Dune Star Reveals Big Mistake Made Filming the Sequel

Trying to avoid bathroom breaks in the desert almost led to disaster for one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Zendaya has revealed that wearing her Fremen stillsuit costume during the filming of Dune: Part Two presented such a challenge that she made a dangerous decision about her water intake. The actress, who had wrapped filming the tennis drama Challengers before getting to work on the Dune sequel, found herself facing a different kind of physical challenge in Jordan’s harsh desert environment.

“It was very hot, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, man, the bathrooms are so far away,’ because we had to hike to the locations,” she explained to W Magazine. “If you have to pee, you need at least 10 minutes to get out of the costumes. I was like, ‘Damn, I don’t want to drink too much water.’ I had such a fear of peeing myself or s—ing myself, honestly, in the suit on set.”

The decision to limit her water intake had serious consequences. Zendaya revealed that she ended up having heatstroke due to not taking care of herself on set.

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“One day, I didn’t drink enough and I had a heatstroke. I felt so barfy,” she admitted. “I remember calling my mom on the bathroom floor, saying, ‘I feel terrible.’ She was like, ‘Did you drink water today?’ I said ‘No.’ I thought I was being smart, but you can’t do that. So, lesson learned.”

Director Denis Villeneuve confirmed the grueling conditions, previously explaining that “those environments, the heat, is taxing and you get tired very quickly under these circumstances. And the wind is so powerful.” At times, he said, it felt like the heat was “turning their brains to soup.”

Despite the challenges, Zendaya noted her tennis training helped prepare her physically. “I got some good calf definition going, firing off the glutes,” she said. “I had come previously from a tennis film, so I was happy that I was already kind of in somewhat of a shape. So it helped out with that.”

The experience echoes similar challenges faced by actors in other demanding sci-fi productions. Doug Jones, who starred in The Shape of Water, previously shared his own costume struggles when it comes to bodily needs.

“You have to take care of bowels in advance of pulling that suit. Because when I’m in the suit, it’ll be for a good 16, 17 hours a day,” Jones said. “So you have to make sure that you’re not going to have a little accident. And that is my biggest fear in this world is that they’re going to pull the suit off me one day and be disgusted by the aroma.”

Dune: Part Two, filmed on location in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, explores Paul Atreides’s rise to power and Chani’s diverging storyline. With Villeneuve now confirmed to direct Dune Messiah, the cast might face similar desert challenges in the future.

The first two installments of Dune are currently streaming on Max.