Aoife Hinds (daughter of actor Ciarán Hinds, FYI) is one of the stars of Dune: Prophecy, HBO's slickly produced TV prequel to the Dune movies. She plays Emeline, a young woman training to become a Bene Gesserit sister. Since the series began, she's watched one older sister get burned to death from the inside out, watched one of her closest friends die during the spice agony, and was attacked in her own mind by an unexplained nightmare. She, along with a lot of other Bene Gesserit sisters in training, are feeling pretty freaked out.
Emeline is coping by turning to religion, specifically the anti-thinking machine religion practiced ever since mankind narrowly won a brutal war against thinking machines over a hundred years before the series began. In the most recent episode, "Twice Born," she's starting to seem like a zealot.
There are other reckonings on the horizon. Unbeknowst to Emeline, her friend Lila has been revived...with the aid of thinking machine technology. We talked to Aoife Hinds about all of this in an exclusive interview. Check it out below!
WinterIsComing: So Emeline is becoming a bigger adherent of the anti-thinking machine religion. She's always had that in her from the start, but now she's gathering followers and proclaiming her beliefs more openly. Talk me through what she's feeling and thinking now as this starts to ramp up.
Aoife Hinds: "So obviously there have been two very serious things that they've gone through, and traumatic things that they've seen. They've seen Kasha burn from within. They've seen Lila go through the agony and not come out of it. They've had to say goodbye to her. They've seen the Mother Superior leave, and they've seen the people who are meant to be in charge of the school — Tula — kind of grappling; [she] seems not in control. And then there is this nightmare that all the acolytes have. So there's already a sense of, 'how safe are they in the Sisterhood?' And definitely after the nightmare, they're grappling for answers. They don't understand what's happening to them. It's all extremely heightened.
"And she takes this opportunity because there is something within her that...has always questioned, and [that] doesn't believe the stories that have been told about Dorotea. And this is just a moment where...she kind of expresses the fact that she knows there's more to the story, that it's not that Dorothea killed herself out of grief. There has to be more, because within her religion that wouldn't happen. She knows how spiritual Dorotea was and how religious she was and she does not believe that she would have killed herself...not in the name of any sacrifice or in the sacrifice for something greater.
"So her state of mind is definitely to get the answers that she's come for, because more and more she's sure that there is something that is hidden, and then...because all these acolytes are living in fear for their lives and have no idea what what's happening to them, she naturally kind of offers up what she has, which is her beliefs and her values. [She] shares the readings and the teachings of Dorotea through the Orange Catholic Bible, because in desperate times people turn towards faith, and she is able to offer that up. And so that's the moment where she kind of sees that she can grow her following and her influence a little bit."
WiC: Now that Lila's been revived through thinking machine technology, I couldn't help but think, 'If Emeline learned that, would she be happy that her friend is back or scandalized that she was brought back through forbidden technology?' I'm not sure if you can actually comment on that, because I wouldn't be surprised if we saw how that turned out, but how do you think she would react to that?
Hinds: "I think it's very tricky. I think...there are going to be very contradictory feelings within her, because she's been brought up with this with the belief that thinking machines are pure evil. You know, it's a very, very strong stance against thinking machines. I think she hasn't had the experience yet of seeing what a thinking machine is capable of. So we'll have to see how she reacts to that, and how within herself she maybe battles two different things at the same time."
WiC: Can you talk me through the scene where you and the other accolades are all drawing the memories of the nightmare at Tula's instruction. What was the rehearsal for that like? What was the energy in the room at the moment like? Was it as creepy as it was watching it?
Hinds: "We actually went and had drawing lessons the week before, which was really cool. This is what is great about being an actor: sometimes you go and you're able to just learn something because you're taught it for a role. And so we all had — me and the SAs, the wonderful SAs who were also part of that scene — these drawing lessons. And then after that we had a day where we rehearsed the scene with our director Richard [J. Lewis].
"We really had to delve into very dark places, and I think all of us and all the SAs around me were incredible. Some of them were also professional artists. So they were the ones who were doing the beautiful drawings. But there was definitely a sense of, it's so uncomfortable. You know, they've come into this classroom and they they're given spice to then be put into this meditation...to be then drawn back into this horrific nightmare that they've had. And so it was very intense."
Me: Here's a lighter question for you. We talked to Chloe Lea and Jade Anouka a while ago, and both of them said that the Bene Gesserit shoes y'all have to wear are incredibly uncomfortable. Can you confirm or deny this?
Hinds: "I can confirm...I can't describe them any other way but...swim socks. To go into a pool or something, you have these plastic socks that you put on. But they were SO THIN. Yeah, they were so thin and they were pretty uncomfortable, but you can't see them, you know, our dresses are kind of covering them up."
WiC: Anything you're looking for people seeing in the last two episodes?
Hinds: "I think there's a lot of things happen that come out of nowhere and you're really not going to expect it. The end of episode five is amazing."
Thanks to Aoife Hinds for speaking to us! New episodes of Dune: Prophecy air Sunday nights on HBO and Max.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.