Josh Brolin will have more action scenes in Dune 2 as his character, weapon master Gurney Halleck, clashes with House Atreides’ foes.
During an interview with Collider the 54-year-old actor explained that his role is a lot more physical in the upcoming Dune: Part Two… and he wasn’t really prepared for that.
“Javier [Bardem] and I had a similar thing that we both admitted to each other at the Oscars, because we both have a little bit of paunch right now,” he said. “And we talked to Denis. We hadn’t read anything, and we talked to Denis the week before. He was like, ‘You guys are fighting the whole time. And you’ve been in the desert with the Fremen and all that.’ And we fucking panicked.”
Hilariously, it looks as though Brolin was unaware of his upcoming action scenes, and that forced both Brolin and Bardem to go on a crash diet.
“We looked down and saw this little friend that we’ve been holding on our abdomen,” he said. “So, we were both on full diet mode at the Oscars, even though you absolutely couldn’t tell. We were already in diet mode, in panic diet mode.”
Thankfully, he is fully aware that he’s in the sequel… even if IMDb wasn’t.
“I am a part of Dune Part Two, to the ridiculous extent of when somebody mentioned to me that it wasn’t on IMDb, I actually went out of my way to call Liz [his publicist] and say, ‘Can you please put that on IMDb?’ Because it’s a proud moment for me, man.”
Of course, Dune: Part Two is now on IMDb for everyone to see.
But Brolin’s pride doesn’t stop there. Dune may have been up for a staggering 10 Academy Awards, taking home six of them, but one award was notably missing – Best Director.
It’s no secret that Villeneuve had been snubbed at the 94th Academy Awards with no nomination for Best Director, despite the film picking up a nomination for Best Picture.
And Brolin wasn’t happy.
“It’s the most asinine, bizarre… I mean, that’s why snubs are such a thing and that’s why we all talk about them, but that’s a snub, of a snub, of a snub that I just thought was an impossibility,” he said.
“But given everything about the Academy Awards, there are many impossibilities that actually materialized. So, it’s all part of the game right now. I don’t know. Is it post-pandemic mentality? Whatever it is, I don’t understand it. He helmed the whole thing. It’s his creation. It’s his interpretation.”
Thankfully, Villeneuve took it all in his stride.
“How he dealt with it was all he did was go right into praise for the ten people who were nominated,” said Brolin. And talk about pancakes. Obviously.
Dune: Part Two will star Timothée Chalamet as Paul alongside Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Stellan Skarsgård, and Austin Butler.
Denis Villeneuve will direct the film with a script he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts, based on the original novel by Frank Herbert.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
