You wish to serve the great houses as truth sails, and shape the flow of power. You must first exert power over yourself. Your mind and body must be within your control. Only then can you discern the truth. Welcome to The Official Dune Prophecy Podcast. I'm Amidali Akbar. And I'm Greta Johnson on this show. We are unpacking every episode of the new HBO original series Dune Prophecy with the show's writers, cast, and crew.
Today we've got some special guests to help us dig into the premiere episode. First up, we have Showrunner, Writer and Executive Producer Alison Schapker, and Executive Producer and Writer Jordan Goldberg. Then later we are joined by Emily Watson, who plays the mysterious sister at the heart of this new story, Bollyah Harkinan. Alright folks, be warned, there are spoilers ahead for the first episode of Dune Prophecy. So go watch that first, and I'm gonna use the voice here. Come back to us.
What holds more truth? History or prophecy? Okay, so much happens in this first episode. We are not wasting any time, and neither is the sisterhood. Should we get into it? Yeah, let's do it. So we have Mother Superior Valia and Sister Tula. They're preparing to welcome Princess Inez to the sisterhood. They've been working in secret for years to orchestrate a royal wedding and get Princess Inez on the throne so they can control the entire Imperium. But things are not really going as planned.
On Salusa Contas, the home planet of Emperor Carino, the royal marriage falls apart after a mysterious soldier from a rackess named Desmond Heart shows up and murders both the young groom to be and Kasha, a member of the sisterhood assigned to House Carino. This leaves us with a great many questions, especially who the heck is Desmond Heart and is a reckoning coming.
So Greta, we both watched episode for the first time last night, and they've done a really good job here of not overwhelming you, but you do have to pay attention. It asks you to pay attention. It rewards a close listen and watch, and I'm excited to see more of that with what they've set up here. So it seems to me the main thread of this episode in addition to just like General Sisterhood drama is this marriage that seems to have really fallen apart by the end of this episode.
For a lot of reasons, namely Desmond Heart from a rackess. I was not expecting that at all, were you? I was like, he seems kind of like Rogish, but not like murdering two people on two different planets. He kills the groom to be and Kasha, who was a member of the sisterhood, who was really close to the Imperium. They died two separate places. And so there's a lot of questions. I mean, Kasha was seeing a lot of issues with this whole situation.
Like she knew that things were not going the way they should, which also I think is pretty interesting just in terms of like, you know, the mother superior, the people in charge thought this was a great idea, and like kept double checking that event. When we also just saw that idea of sifting truth from lies, you know, we saw that in the training session at the school. It's very clear that that is at this point.
Arguably one of their most important roles, the sisterhood, being the person to determine whether people are telling the truth to the people in power. Yeah, I mean, we see that it's not infallible either. They make sure to demonstrate that, you know, they can't necessarily specifically say which parts of the truth are fully true. In which parts of the lies are fully lies. You know what I mean? Which is a really interesting way to think about politics as well.
Like that's what politics is all about. Like putting a little bit of lie on the truth, putting a little bit of truth on the lie so that you can get your way. And Valia is our kind of way in, I would say. And she is somebody who's getting questioned a lot, but has a very strong sense of what she wants. You know, she commands a room when she walks in. Valia.
She really, well, and speaking of being commanding 30 years before the action of the main series, she uses the voice for the first time and is literally very commanding. I think one of my major takeaways that I love about Dune is the idea of the voice being a thing that can actually change history. Meaning a person's speech, a person's like charisma, a person's ability to manipulate can literally change the course of history. And that's what happens in that first scene you're describing.
First time the voice is used, it actually changes the course of history for the sister. Now each episode we are going to have a segment that we are calling beyond the veil. And we are going to dive deeper into the episode with some truth sares from the show. Today we have showrunner, writer and executive producer Allison Schapker back with us and executive producer and writer Jordan Goldberg here for the first time. So let's get into it and go beyond the veil.
Welcome to the podcast, Jordan Goldberg and Allison Schapker. We are very happy to have you here. So this is exciting because we now get to talk about the first episode. The first time we talked Allison, there were no spoilers. Now we are getting into spoiler territory. So that's very exciting for us. But you know, let's do a little bit of background first, Jordan. We heard Allison's Dune origin story in our last episode.
