28 Feb – Dennis Villeneuve recently revealed that he wanted to see how long he can keep Anya Taylor-Joy's casting a secret, following the surprise over the actress' appearance at the red carpet of "Dune: Part Two" world premiere in London. The filmmaker, who had never confirmed Taylor-Joy as one of the cast members when the list was released earlier, said that Hollywood is the most "gossipy" town on earth and that he wanted to experiment on how long he can keep the actress' casting away from public knowledge.
"We did it. It was a special unit, we went to Africa to shoot with Anya under super-secrecy. I just loved the idea to keep something a surprise for the audience until the very end; it was like a gift I wanted to keep for the fans," he said.
In the upcoming movie, Taylor-Joy plays the role of Alia Atreides, sister of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), who was born with all the memories of her ancestors after their mother, Lady Jessica ingests the Water of Life (sandworm bile!) as part of the ceremony to become the Reverend Mother of the Fremen. Meanwhile, Villeneuve also sang praises for the new addition of Austin Butler, who plays the film's main villain. "He was really frightening - when the camera was rolling it was like witnessing a total metamorphosis, like he was really becoming an evil, psychotic, sexy serial killer," the filmmaker said. "It was very mind-blowing to see such a sweetheart becoming so ugly and evil in a split second like that." "Dune: Part Two" is set to be released on 29 February.