure, but based on the trailer it does indeed look like perfect casting.

Dune is now scheduled to release in theaters on October 1, 2021.

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