But what about you? What was your relationship like with Dune prior to the show? My gateway to Dune was actually the video game, which I think was titled Dune 2, came out on the PCs 1992. And that game is very cool because it teaches you kind of all the rules and what there are in all the stakes of what it's like to be in a racquet. You're like mining spice. It's a strategy game. You're ordering of attacks against the harkens. And I think it actually was a very influential game.
I think it was like one of its first of its kind. So I played that game and I got really interested in Dune. And I remember going back and watching the movie again and then the movie, the 1984 movie. And that just really captured my imagination. In case you can't tell from my face, you're kind of blowing my mind because somehow I was like a big PC gamer around that time. And I feel like I maybe played that in before I knew Dune the book and never put it together. I have to look up footage of it.
It would take your life away too because you constantly would mind spice all the time. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I got to look up at that. That's still lightfall. So I would love to hear how you two sort of figured out the flow of working together. Well, Jordan and I work together on Westworld season four. And I mean, that was its own epic adventure. And I had the pleasure of really working side by side with Jordan through all aspects of the season.
And when I was in a position to tap a comrade to come over and help me with Dune, Jordan was the first person I called. Yeah, I got lucky to work with Allison. And it struck me because, you know, the thing about Westworld, which is really kind of nice, and it was really nice education into going into this series, was that it's a lot about the details. It's a lot of world building. And I remember very early on, it was when we were in the 1920s park, the Nora park.
Remember we were trying guns, various different guns on people and stuff, and I was like, wow, Allison, you're in the details. Like, this is like not, but I was a respected day because like, that's what it takes to be like a real world builder. Like, you got to be able to kind of go through all those motions. And that continued when Allison and I worked in post together. You know, she really got into the minutia things. And that's about respecting the IP.
So when I heard she was doing Dune, I was like, well, they found the right person to do that because she's going to take that very seriously. And when she called me about Dune, I was like, wow, I mean, like the idea of doing it as a television show is just really, really easy. It really, really, it seems extremely challenging, but really kind of intriguing. So I think we should get into the show since you're talking about how exciting it is to create the TV show.
Our first episode is called The Hidden Hand. I want to talk about that opening sequence and voiceover. When humans rose up against the thinking machines that had enslaved them, history says it wasn't a trade ease who led them to victory. While my great-grandfather deserted the fight. When war ended and all thinking machine technology was banned, history branded my family as cowards. And so we were banished to a desolate world.
What were you trying to accomplish and why did we go right into this narration? I think there was a real feeling and I mean, this was part of threading that needle where you want to Dune fans to come on board, but also open up a space for people who maybe are not as familiar with the basic premise of the world. And it felt important to us to take people's hand through our main character to just set the stakes a bit of where we were in time.
And that this was going to be her story that we were telling. I think that's right. I think what I really liked about it was it wasn't just about setting up the kind of context of the story, but it also sort of introduced the wound that this character had without kind of going into a lot of details. But you know, I mean, this is not only who becomes the second mother superior or the sisterhood, but it's also someone who is a harkening.
And tells you from the get go that what we thought has happened to the harkens is not really the truth. You know, she's caught between this idea that, you know, she has lived through a point where like history is not the truth. So, you know, is she going to end up in a world where prophecy becomes her truth? And that's just a very interesting idea, I think. So try fact it's doing a lot of stuff there.
I think it really comes through and it's really interesting to think about like the tricky balance especially in the first couple of minutes of a new show like this, where like you don't want to go to exposition heavy, but you need to explain enough. You do need to establish the stakes. I think it's just like, yes, a difficult needle to thread and you all did a great job with it. It's interesting to think about one of the big themes of this show being that idea of sifting truth from lies.
And that's what obviously one of the things that like the sisterhood is so good at doing. But it does make me wonder how much given the fact that history can be so subjective, like how much can we trust Valleus version? Well, exactly because you know, she's also telling a story. So she's telling you that the story of history written by the atreides is not what it seems. But at the same time, of course, it wouldn't be due if we didn't ask ourselves, well, where is Valleus perspective rooted?
Yeah, I mean, it feels like a confession, but maybe you'll get a sense that it's more of a rationale. If you get my girlfriend. I like that. I like that a lot. So in this opening, we learned about the first mother superior, Raquelah. Valleus calls her true mother. What was Raquelah's role in the great machine wars? She found the sisterhood sort of after the machine wars. I mean, she was a doctor. She was a scientist in our opening.
