Rebecca Ferguson’s Dune Role Left Villeneuve in Awe
Denis Villeneuve lauded Rebecca Ferguson’s layered portrayal of Lady Jessica in Dune, noting her skill in handling the character’s psychological and physical challenges.
Anyone who’s picked up the first Dune novel knows Lady Jessica isn’t your run-of-the-mill character. She’s at the heart of the story, giving punters a way to make sense of the shifting sands of power. Her journey is all about walking the tightrope between right and wrong, and more so, between being a mum and sticking to her Bene Gesserit obligations. Bringing that sort of complexity to the big screen needed someone who could nail the subtleties, especially as things come to a head in the second film when Lady Jessica finally makes her choice by drinking the water of life.
Rebecca Ferguson was handed that challenge, and she brought a real sense of weight to the role. Denis Villeneuve admitted he put a heap of pressure on her for that pivotal scene, hoping she’d pull it off. He knew it was a massive ask, since Lady Jessica’s decision ties the whole story together and sets off the chain of events for what’s next.
Villeneuve’s High Praise for Ferguson
As Lady Jessica takes a sip of the mysterious liquid, she’s forced to battle with her ancestors and fight off the poison. Villeneuve said,
‘That requires tremendous acting muscles, confidence and a fantastic inner world.’
He went on,
‘After this scene, I thought to myself that she is absolutely capable of doing anything.’
He also reckoned Ferguson had
‘the fantastic ability to delve into uncharted psychological territory with what seems like very little effort. Her acting skills are really impressive. She made us believe in the world of Dune.’
Ferguson’s performance certainly backs up Villeneuve’s words. She made it look easy, but the reality was a different story. For her, the film’s religious undertones were tough to get her head around. She shared,
‘I think one of the difficulties I had tapping into, which was challenging, was that I’m not religious at all. And I would say that Jessica is somewhat, or becomes, a fundamentalist, right? In her belief. And it is so completely the opposite of who I am as a human being. So tapping into it and embracing it and understanding it was a really interesting journey for me, internally.’
The Demands of a Defining Scene
That makes her performance in the second film even more striking. Plenty of films with religious themes need a fair bit of emotional punch, but this scene in Dune was different because of its physical demands. Villeneuve pointed out that Ferguson had to get across so much just by drinking that water—no words, just body language and, most of all, eye contact. It was a make-or-break moment for her character and stitched together the film’s dramatic threads.