Austin Butler reveals ‘Dune 2’ set ‘became a microwave’

LOS ANGELES: Actor Austin Butler went through hell during the shoot of ‘Dune: Part Two’. Earlier, he was hospitalised after the wrap up on Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’.

It seems nothing short of a miracle that he avoided a similar fate on the set of Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune: Part Two’, reports Variety.

The Oscar nominated actor joins the epic franchise as Feyd-Rautha, the cruel and sadistic younger nephew of and heir to Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard). Butler told Entertainment Weekly that heat stroke impacted several people on set during his first week of shooting.

He said, quoted by Variety: “It was 110 degrees (43.3°C) and so hot. I had the bald cap on, and it was between two sound stages that were just these grey boxes of 200-foot walls and sand. It became like a microwave. There were people passing out from heat stroke. And that was just my first week.”

“It really bonds the entire crew,” Butler added. “There’s something so humbling about being in such an uncomfortable environment.”

As per Variety,Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator match on the Harkonnen’s home planet was the first scene he shot for ‘Dune 2’. In the scene, he battles fighters to prove he should be his uncle’s heir.

During the preparations, the actor was hard focused on Skarsgard’s vocal performance in the original ‘Dune’ movie as it held the key to bringing his version of Feyd-Rautha to life.

Austin said: “I felt that because he grew up with the Baron, the Baron would be a big influence on him in many ways. So then I started thinking about the way that he speaks, and that being linked to the person that you see with the most power from the time that you’re a child, who you do end up emulating in some way.”