You see her on the battlefield, almost in a medic kind of role, you know, attending to the wounded. And she saw a great deal of suffering. But what happens to her after that is she actually is poisoned. And she has a near death experience. And she exerts in that moment of crisis such incredible control over her body on a cellular level. She actually synthesizes an antidote to the poison she's been given from chemicals in her own cells.
And that has this sort of side effect that not only does she live, but she unlocks her genetic memory, which is key to the sisterhood and connects to the wisdom of all her female ancestors. And that's what Jordan, when he referred to other memory, this notion that suddenly the wisdom of generations, and the pain of generations was accessible to her. And it helps her kind of see her purpose going forward, which is that the Imperium will need to be guided by wisdom on that day.
And that wisdom on that deep level, if it's going to stand a chance. And for her to do that will mean somehow taking this skill that was born out of crisis for her, and passing it on to other women. And so she gathers women around her, and it begins to form this order that will dedicate itself to guiding the future. But also will be recruiting women because it turns out genetic memory is passed down through the maternal line of generations in the body in our June lore.
So that's part of why it grows up to be an all female order. And we're going to see in future episodes a little bit what that means to young women who come to the sisterhood and are asked to train to do the same thing we're caleded under great duress. I love that there's sort of like a mitochondria implication to all of it. That's really cool. Yeah, I love that Dune is grounded in science.
And yes, it's sort of sci-fi science and science of the future, but like it really, you know, it grounds itself. What appears to be superpowers to us by our sort of human standards after 10,000 years of evolution and then with the control they're exerting and then pushing the boundaries forward, they ground it. Yes, in doing science. That's also just like a super bad ass backstory. Yeah, for sure. She's very formidable.
And I think what that means to our show is that Valia Harkinin has incredible shoes to fill. And, you know, Rachella Berto and Arula founded the order, but she's not immortal. And at some point she had to look to who she was going to pass this mission on to. So yeah, she's a very huge figure in Valia Harkinin's life. So yeah, speaking of her mortality on her deathbed, she's got a vision, which we see in the show. I think we should unpack it a little bit.
We see the sisterhood school being eaten up by sand worms. We see burning skin, blood dripping across the floor and two glowing blue eyes. And I would love to know as much as you are able to talk about it, given spoilers and everything, how you chose those images and what Rachella thinks it all means. Well, I mean, Rachella is having a moment of pressience on her deathbed. So she is glimpsing images of a future.
So I wouldn't want to give away any spoilers, but I will tell you, like they're not by accident. Well, I guess it's worth asking, like, what is the significance for the order? Is pressience and future sites something that they have dealt with before? Or is this, you know, like, does it feel like prophecy and religious in any way?
Or is it feeling like a science thing where like this is going to, I'm sure we'll answer some of these questions as time goes on, but I'm just curious, like, it just has an interesting setup for people to interpret, because it's like the dying wish is complicated by this flash of a vision. It is an interesting point that you bring up because, like, you know, 10,000 years later, around the story around politics, you know,
prophecy comes to mean something else. I mean, it's a controlled narrative that they're using, and because we're telling a sort of a foundational story, you know, the ability to do that has to come from somewhere, you know, I mean, some kind of event has to kind of spark that idea. So a real prophecy seems to be kind of a natural way to kind of start that, you know, progression.
I agree. I mean, I think it's very much an inciting incident of Raquel's moment of pressions, and it is, as taking the notion that will become incredibly complicated in the world of June, right? Like, it's like, but is this a moment of truth? Is this a, you know, this vision? What is volume going to learn by dealing with that prophecy and working against it or working to grow the
sisterhood so that it's prepared for this reckoning that's coming? And what is she going to learn in the process? And I think what Jordan's pointing to is like the sisterhood, which will eventually become the Venni Jesuit, which will actually eventually almost weaponize prophecy in the future. I don't think that's their only relationship to it. And we really wanted to start them somewhere, somewhere different, somewhere grounded, and in a sort of more pure place with it.
So of course, we see a schism form. There's question of what should happen next or two factions of the sisterhood. One is led by Doratea and one is led by Valia. Let's listen to a clip of their argument. Why do you need access to the breeding index? So I can return the sisterhood to its values. You can't do this. We are the hand that points toward a righteous path. We are meant to guide the Imperium, not rule it.
