Robert Pattinson recently told IndieWire that filming Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 3 was hotter than he expected. Like the first two films in the series, the latest Dune tentpole had the majority of its scenes filmed in the Arabian desert.
“When we were doing ‘Dune,’ it was so hot in the desert that we didn’t question anything,” Pattinson said. “And I was so relaxed. It was like my brain wasn’t actually working. Not a single brain cell was working. And I was just listening to Denis[Villeneuve]’s ‘Anything goes!’
Pattinson’s role in Dune, Villeneuve’s third and final film, remains a secret. He is one of the threequel’s most notable new cast members, along with relative newcomers Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ayda Brooke, who play Paul and Chani’s twin children. The returning cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, and Anya Taylor-Joy. The film is based on Frank Herbert’s second Dune novel, Dune Messiah.
For every Dune movie, there seem to be countless stories of actors enduring scorching heat on desert locations. Austin Butler, who played the villainous Fayed-Rousa in Dune Part 2, once told Entertainment Weekly that heat stroke affected several people on set during the first week of filming the sequel.
“It was very hot, 110 degrees,” Butler said. “I was wearing a bald hat, and it was between two soundstages, just a 200-foot wall and a gray box made of sand. It became like a microwave oven. Some people were passing out from heat exhaustion. That was just the first week for me.”
“It really brings the whole crew together,” Butler added. “It’s very humbling to be in such an uncomfortable environment.”
Zendaya revealed to W Magazine that she suffered heat stroke while filming Dune: Part 2 because her costume was too heavy and she stopped drinking water on the film’s extremely hot Jordanian desert set.
“Honestly, I was so scared of peeing and defecating in my suit on set,” she explains, referring to the bulletproof vests worn by Fremen warriors in the film to survive the harsh conditions of the desert. “We were in Jordan, and it was so hot, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, the bathroom is so far away,’ because we had to walk to the location. If you have to pee, you need at least 10 minutes to take off your costume. I was like, ‘Damn, I don’t want to drink that much water.'” One day, I didn’t drink enough and got heat stroke. I felt very uncomfortable. I remember calling my mom on the bathroom floor saying, “I don’t feel well.” She asked, “Did you drink water today?” I said no. I thought I was smart, but I can’t do that. So, lesson learned. ”
Almost the entire cast of Dune had to endure high temperatures during the filming of the space epic, which is one of the reasons director Villeneuve was grateful that he was able to avoid typical Hollywood tactics and shoot both Dune films back-to-back without production interruptions.
“Both films were shot in very harsh conditions and were very physically taxing, so we were lucky to have a break in between,” Villeneuve told EW. “My first thought was to shoot both movies back-to-back, but I would have been dead by now. It was really intense, and seeing the world’s reaction to ‘Part 1’ gave me positive energy to go back to the desert.”
Dune: Part 3 is scheduled to be released on December 18, 2026.
