Dune: Prophecy star Olivia Williams says series is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut
British actress Olivia Williams has said that in more than 30 years of acting on screen, starring in Dune: Prophecy is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut from a project.
Williams, who has appeared in films including The Sixth Sense, Rushmore and An Education, and portrayed Camilla Parker Bowles, before she became Queen, in the final two seasons of The Crown, can now be seen in the TV prequel to the blockbuster Denis Villeneuve films.
She stars alongside her close friend Emily Watson, with the pair playing the Harkonnen sisters – two women fighting forces that threaten the future of humankind.
Emily Watson and Olivia Williams star together in Dune: Prophecy. Pic: Sky Atlantic/ HBO
Based on the Dune and Sisterhood of Dune novels, the Sky Atlantic show is set 10,000 years before the birth of Timothee Chalamet‘s character, Paul Atreides, in the films, and follows the two women as they found the fabled sisterhood that will later become known as the Bene Gesserit.
The series is a prequel to the Dune films, which star Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya. Pic: Warner Bros. Pictures
Despite knowing each other for 30 years, and even working at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at the same time, the show marks Williams and Watson’s first time on screen together.
Williams says they are often asked why they have never acted together before. There’s a simple answer, she tells Sky News. “It’s because there are no scripts for two women of the same age to lead a story.
“We’re used to playing the character that can, if the film’s running a bit long, be cut out because you don’t genuinely affect the plot of the show. Well, just try cutting the Harkonnen sisters out of this story!”
She adds: “We knew that our work would be used – which, in 35 years, I’d say is the first time that’s happened.”
Williams plays Sister Tula Harkonnen. Pic: HBO/ Sky Atlantic
In Dune: Prophecy, Watson plays the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit Sisters, Valya Harkonnen, whilst Williams plays her younger sibling, Sister Tula Harkonnen.
Watson, who recently starred alongside Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These, says it feels wonderful to be given the freedom to portray strong, stoic characters.
“When we were first cast, we went and sat in the National Portrait Gallery and sat in front of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, and just thought about that time when those very powerful women were front and centre, and terrified and deeply paranoid because everybody wanted to either marry them or kill them.”
Jodhi May and Mark Strong also star. Pic: Sky Atlantic/ HBO
The two actresses first met outside the Black Swan pub in Stratford-upon-Avon when they were starting out in their careers with the nearby RSC.
Williams says it “doesn’t feel real” that their careers have become as successful as they have.
“It is an extraordinary thing that I said I would stop at 30 and go and try to be a lawyer. I didn’t intend to be working as an actor and now I can’t believe my luck.
“You get to the end of every job and you go, was that the last time I will act? And that is a really tough way to, you know, bring up a family and you can’t get a bloody mortgage or life insurance with a lifestyle like that. So anyway, that was my real-life whinge.”
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Watson said the experience of leading a big-budget series together was not lost on her, and she felt an onus to help create a positive environment for the younger actors.
“We were like the CEOs and we were making sure that everybody was seen and felt part of something and were feeling okay about how everything was going down. And it felt like a really healthy way to do it.”
Dune: Prophecy is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and Now
Entertainment
Meghan reveals who said ‘I love you’ first with Harry – and what she misses about the UK
The second season of the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, has been released.
Over the eight-episode series, which features celebrity guests including US model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and Queer Eye’s Tan France, Meghan opens up about what she misses most about the UK, the meal she cooked on the night Prince Harry proposed, and who said “I love you” first.
Despite Harry not making a cameo in the Netflix show, Meghan does give some insight into her life in California with the prince, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet.
In one episode, she says it was Harry who first said he loved her, and that she fell in love with him while camping in Botswana, on the pair’s third date.
Harry and Meghan on the day they announced their engagement. Pic: PA
“We met in Bostwana and we camped for five days together,” she says, adding: “You really get to know someone when you are in a little tent.”
Later, Meghan reveals she tried to make a roast chicken on the night Harry proposed in 2017, but it didn’t turn out how she expected.
“I will say when I made a roast chicken for my now-husband I was still having a lot of challenges with the conversion of celsius and fahrenheit. I made a horrible chicken that night. I mean, truly terrible,” she says.
After first getting married, Meghan had planned to apply for British citizenship. But the pair later moved to the US after stepping down from their roles as working royals.
Meghan told Tan France she misses listening to Magic FM. Pic: Netflix/PA
In episode three, with British fashion designer Tan France, Meghan admits one of the things she “misses the most” about the UK, after leaving five years ago.
She says: “Honestly, one of the things I miss the most about the UK is the radio station called Magic.”
To which France quips: “Magic FM. Wow! Now, sorry to say this to you publicly, but that’s such a grandma station.”
A laughing Meghan replies: “I’ll be that grandma.”
During a moment where the pair are crafting aprons for their children, Meghan says she “always wanted to be a mum”, which is now “better than she expected” after the birth of Archie, in 2019, and Lilibet – who they call Lili for short – in 2021.
Meghan and Chrissy Teigen. Pic: Netflix/PA
Sympathising with France, who explained he gets heartbroken if away from his two young children for more than a couple of days, the duchess says the longest she and Harry have ever been without seeing their children is almost three weeks.
“I was… not well,” Meghan says about the separation.
In Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, he wrote of the “difficult days” after Queen Elizabeth’s death and how he and Meghan were separated from Archie and Lili for “longer than we’d ever been”.
He said when they reunited at their home in Montecito, “for days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight”.
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The premiere of the second season of With Love, Meghan comes two weeks after Harry and Meghan announced a watered-down deal with the streaming giant Netflix.
They have signed a “multi-year, first-look deal for film and television projects”, in contrast to their reported $100m (£74m) contract five years ago.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
Several bands have pulled out from the Victorious music festival just hours before their scheduled performances, following claims by Irish folk group The Mary Wallopers that they were “cut off” for displaying a Palestinian flag.
The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords, and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would no longer be performing at the annual music festival in Portsmouth following Friday’s incident.
The organisers, who said the band’s set was cut short for using a “discriminatory” chant, have since apologised and promised to make “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.
Rock band The Last Dinner Party said they are “outraged” by the incident and would boycott the festival.
“We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious. As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today,” they said in a statement shared on their Instagram page.
“As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence, it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause.
“To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.”
Abigail Morris, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland and Aurora Nishevci of The Last Dinner Party. File pic: Reuters
The Last Dinner Party said that throughout the summer, they have used their performances to encourage their audiences to make donations to a medical charity supporting Palestinians and urged their fans “more than ever to do the same”.
The band said they are “devastated to be put in this position” and apologised to those who were hoping to see them perform.
Following The Mary Wallopers’ set, a spokesperson for Victorious said: “We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival’s long-standing policy of not allowing flags of any kind at the event, but that we respect their right to express their views during the show.
“Although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song.”
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The Mary Wallopers claimed the festival had released a “misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant, and not the band’s call to Free Palestine”.
The band said their video “clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine'”.
“The same crew member is later heard in the video saying ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’,” the band added.
Rock band The Academic have also pulled out of the festival, saying they could not “in good conscience” perform at “a festival that silences free speech”, while Irish band Cliffords said they “refuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine”.
After the bands’ announcements that they were pulling out of the festival, the organisers released another statement, saying that they did not handle “the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached”, and issued an apology.
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