We must create the path and lead others to it. We are the only ones who can ever since you arrived you and your sister to her. You've thought too high of yourself. Okay, so can we unpack a little bit? I mean, we've gotten some hints about what's really at the heart of this disagreement. But I think it's very interesting how differently each of them sees the purpose of the sisterhood.
Yes, and Doratea, who is Rachele Berto and Arule's granddaughter, was very much the one who was, for a long time I would say, Rachele would tell you that she was going to become the second mother superior. And she's really a formidable foundational sister for the order because I think it's fine to tell the audience at this point that she is the sister who actually, you know, unlocked truth sense. So she is someone who did push the boundaries of what it means to be human forward.
And the whole reason that the sisters can go out into the Imperium and function as human lie detectors really goes back to Doratea. So she is a sister of great power, but she goes on a mission and hangs out with a group of anti technology zealots that are referred to as the butlerian movement.
And she's kind of converted and she comes back very much a sharing their their beliefs and Rachele does not share those beliefs. So it's sort of and here's Rachele feeling that the end of her life is coming. She needs to pass on her mission. She needs to pass on her great work, but the woman she thought she could hand it to would never guide it now given her new belief system in the way that Rachele needs it to be guided.
And one of the things we're going to explore this season is like how Volya came to the sisterhood and for Rachele offered a way out of an impasse. And so when we pick them up in the premiere and we're catching them after Rachele's death, you're seeing two women of great force to have opposing philosophies of what the role of the sisterhood is and what what means justify what ends.
Wow, I love this so much as somebody who is a failed scholar of religion. I don't feel like there's so many ways in which you can see historical moments that this also, you know, like the generation right after like, you know, not uncommon for them to be killing each other in the hopes of, you know, trying to figure out what the pathway is. It's really cool to see this like kind of alternative history. Let's talk about that scene where Valya kills Dorotia using the voice.
I will never bend to you. Valya, Harkin. It's take out your brain. Five into your brain. Wow. I want to talk about that moment and how you thought the audience would react to it because it is a very shocking thing the way it happens. I heard take out your blade in the trailer and yet I did not expect that moment at all that, you know, Valya would use the voice to make Dorotia kill herself. What is the audience supposed to take from this about Valya? What kind of character is this?
I mean, it does really is a bold way to sort of, I think, stake to plant that first stake in the ground for the show, you know, which is this is a new tune. This is the story of where the Benny Jesser came from and the voice is such an iconic power and the fact that it was used within the sisterhood, sister to sister in this kind of foundational crime that is, I think,
it's the past to be debated, you know, as we get to know the story better, was that the only way? Like, I mean, that's something that we are really going to examine and I don't think the answer is obvious given the stakes, you know, sometimes when you're operating, like Jordan said on generations and also a sense of if you cannot guide or set the path like Valya saying and you backslide into a kind of war and tyranny and the amount of suffering, it sort of, it starts to raise that question of like,
did this need to happen so that other suffering and death could be prevented and and also I think it sort of plants it within the sisterhood, right? Like the stakes of the macro, the universe is big, but also, you know, it's also within this organization and power is within this institution and it's being fought within itself as well.
Whether Valya is a tragic hero or an anti hero, I think we'll figure it out as we go along in our story, but you know, if we're treating her that way, the act of damn nation that she commits happens in the first like five minutes of the show is pretty, pretty amazing. I mean, when I first read what we were doing to like, to me, I was like, wow, that really, that really pulls the rug out from in you because now you don't know what to expect to this person.
Is she hero, is she the villain, you know, and then you realize that, you know, again, like true to do it's all morally ambiguous and true to the Benny Jesuit, it's all about the shadows and there's just, you know, more, there's no light from morality to exist in there and this moment really kind of signifies that and also just don't fuck with Holly Hart.
Well, yes, obviously that's very clear. So like speaking of the sisterhood and sort of the dual meanings that you're working with within, especially this first episode, but I imagine the rest of the series as well, I would love to talk more to about Valya's sister, Tula, who I mean, it almost it doesn't seem quite as like, but it's clear that they do still have a bit of friction, which is really interesting.
