We’ve now officially entered the press cycle for the upcoming Dune: Part Two, and early reports are saying that in order for it to succeed, we need to believe in the love story between Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides and Zendaya‘s Chani.
In a deep-dive from Vanity Fair, Zendaya, Chalamet, and director Denis Villeneuve broke down what it would take for the movie to work. The crux of the movie, Villeneuve said, is to not only invest the audience in Paul’s quest to avenge his father but also Chani’s desire to make sure her homeworld is protected.
To make this happen, he said, there had to be a monumental love story between the two characters. Zendaya told the publication that that was easier said than done.
“It was funny trying to figure out in this futuristic space talk, like, how do they flirt? What does that look like for a space warrior and the young duke of a planet? How do they show that they like each other? What does that even sound like? We were definitely trying to navigate that, which was funny because all of us were stumped. I think it’s just as foreign to us as it probably is to the characters.”
The best way to combat that feeling, she said, was to make the love mirror a real-life one as much as possible, and make it “awkward and uncomfortable,” hallmarks of a blossoming relationship. That in itself proved difficult because Chani’s character is a desert warrior woman who’s super capable of taking care of herself.
“I was like, does Chani get awkward? Does that happen to her? Does she know what that feels like?” she said. Villeneuve said despite making a “war epic action movie,” he had to make sure that the love story was handled in the correct way. The movie he wanted to make was “very human” and “very close to the characters.”
“I kept saying to my crew, ‘The most important thing is that spark, that relationship between both of these characters.’ If we don’t capture that, if we don’t have that onscreen, there’s no movie. The epicenter of the story is this relationship.”
That’s a tall order for a science fiction film, but if anyone can do it, Villeneuve has the track record to make it happen. As for Chalamet, he said he took his prompts from Zendaya.
“The universe of Dune is a complex world of geopolitics and with tons of ecological and technological metaphors that hold up today,” Chalamet said. “But at the center, there’s this relationship where Chani sort of becomes a moral compass.”
Without this, he explained, the idea of the messiah character wouldn’t really resonate. In order to ground the character and what’s happening, you need Chani to be a “humanizing, grounding force.” After all, what’s more relatable than love?
“These characters literally live on another planet, right? They’re aliens. It was interesting finding these tender moments in such turmoil and chaos. These characters are just young people forced into really, really intense circumstances.”
Dune: Part Two hits theaters on Nov. 3. Check out the first trailer below.