HBO’s “Dune: Prophecy” is lurching towards its season finale on Dec. 22, but before we’re further embroiled in the heated court politics of House Corrino and Valya Harkonnen’s vengeful thirst for power and Sisterhood control comes to a head, fans were treated to some intimate time with the two brooding patriarchs, Evgeny Harkonnen (Mark Addy) and the younger Baron Harrow Harkonnen (Edward Davis) in this past Sunday night’s fourth episode, “Twice Born.”
In the cheerless confines of their stone and steel abode on Salusa Secundus, the grizzled, wheezing Uncle Evgeny sucks on a breathing inhaler to stay alive while Harrow plays dress-up in his sinister black coat and tunic until Aunt Valya arrives for an unhappy reunion with a sudden proposition to help elevate their fractured family. Bad blood boils over after the disastrous Landsraad gathering with Harrow failing to achieve his objective, resulting in Valya watching her Uncle Evgeny die, gulping for air like a flailing fish out of water as she withholds his medical device.
“We know where the Harkonnens are in the Villeneuve movies,” Addy points out on the epic dysfunction. “What were they like 10,000 years before? How do we show the seeds of what they become back then. They may be a little bit more human than the kind of monsters they’ve become by the time Paul Atreides comes along. Where does that come from and what is it like around that family table? Not very pleasant.”
We spoke more with Addy and Davis about becoming Harkonnens, helping to portray this infamous “Dune” clan 10,000 years before they were the twisted foes we’ve come to know them as in film, and the gritty appeal of these tragic characters.
“It’s great to have the universe already depicted by David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve and have that visual reference,” Davis says. “That makes it really exciting to get your teeth into that. With Harrow particularly I love the fact that he’s got a glint in his eye and a little bit of a sense of humor. One thing you can accuse the ‘Dune’ universe of is being very serious. He’s a little bit of an observer and a bit of a joker and that was really good fun, and it certainly plays to my strengths. I’m not saying I’m funny, I’m just saying I like to make people laugh.”
Bojana Nikitovic is “Dune: Prophecy’s” head costume designer and the cool black threads she crafted for the Harkonnens helped to define and build their characters.
“Yeah the costumes were amazing, and it’s amazing how much of an effect they have on you,” Davis explains. “Not that I’d suggest this, but you could do no prep on a character and you’d suddenly have so much to work with. That whole ruffle thing was great and it did give it a slight pompous tone. Then there was this huge furry cloak thing that I had to wear which was actually insanely heavy. So by the end of a shooting day I’d be in agony. But there was something nicely symbolic about that because it was a sort of status symbol, this big fur thing that was crushing him.
“It felt quite apt. The costumes really do a lot. And the haircut was hilarious. I went into the makeup chair, got the haircut, and thought, ‘Okay, this is the kind of show where everyone has weird haircuts. I can’t wait for this.’ Then I step out onto set and everyone looks normal.”
Addy’s thick garment was equally oppressive and fit perfectly with Evgeny’s bristly, barnacled demeanor.
“The leather that they used to make the jacket thing was textured in such a weird way that you couldn’t tell what kind of creature it was from,” he recalls. “It could have been whale, we don’t know. You’d look in the mirror with all this gear on and think, ‘I can almost smell fish.’ There’s something about it that make you feel like you inhabit this fishy icy world. The attention to detail for the costumes was incredible.”
Harrow’s uncomfortable scene during the meeting of the Landsraad aided Davis’s depiction of the young Baron despite his awkward presence amid all these nobles.
“Shooting a scene with that number of people watching you and listening to you does a hell of a lot of the work for you,” says Davis. “I’m not by nature a confident person so that was very useful. I think that strength that he finds seems to be solidified when he’s interrupted by the speaker, and he’s mocked for being a Harkonnen and he’s mocked for reading off the Laws of Kanly. That’s the fork in the road when he thinks, ‘Actually, F*** you. I’m going to do this.’ Until that point he’s basically just playing at being the big politician and he’s suddenly confronted with having to speak. It was a hell of a scene to shoot and it’s a scene which involves visual effects as well. It was long but really rewarding. It’s easy to be nervous about talking to the Emperor when the Emperor is Mark Strong.”
Denied a dramatic on-screen death scene in “Game of Thrones” as King Robert Baratheon, here in “Dune: Prophecy” Addy finally gets his deserved demise in a powerhouse scene with Emily Watson.
“Well, Evgeny has been consumed by a simmering bitterness toward Valya for 30-odd years, so when she pitches up again they’re right back where they were just before she left Lankiveil in the first place to join the Sisterhood,” he notes. “His blame for the loss of Griffin, who was our great hope, the family’s future, this is the guy who’s going to guide us back to the power that we once had and where we belong, it’s all her fault that we’re in the shit that we’re in. And that has not dulled over the course of three decades or more, and in fact it’s got worse.
“To have someone like Emily to play a scene like that opposite is just a dream. You’re getting back what you’re giving. It was a real to-and-fro. It’s a horrible scene but it was a joy to actually be a part of. It shows the kind of thing that Valya is capable of. If she’s willing to let a member of her own family die at her feet, what else is she capable of? That’s what an audience would be asking themselves at that point.”
“Dune: Prophecy” airs exclusively on HBO and Max each Sunday.