You know, they do, I mean, I think some of it comes from their family and and their past, which we're gonna explore in the series, so I do think that they have tension they've carried with them. Yeah, I also think it's fascinating that anytime you're telling a story where two characters are hand in hand as they trot off into the dark and get up to some questionable stuff, one of them has more awareness than the other and that's your source of conflict.
And I find that it really interesting because you would imagine one person with awareness has more guilt than the other but you know sometimes it's not the truth. It's very fascinating how people deal with that knowledge of right or wrong or where they stand on the moral compass. It's a very layered relationship and we kind of drafted it that way.
We have to make sure we talk about the royal wedding on Saludas Acondis. We have the emperor, House Carino, Princess Inez getting married somewhat happily to the Rechazy boy, pre. That's not what I was expected. So let's talk a little bit about this other best-up family we've got. Yeah, well I love the Princess Inez and the notion that she very much is experiencing the desire to shape her own path and that has been a lifelong dream to
go study at the sisterhood. You know she's been in the orbit of Kasha who is her father's truth saire but somebody who was a figure who we're going to learn about Inez's past and understand that the sisterhood really played a key role in it in the future but Kasha is a very important
person to her and in some ways somebody she idealizes and has looked up to and so I think Inez thinks that marrying a nine-year-old kid if it gives her years of freedom until he comes of age and she gets to go study at the sisterhood by the time she returns to take the throne she will be her own truth saire and she longs for that control. I think she feels like her position makes her vulnerable and that she wants to shore herself up and be a formidable Empress someday.
It's kind of a great plan that's very close to happening they almost have her and of course in any good premiere things don't work out exactly as a plan. Yeah, no, that's right. Although the meeting the sister had just you know the show is also kind of getting behind the scenes of the Imperial family you know and I think one of the interesting aspects about the Imperial families that the fact that this engagement has to happen means how tenuous their power
really is you know they have to do things to shore up spice you know production they're kind of you know I wouldn't say they're the whim of the great houses but they are not lording over anything in a told you know power position so you know the fact that she has to marry and a very independent strong-minded person has to be married to a nine-year-old kid. Shorped his relationship is you know it shows you the kind of power dynamics and this kind of interstellar feudal society.
So yeah Jordan you mentioned Desmond he's sort of our like mysterious stranger who comes to town and he tells a story about surviving disaster on Erachis and sister Kasha who advises House Karino uses her true saying abilities and essentially says like what he's saying is either true or at least he believes it to be true. This is such an interesting introduction to a new character.
I would love to know how you decided to start there with him and even like how you talked to the actor who plays Desmond about his character and how you wanted him to carry himself in this first scene we see him. Desmond Hart is about telling the truth you know he kind of weaponizes the truth he's very out in the open and sometimes the truth is a sharp edge that a lot of people can't take
and I think he wielded it like a sword. Now I think he's telling the truth but you know there's a very strong a mission there so I don't know if that qualifies as a liar not there's a part of the story that he's not telling that we find out later in the episode and I think the Travis Fimble I think his way of approaching that story is to be authentic in believing everything that Desmond says.
At the same time he's very good about keeping all of his cards close to the vest because like what I love about that scene in particular is he says what he has to say he warns the emperor of this insurgency that the emperor didn't know about the emperor invites him to stay they walk out
together he turns around and he stares at Kasha who's you know feeling something is not not right and the face that he flashes at her is both feels like a sneer but also sort of innocent but also sort of like you know curious I mean there's so many emotions you can read from there I mean obviously
that you know you're getting some weird vibes from him clearly you know so the way Travis is always playing is that you're always supposed to be you know on your toes and not understand what's going on there you know he keeps you just off kilter and you know ultimately that's what makes him an
interesting Rasputin like character you know I mean is he Rasputin of course he's Rasputin yeah I totally see an after I think it's very fitting for Dune because it's all about you know profits and fake profits and you know yes right you know I want to talk as a viewer just like how
we experienced it as we're getting to the end of the episode here like me and Greta talked about how we saw him as kind of a rogue maybe like a Dunkin I know type and I was also expecting a pruit Racheze to be a long line of you know terrible child emperor you love to hate and then this
poor child at the very end here see him burning to death suffering not even dying in a quick way he's suffering through that death and on the other hand we have Kasha Kasha is also dying a very similar death on the sisterhood planet let's talk about that finale like it really subverted a lot of my
