It’s the moment everyone has been waiting for. To see Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides ride a sandworm in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. The moment was teased at the very end of the first film and now, in Dune: Part Two, it will become a reality. If only Chalamet knew where to put his arms.
Dune: Part Two opens March 14 and tickets are now on sale. To promote that fact, Chalamet sat down with Fandango to discuss Dune alongside co-stars Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh. It’s a fun conversation, and worth watching, but we especially love Chalamet talking about filming what’s sure to be the show-stopping moment of his character riding a sandworm.
“There was a whole worm unit on the movie, literally called ‘The worm unit,’” the actor said. “And if I’m right there’s a two-minute sequence in the movie that took them four months to shoot, or something insane.” Chalment went on to try and put into words the process of filming such a pivotal scene. “I don’t know how to describe it. It was absolutely insane,” he said. “Obviously, the worm wasn’t there on the day so there is a certain process of visualization so they built… a tiny part of the worm… it was exhilarating.”
“[Riding the worm] is something, I don’t want to speak for Denis, that I don’t think they had fully figured out on the first one,” Chalamet continued. “But there’s definitely a technique to it. I remember going to [Zendaya] and wishing that my arm technique was different [laughs] because… ‘visuals.’”
What exactly did that mean? Zendaya explained. “There’s no real frame of reference for riding a sandworm,” she said. “So you’re trying to do it cool and make it look strong and so you’re trying to go [begins pantomining] ‘Do I do it like this? Do I stand like this? Do I have my leg here?’ You’re trying to have the strongest worm-riding pose at the end of the day.”
While Chalamet and Zendaya clearly considered the possibility they wouldn’t look cool riding sandworms, we are fairly certain from the trailers, and just the vision of Villeneuve, that it’ll work out in the end. Watch the full interview below (sandworm talk is around 14 minutes) and check out Dune: Part Two on March 14.
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