There were many things to look forward to when Dune: Part Two finally landed after a bit of a delay. The sequel expanded on the lore and started to escalate the universe well beyond what general audiences could predict. There were even rumblings that Anya Taylor-Joy might have a secret role and fuel would be added to the fire as she walked the red carpet at the premiere dressed in a very desert-appropriate dress. Lo and behold, during the two-hour and forty-six-minute epic, the unborn sister of Paul Atreides, Alia, would come to him in a vision as an adult and the viewers would be greeted with Taylor-Joy’s face.
Taylor-Joy would sit down with Variety to talk about her upcoming film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga when she revealed the story of how the secret cameo came about. As she made her appearance as a pretty significant character, that led to speculation of her return for Dune Messiah. When asked if there will be another Dune in her future, Taylor-Joy simply replied, “I hope so.” Meanwhile, Villeneuve would not contain his excitement to work with her again, “Shooting with Anya in Africa was nothing short of magical,” he says. “Her generosity, candor and passion truly moved me. I can’t wait to go back on Arrakis with her.”
She had actually met with director Denis Villeneuve just prior to filming Furiosa. The meeting was for a different movie, but Taylor-Joy explained, “Before I even sat down, he was like, ‘I want you to be in Dune, but you can’t do it!’ I was like, ‘Please?’ I skipped all the stages of grief and went straight to begging I was like, ‘I can do this. I can be in Australia and Abu Dhabi at the same time.’ He wanted me to be part of the universe. We kept in touch. I just had this feeling that it wasn’t over.”
Villeneuve recalled instantly seeing Taylor-Joy in the role just as the meeting with her started, “Anya was Alia as soon as I met with her. In fact, I realized after the fact, she has always been Alia. Anya feels out of this world, as though she belongs to some other dimension, one step into the dream.” Her role was kept secret, however. It was shot with a small crew in Nambia. She revealed, “I told my husband and my parents and I took my mum.” What’s even more impressive was that it was revealed that “no one at the studio knew. My face had been blurred out” in early versions of the film.
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