expectations of what I thought was going to happen you know he kind of becomes this profit figure like there was it was there but I just didn't expect it at that moment and like what does it say about what does man wants and what he's capable of I do want to just I it's such a good so many good
questions I do want to say sorry there's so much to say no no it's fantastic you know one of the things we're so blessed by us right we just are so blown away by the cast we've assembled and yes but we've had just tremendous fortune of having you know guest cast come on and even if they're playing
a limited role and Charlie Hotson prior who plays pruit just came and just like just and so much to put on so good shoulders and you know not only was like acting in scenes with like hundreds of extras but also like toe-to-toe with Travis Fumon like that's what they've shooting you're talking
about yeah wow unbelievable so I just want to give him yeah that was first yes that was first that so anyway we felt incredibly blessed with that and I love pruit I mean like you know again sort of like the opening letting you know that like we're not going to pull any punches like you
know it's sort of like you know and we you know Desmond did right away is like he does carry with him in tremendous force and also tremendous and charm and and charisma we were charmed by yeah we were like you know not murder and when he does it and you know I have to hand it to Travis for that
one of the things that I got really excited about you know his wardrobe Desmond's wardrobe that trench coat is to me as a film fan reminds me of all the trench coats the Cowboys and once upon a time in the West when they're waiting for Charlie Bronson the train station and like you know
just so like when we see him walking into the palace he's got this for unfurled coat we're behind him we're told that he's a hero we're told that he's a survivor he's telling the story about some rebel attack I mean all these things are like yeah he's got a weird vibe Travis is doing it a
weird vibe yeah but it's generally you're checking in the good category like I get trust this guy you know what I mean and it's at the end just like does the most ghastly thing and he just burns like you know a kid in front of you and it's just like whoa and suddenly the sisters like they're you're
like oh they have a very formidable adversary and everybody's willing to go to great lengths so what's gonna go down it's so interesting because I think as an actor and because the way that character's written even already I'm still sort of like well but he must have some end in mind
to justify this horrible behavior like it doesn't seem like he is reveling and killing this kid now and I don't think by the way for the I do want to say I don't think volume is reveling and killing Doritea like I think that's also people who have bigger larger like you said drives and goals and
feel the stakes are high enough that they'll go to great lengths but I I think both of them are doing what they perceive they need to be doing well the words are important here right because he tells the kid before he kills him that his death is a sacrifice not a murder yes I said murder
because that's how I stop yeah yeah not an accurate so in Desmond's eyes this is for the greater good you know and this is begins the first game within a game well it was an action-packed premiere and we can't wait to keep watching more episodes and thank you so much for helping unpack it with
us this was such a pleasure Allison and Jordan yell her the best oh thank you very much and now to get into this premiere even more we are thrilled to welcome Valia Harkin and herself to the pod Emily Watson thank you so much for joining us
well hello I would love to start by asking what your relationship to Dune was like before taking on this project vertical I'd say well I'd seen the first Villainov movie okay but apart from that I didn't really know very much and I'm actually quite glad I didn't because there's a very
intimidating public ownership of the of the universe of it and a very clear sense of people's right and the wrong way to do this and there's the lichy and the mob and there's the the lnervians and there's you know there's factions and everybody wants to see different things
represented so I just kind of started chewing into the scripts and we went on a very steep learning curve with Allison and Jordan about who was who and what was what what happened and who didn't want to hate it is a formidable fandom for sure I've been to Comic Con I am well aware
the terror of gavacon amazing what did you realize when you went to Comic Con or when you you know have been exposed to this new fandom like have you seen the fanbase and the impact on pop culture what what do you think of it as somebody who is not in that world before this
well just the passion involved is phenomenal and how strongly people feel about it but also how many people for whom it was reading the book the first book was a formative experience and kind of you know set their imagination on fire and got them into sci-fi and got them into that sense
of the world of literature and the imagination investigating just kind of everything it is really interesting to think about from your point of view bringing your own sensibility to this role especially as a harkinan which is you know a very well-known and I mean often sort of
reviled character at least in the original dune book and movies it makes sense to me that I mean it seems like there would be a lot of strengths for you kind of coming in fresh as opposed to bringing all of that potential baggage with you you know I'm kind of really quite out of my lane
now I don't think I'm known for my work in the world of science fiction so but it's the same skill set really but yeah it's you know there was a there was a very chewy lot of things to get into as an actor you know and it's you know you just start investigating and finding all the things
