Amid the sacred stone partitions of the Sisterhood’s fortress-like headquarters on the planet Wallach IX, the acolytes of Mom Superior Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) and Reverend Mom Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams) in “Dune: Prophecy” battle to make sense of the unusual happenings of their order as forces inner and exterior attempt to destroy their influential heritage.
Sister Jen is without doubt one of the foremost academy college students, who shows an uncanny stage of widespread sense, uncensored instinct, and outspokenness which may make her one of many frontrunners to assert a management function ought to tragedy befall her stoic-but-flawed mentors, Valya and Tula.
Actress Faoileann Cunningham, who had a quick function in director Robert Eggers’ Viking saga “The Northman,” portrays this headstrong apprentice amid an unbelievable ensemble forged that allowed her to considerably stretch her vary in HBO/Max’s six-episode prequel miniseries. After being taken beneath Tula’s wing and entrusted to harbor harmful secrets and techniques with reference to Lila’s (Chloe Lea) resurrection and restoration, Sister Jen has come to the forefront of this exceptional collection to say herself in myriad methods that can seemingly resonate into the newly-announced second season.
“It was very enjoyable,” Cunningham tells Area.com. “Clearly they’re difficult scenes however working with these guys was so enjoyable and we might clearly constructed up an excellent rapport throughout the entire collection. To be trustworthy, generally these issues are simpler than the large set items the place there’s one million individuals on set for a day, so you possibly can simply connect with the opposite actor and do what you have to do. I actually loved it, and it was good that we shot these scenes in sequence which made it loads simpler. Chloe and I are superb associates, and the identical with Olivia. So it was very joyful. Loads is going on so you must reset and go, ‘Okay, I didn’t know that 5 seconds in the past.'”
The extraordinary sequences down within the bowels of the Sisterhood’s stronghold with Sister Lila possessed by the deceased Mom Raquella, who’s making an attempt to dissect causes for Kasha’s demise and uncover the supply of Desmond Hart’s powers, carried a method and tone harking back to previous Common horror motion pictures reminiscent of “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
“Once we go into the cave Lila is in a whole lot of ache and is clearly grappling with the ancestors so I believe wrapping that up so far as we might attainable go was our intention within the most secure method attainable however actually pushing that with the stunt coordinators,” she notes. “The minute that door opens it is a hearth that is taking place. And within the following scenes, it was very nice as a result of we hadn’t seen in so lengthy that basically shut connection between Jen and Lila that was there within the early episodes. They had been head-to-head in bunk beds to one another so that they had been all the time capable of have these conversations. After that, it was simply actually connecting to what had gone earlier than and bringing it proper down to 2 associates filling one another in on all the pieces.”
Cunningham admits to the complexity of Sister Jen’s journey in “Dune: Prophecy,” one thing that required her to inhabit the function with aspects of her personal character.
“I believe initially what I liked about her was this jester high quality, setting individuals as much as fall or setting individuals up for questions they actually didn’t need to reply, or enjoying with individuals’s personal notion of reality,” she explains. “That was enjoyable as a result of clearly as an actor you could possibly swap off what components of these issues had been actually honest and what components weren’t. However that type of runs proper as much as the tip of the season. We by no means actually know the place she sits when it comes to her loyalty, what she needs to get from this, who she trusts and who she doesn’t. And that is very interesting. I am additionally fairly a cerebral individual so it was good to attempt to discover components of your self in there. That agency footedness and reactive nature, however equally each on a private stage and on a personality stage, maturing by way of the season into having the ability to maintain numerous conflicting concepts.
“Whenever you’re on set with Olivia and Emily you have to run faster than you have ever run in your life, and likewise for the youthful forged. Each single individual is astonishingly proficient and extremely hardworking. It made me do my homework instances one million. There’s so many shifting components to the story, you must turn out to be very refined in every second of what you are making an attempt to convey. It is all very very targeted work as a result of in any other case, I believe we might lose the viewers since there’s a lot occurring. God solely is aware of the place Jen is headed, nevertheless it’s very thrilling.”
“Dune: Prophecy’s” six episodes are all now obtainable on HBO and streaming on Max.
