Hands down one of my favorite movies of the year! The Warner Bros. Sci-Fi epic “Dune” has plenty of acting highlights. Here are 3 acting lessons from the movie.

Read The Latest: Best 4 Acting Tips For Beginners

“Dune” The Movie

Duuuuune! When I heard the film was being released in November 2021, I scrambled to grab a copy of the original book by Frank Herbert. I found it at JFK airport and started reading it at the gate. After 13 hours of reading, I finished the 600-page epic and saw the movie in theaters that same day.

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Sheesh! I was not disappointed. You could tell Warner Bros. put a lot of effort into delivering a great movie and it showed.

“With a production budget of $165 million (not including marketing and promotion), “Dune” has now grossed $69.4 million in North America and $292.1 million globally.”

Just to clear things up, the book was better than the movie —did you think I would say otherwise? Also the film ended around page 400 or so of the novel. Some people were apparently upset calling it “incomplete.” HBO has bigger plans for the series and Dune Part 2 is slated for 2023.

Actor Javier Bardem, says he’s psyched to work on Dune Part 2 with Director Dennis Villenueve. He just hopes he is able to ride a sandworm.

“The only thing I’m asking is that I get to ride a sandworm. Denis told me he’s going to try to make that happen. That does happen in the book, by the way. Stilgar teaches [Timothée Chalomet's] Paul [Atreides] how to take the desert power, which is to domesticate those huge animals in order to use their force, their strength, and their huge size against the Harkonnen. Hopefully, that will happen.”

3 Acting Lessons From The Movie

As this is a blog for actors, I thought it would be cool to watch the film and draw out any acting lessons achieved in the movie. Here are the three that really made an impact on me.

Lesson #1- It’s All In The Eyes

‘Spoiler Alert’ in the Frank Herbert story characters oftentimes used internal dialogue. While reading the book, I wondered how the director was going to achieve this in the film.

Pages of internal dialogue reappeared as external conversations in the screenplay. Then there were other key moments of “thought” that were cut out completely. However, it was the moments of silent communication between actors that remained on the cutting room floor that seriously intrigued me.

Actors were confronted with having to use their eyes to tell the story. One actress in particular who did a spectacular job at this was Rebecca Ferguson, who played Lady Jessica, the mother of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet).

They say doing less is more. “Done correctly, with just the smallest amount of tension, the lifting or relaxing of your eyelids can speak volumes to the viewer.” The eyes are the windows to the soul and a skilled actor knows that half of the work of conveying emotion is done by the viewer.

I felt Ferguson’s performance rode that balance the best out of the cast, but every actor did an outstanding job with this task. Josh Brolin was another standout example of this as well.

Lesson #2- Encourage The Use Of Endowment

Legendary acting teacher Uta Hagen describes “endowment” as the practice of giving tangible objects properties that shouldn’t be real on stage.

I don’t know for sure, but I can’t imagine Uta had green screens in her head when she first started her teachings in the 1940s.

Still, the method proves useful in today’s world of high-tech CGI, and most certainly came in handy for the actors of Dune, who barely used the help of green screens at all.

In order to use endowment, the actor must react emotionally according to the endowed object. The most common example of this is if an actor has a fake gun pressed against their head they should react with fear and nervousness (as they would in real life).

The same can be said for Chalamet’s vigor when holding the Crystknife for the first time, or the fear of a Gom Jabbar?

Dune’s director and special effects team insisted that the movie work hard not to rely on heavy use of CGI and green screens. “The extra effort on the part of the Dune creative team to bring the film's world to life in such a tangible way will no doubt come as a relief to the many fans of Herbert's original novel.”

Timothee Chalamet described his experience with the absence of CGI in this movie:

Yeah, you feel the environment and specifically for the role of Paul — and thank you to Denis and I don’t know if the other actors could speak to it than I could, especially Josh [Brolin] who worked on Sicario with Denis — but I think I did two scenes on a green screen. I think it’s literally two scenes I did on a green screen. Besides that, everything else was practical.

Lesson #3- Supporting Characters Make A Big Difference

We’re all aware of a story’s protagonist or its antagonist—the character created to tear down our hero.

But what about a story’s supporting characters? The gang often has diverse roles that shape the protagonist and offers them valuable lessons.

Margaret Atwood, the writer of Handmaid’s Tale, proposes “a supporting character is a person who plays a role in the life of a story’s protagonist. Novelists and screenwriters don’t anchor a story around supporting characters, but they use them in the process of worldbuilding to create a compelling backdrop to the main character’s story arc.

Dune had a slew of charismatic and inspiring supporting characters. Where Chalamet was often required to stay in line and not give too much away in his acting. Actors like Jason Mamoa, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Zendaya to name a few were allowed to bring a range of emotions and characteristics.

Each actor is fully aware of how their character’s relationship affected young Paul. A supporting character acts as a foil to the lead. Showing weakness and strengths through their interactions.

The supporting actor must understand their job and many a great actor relish and prefer this vital role on the call sheet.

As a side note, the supporting roles were actually some of my favorite parts of the entire movie.

Another Great Movie Experience

This was a fantastic film, and I highly recommend you watch it. It’s always satisfying to see actors of a certain caliber still utilizing methods and tools that a beginner actor would be asked to use in acting class.

Dune is proof of why acting can be so fulfilling and fun.

What are your thoughts on Dune? Leave a reply below!