Dune director ‘needed’ talent of Timothee Chalamet to make sci-fi epic
Screams echoed around London’s Leicester Square as Timothee Chalamet fans desperately tried to grab the attention of the young actor who has garnered a loyal – and very loud – following.
He was among a host of stars who turned out on Monday night to promote the new adaptation of Dune – an expensive looking sci-fi that will be hoping to attract the same numbers to the box office that the latest James Bond movie has when it’s finally released later this week after facing delays caused by the pandemic.
While the 25-year-old told Sky News he appreciates that many still won’t feel ready to return to the cinema, he’s clearly passionate that people do view the film on a big screen.
Denis Villeneuve (left) and Tanya Lapointe at the special screening of Dune
“It feels a little presumptuous to tell people they must go see this in the cinemas – there’s a pandemic, there’s crazy things going on, there’s no obligation to,” Chalamet said.
“But if you like movies and you like big movies and you like movies that are made where directors [are] given free licence to do it as he pleases, and there aren’t multiple corporate multinational interests that are guiding product placement, who gets cast in it, all sorts of s**t like that.
Jason Momoa (left), Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya
“If you like Christopher Nolan movies, if you like Denis Villeneuve movies, then going to see this in a movie theatre helps our ability to keep doing it.”
Chalamet plays the lead character, Paul Atreides, in the film – a young man with a big career ahead of him, something the actor can surely relate to.
He said he sees the benefits of the weight of expectation.
“Live in gratitude – I’ll take this pressure over the pressures I had when I didn’t have a career, when I was in college, when I just wanted to be acting,” Chalamet said.
“People have worse problems than that, but for me, that’s what it was, so, you know, I’ll take this over that.”
Chalamet was the first and only choice of director Denis Villeneuve, who has assembled an A-list cast for the film, which is based on the 1965 novel of the same name by Frank Herbert.
Rebecca Ferguson plays Lady Jessica in the sci-fi film
He told Sky News the young star was perfect for the role.
“The thing is that Timothee had read the book, so he knew exactly what he was getting into,” Villeneuve said.
“And for me, I was looking to dig into the entirety of the character and to be very close to him.
“I needed [Chalamet’s] strength, I needed his talent – I would not have been able to make it with someone else.”
Sharon Duncan-Brewster was cast as Dr Liet Kynes
For other cast members, it was the director’s vision for the project that made them want to be involved.
Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Paul’s mother Lady Jessica, a role she describes as “one in a million”, told Sky News how it differed to other projects she’s worked on.
“There was a grandiosity to it, because of how big it is, but I think there was also, amazingly enough, this feeling of independence – the smaller in the large,” she said.
Jason Momoa compared his role to Han Solo in the Star Wars films
“We keep on saying it’s like an indie, huge movie, and I think it was the love for the project, there’s such a core fundamental belief in Denis, and that means it becomes a very tight bond between all of us because we care.”
Jason Momoa, who plays sword master Duncan Idaho, compared his role to Han Solo in the Star Wars films, and said winning it was “the most surreal thing” that’s ever happened to him.
Echoing Ferguson’s comments, he also referenced Villeneuve’s passion for the film.
Zendaya stars alongside Timothee Chalamet in Dune
“My first meeting with him, he sent me like an 80-page booklet, like his Bible, a lookbook for the whole movie,” Momoa said.
“Just sent it over without me even saying yes, I’m like, yeah, of course I’ll play, but he still sent that over, which I thought was just unbelievable.”
While the stars of Dune have clearly bought into Villeneuve’s vision, it remains to be seen whether the film can help cinemas continue to recover – and there’s a lot at stake for the director too, with a sequel planned, but not yet confirmed.
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But if the buzz in Leicester Square this evening translates to ticket sales, it seems likely Dune will have been worth the wait.
Dune is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday
Entertainment
Kate Nash says selling photos of her bum on OnlyFans paid for an extra tour crew member
Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenter posted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
McCall with 2002 Big Brother winner Kate Lawler. Pic: Rex Features
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
McCall with her MBE, alongside her partner Michael Douglas and her daughter Holly Robertson. Pic: PA
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
The author on her 21st birthday. Pic: Bradford Enterprises/PA
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
Taylor Bradford with her husband Robert in 1993. Pic: PA
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.
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The couple were married for 55 years until he died from a stroke in 2019.
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be buried alongside her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
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