The book version of Baron Harkonnen was "useless" for actor Stellan Skarsgård

Dune: Part Two is finally out in theaters, and it is pretty terrific. The movie takes us to the end of Frank Herbert's 1965 book Dune, with a lot more action than in the first movie. The first film was about Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his family getting cast out by the vile Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). Now, it's time for revenge.

The baron cut a memorable figure in the first Dune movie, a shadowy menace who commanded a network of spies and assassins. Director Denis Villeneuve doesn't like drowning audiences in dialogue, so the visuals did a lot of the talking. The baron is so massive he has to use advanced technology to float around. He's often submerged in dark baths. And Skarsgård imbues him with a lot of menace without needing to explain himself.

All of this is fairly different from the book version of the baron, who explains himself at length. That suited Skarsgård just fine. "I don't care about [the lore]," he told Radio Times. "I read the book. And of course [Baron Harkonnen] was, as he is, in the book, he was useless to me, because he talks a lot. You don't want a talker, you want someone who's threatening and silent and very dangerous. So having played him like he was in the book would have defied the purpose."

If you want to see the baron as a chatterbox, you have other Dune adaptations to choose from, like the miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune, where the baron is played by Ian McNeice and spends a lot more time chewing scenery:

That sort of portrayal is fun in its own way, although I also really enjoy the new Dune movies making the baron more of a silent menace. Skarsgård likes the idea of the baron existing as a kind of elemental evil without a backstory, an inhuman force. "You don't have to see the Baron being sort of mistreated as a child for him to function in the film. And also you can have the joy of doing sort of a caricature almost of a bad guy," he said. "The Baron is larger than life."

I think Skarsgård is dancing close to the edge of sounding like he doesn't respect the source material, but I don't think he crosses over. He came to this project as an experienced actor and he's interpreting the material so it fits the shape of the new movie version. If you see Dune: Part Two in theaters, I think you'll see that it paid off.

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