Josh Brolin Reveals How Gurney Gets Caught Up for Dune: Part Two
The actor opens up about his character's on-screen reunion with Paul Atreides.
The catastrophic events of Denis Villeneuve's Dune saw Josh Brolin's Gurney and Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides assume the other has died, but as we'll see in the upcoming Dune: Part Two, the pair both find ways of surviving the harsh terrain of Arrakis. However, Paul's journey feels much more preordained as compared to Gurney's, as Brolin's character settles for merely surviving while Paul embraces his potential as a savior for the Fremen people. Brolin recently opened up about his process of showcasing the toll Gurney's life in the desert took on him, all while Paul was maturing in unexpected ways. Dune: Part Two lands in theaters on March 1st.
"First of all, you have a book to refer to, which always helps. You have Denis, who -- we've been talking about this, whether we were doing the first film, we were talking about the entire film, we were talking about the entire book," Brolin expressed to ComicBook.com. "I think his intention was always to break it in two. From a studio standpoint, they were like, 'Let's do Dune!' And he's like, 'But if we're gonna do it properly, we have to do it in two parts,' because then you're able to fit in all the idiosyncracies that you would lose if you were to try to do it as one film."
He continued, "Ultimately, with that space ... I never cut my hair when I'm not working, so I just let it grow and he was like, 'This is the look, you have to lose weight, you have to be this desert rat, you have to be this.' Then we started talking more about it, and it just got fun again, it was like doing a new character, but it's a character that you've obviously created a relationship with by creating it in the first movie."
While Paul might not have gone through as drastic of a physical transformation as Gurney, when the pair come together in the latter part of Dune: Part Two, it's clear that Paul is no longer the young boy that Gurney had trained in combat.
"And then the whole thing with Paul, he's on his spiritual trajectory so, to be able to see him in the desert, I really love that one scene, I love the take he chose, which was you see Gurney vulnerable, really vulnerable," the actor admitted. "And just so taken with the fact that he's alive, and that he's there and that he's with him and all that. It's fun."
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.
Dune: Part Two lands in theaters on March 1st.
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