that make it feel real I guess you know you as you said like dune is still very much grounded in relationships and people and obviously one of the core relationships here is your on-screen chemistry with Olivia Williams who plays your sister Tula my allowed to swear yeah I believe
so yes we are a very fucked up family I mean really yeah yeah we've got a lot of issues a lot of anger yeah yeah yeah yeah but it starts you know it starts with a lie that the traitors clan told about us that we were traitors that we we were cowards in the battle of Corinne which is a lie
and it is I know it is I'm sorry to laugh I just think it's really fun like you are stating your position and I respect it yeah yeah yeah so yeah so we get finished to this awful terrible frostbitten god awful place in you know the back of the the end of the universe and and it's a
stinging humiliating place to be for someone who is very powerful and ambitious as a young woman and has a very strong sense of injustice and rage well I would love to talk more about your relationship with well your character's relationship with Tula and also your relationship with
Olivia because it does seem like obviously there are tensions between you two as literal sisters in this world but you also do still I don't know do you trust each other it seems like you respect each other at least yeah I think you know it's complicated as all relationships with sisters are
I mean we have first of all not you know only a few of them you know about so far but we have a lot of very deep dark secrets to keep and that keeps us close and we have that you know vileo is a natural leader she's very straightforward in a way she just she doesn't feel she needs to
enter into any kind of social contract with anybody unless she wants something from them she is she's like a low slightly psychopathic really she's a bit of a shark I sort of quote this is a is a way to understand value that when a human being is born it takes at least six months
before they can move from the spot without help and they bond they have to form relationships with the people who are caring for them and that's how we get a society that's how you know everything happens a shark a band and it's young within seconds wow oh and I think that's
there's a sort of cold dead-eyed part of vileo that's just because she's you know several steps ahead right all the time really really smart and I can see you know she's been she's been selected by a charismatic leader and been told you're the one you've chosen one you are powerful you're
talented and she's that's a very dangerous thing to do to a young person and she believes the end of the phase the main sister is to her a loyal follower to Lulu is absolutely uses social interaction to achieve her ends she's very warm and she's very nice and loving but seems more
emotional too she's more emotional and it possibly that's more dangerous I guess let's talk about do they see each other as tools or is there like genuine affection or you know connection to them that beyond they're being both being sisters and this thing that they both believe in that the
non-sisterhood sisterhood meaning like the Benny Jesuit versus their own sisterhood like can you talk about that there definitely there is a very strong familial bond and what drives a lot of what they do is that sense of vengeance for their family they do love each other they
you know they would sacrifice everything for each other but at the same time they irritate the shit out of each other yeah yeah yeah I mean it's an untapped you could power the planet with it with it with on with simple ribing read the power of it it's such a force and you know
to look definitely got younger sister syndrome she's always in her sister's shadow and Valle doesn't really care whether you know she doesn't care for that she's like it's not important we just got to get on with the job so you talked about how Valle is three steps ahead she clearly
has a well-defined path that she sees as being correct for the sisterhood yeah can you describe from your perspective what that vision is well at the beginning of the series we see the plan coming to fruition this is to her door poised to have the kind of piece of the puzzle fall
into place that will set them on the right path to everything for they when princess and there's is a trove to prove which is easy it's not just a a marriage that is good for the for the carinos because they get all the spaceships and protect the racas you know that's from
carinos pointed you that's a good thing but what it actually is that the breeding index the breeding index has told them that that marriage will produce strong leaders but also prove it because prove it is underage she's only nine when they get engaged nice
there will be many years before he comes of age well in eds can come over to our planet and start training as a as a sister and so when she then sends the throne she will be a powerful sister you know running the universe and that's our plan and it's all for the good of humankind
and peace and prosperity you understand oh i love the way you say that because it's so much more complicated than that though obviously right yes yes i mean i think she can't help herself that that drive within her of the rage and the fury she's got other agendas going on
i mean when we first i don't know if you've spoken to Olivia yet but when we when we first met for this we get that into that we met back in 1990s the Royal Shakespeare Company that's where we first met but when we first met up to you know getting ready for this we went and sat
in their national portrait gallery in London and sat in front of the portrait of Elizabeth the first and all those two to women bloody Mary Mary Queen of Scots all those women who were you know either people wanted to marry them or kill them you know and it they were very loving relationships
