Dune: Part Two: Austin Butler Reveals How Difficult it Was to Become Feyd-Rautha

Butler spoke about crafting his character’s unique accent.

February 9, 2024, 11:18pm

Thanks to his Academy Award-nominated work in Elvis, Austin Butler has become a unique actor for fans to watch out for. Butler’s next high-profile movie project will be Dune: Part Two, which he stars in as the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. While a lot of viewers know Butler for his mannerisms and voice as Elvis, a few stray lines of dialogue in Dune: Part Two‘s marketing have shown a very different portrayal. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Butler shed a little bit of light on how his portrayal of Feyd-Rautha came to life, and the inspiration he took from his onscreen father, Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), when crafting his character’s voice.

“I didn’t tell him I was gonna do that, actually,” Butler explained in our interview, which you can check out above. “There was a moment the other day, actually, where he said, ‘I never asked you: how did you sound like me?’ I said, ‘I just listened to a ton of him talking.’ I have an amazing dialect coach named Tim Monich who I worked with, and who Timothée knows very well. Yeah, so we worked a lot.”

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Who Does Austin Butler Play in Dune: Part Two?

Butler is cast as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Dune: Part Two, the heir to Baron Harkonnen’s empire who becomes a significant adversary for Paul Atredies (Timothee Chalamet).

“I’m always nervous. I always feel an incredible pressure,” Butler explained in an interview with Interview Magazine last fall. “I felt that when I was 12 years old. Even if the material doesn’t really require it, I feel I need to do the best that I possibly can. That sets a bar, and then I’m always afraid that I’m going to miss something. With Dune it was interesting, because I met with Denis [Villeneuve], and we got along very well, and started talking about the character. At that point, we didn’t even have a script, but as we started talking about Feyd, my imagination started running, and I started to feel the terror of the challenge. That’s what I’m guided by now: What really scares me?”

What Is Dune: Part Two About?

Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.

The big-screen epic Dune: Part Two includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Léa Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Denis Villeneuve directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Frank Herbert‘s iconic novel.