that ended in beheading and that very very sense of people who are incredibly powerful very paranoid have to have a sort of poker face because they can't give anything away but it's cold quiet power and it was a police state they they controlled the narrative you know we here in this country we have
an image of Elizabeth the first as as a Renaissance golden it's it was a golden age the Elizabeth an age and in fact that's probably the result of the very successful PR machine of the day and it was pretty pretty terrifying time to be alive and what it's a really interesting
parallel I think with these women is that it was about control of the narrative controlling controlling the PR controlling communications between everybody and knowing exactly who was where and who was talking to who and and that's what the the sisterhood do is they extensively provide service
recommend kind in that they are truth sares they can you know say well that guy's lying that what guy's telling the truth but actually it becomes a commodity and they employ the dark arts as you see in that scene where um Karina is negotiating and the two women are just doing the finger
talking yes we'll deal with that later you make him do this and I'll make him do that yes that was a really indicative scene because it was like oh they don't actually this isn't about what he wants as much as it's about what they can manage the sisterhood agenda is much more important than any of
the players that they're supposedly supporting right right so we have to ask you about the voice because it's like the signature ability of the sisterhood um you know in this episode we see a young value kill Dorotea um using the voice um young value says it's something she's been working on
yeah uh i want to hear about well first of all your performance of the voice when we get that and also what do you imagine was the origin of this ability well i think this is one of the kind of really interesting things about brain herbicide dear of what the Benagester are in that
after the machine wars um humankind has survived just and defeated AI and they now have they they're kind of driven to develop themselves in ways that makes them much more powerful much more able to achieve things much more um uh strong and defend you know defendable in and of themselves
not relying on machines not relying on outside forces and so there there are all these different you don't see much of this in this in this series but there are all these different factions but the sisterhood have these powers one of which is to hack their own biology and it's kind of
you know pseudo-scientific basis in stuff that we're learning about now is that your emotions are in fact governed by your gut by your biology and they have this power to go inside their DNA change their molecular setup in some way and access their ancestors their female ancestors
inside their DNA to me i think it's like if you saw a toddler standing at the top of the stairs or about to run into the road the the voice that you know will stop them in their tracks that's that's what it is it's utter utter command utter assurance inside their head and make them stop
obviously i kind of work with a voice coach a bit to sort of find a resonance in my own voice but also then it's amplified in um in the studio and they mess around with it and all sorts of things and we spent quite a fun afternoon kind of doing is that is that is is that commanding a toddler like
uh idea is that the mental place you'd have to go to to perform the voice i think it's more just being very resonantly planted in your body and using sound like a weapon like a you know if i was a laser beam of sound that's what i am very much in line with herbert well before we let you go i
wonder if there's anything else about your character that viewers may not know yet that's not particularly spoilery but maybe an insight that you can bring to to valia as we move forward i think she is very rattled by the end of episode one well obviously i mean it's a devastating
cussia is one of the founding you know they there were five of them and they did it together kind of thing and this we want to put all this associates and friends and it's devastating that cussia has died but it's also uh this is the reckoning you know this is the reckoning that mother rekella said
you you will be the one to see it and here it is she sees it there are many layers to this that we have not yet begun to fathom um um Emily thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on a wonderful premiere i genuinely
can't stop thinking about it and i'm excited to see more okay great thank you thanks guys that's all for this week we'll be back next sunday night with more special guests to break down the second episode of dune prophecy which you can watch on hbo or stream exclusively on max
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produced by hbo in collaboration with pineapple street studios i'm amadal yuckburn follow me on social at rad brown dads and i'm gradda johnson you can follow me at grada m john sen our executive producers for pineapple street are gobriel luis jian berry and berry fingle our lead engineer
for the show is hannis brown pineapple's head of sound and engineering is rog mokicha pineapple senior audio engineers are marina país and padro alvira this episode is mixed by hannis brown our editor is darby meloni and our producers are ben goalberg and molissa aqico slaughter special
thanks to becky row aleson koehn and aaron kelly from the max podcast team thanks for listening see you next week humility is the foundation of our virtues humility is the foundation of our virtue the mind of man is holy the mind of man is holy that shall not disfigure the soul so that shall not disfigure the soul