Rebecca Ferguson said her dune voice was basically “Donald Duck’s voice”

In the director Dennis Villeneuve’s dune, Rebecca Ferguson is arguably the coolest character in Frank Herbert’s novels: the humiliating Benej Serritt is a skilled and passionate lover and the severely protective mother known as Mrs. Jessica. Jessica is our way of introducing supernatural powers to the all-female Bene Gesserit sect, which has played a long game to control the galaxy. The most cinematic among these superpowers is Bene Gesserit voice, A way to control the thoughts of others by talking to them.

“The Voice is fun to play,” Ferguson told Polygon through Zoom. “When we were on the set, Dennis didn’t really know what it would sound like. This gave me and everyone else the freedom to interpret it the way they wanted. This is creative freedom.”

[Ed. note: This piece contains mild spoilers for Dune.]

In the final film, Villeneuve and his effects team injected multiple layers of tones and reverberation into Voice when using it, but these work were all done in post-production. Ferguson and other actors performing Bene Gesserit mind control on set only need to find their own way to embody a convincing voice that must be obeyed—which means some experimentation.

“I actually started doing it, Donald Duck’s voice,” Ferguson said, “I don’t know where I am going. I thought, If I could play sounds and make animations, I think Dennis would say,’Oh, that’s great. Let’s do this, Rebecca! [laughs] It never happened. So we mainly focus on the source of energy.Like yoga, like meditation [for the Bene Gesserit]. If you are completely calm and aligned with your mind, your soul, and your body, then there will be a directness when you cut off all other stimulants around you. And being able to speak from that moment, whether it’s’start your interview’ or whatever, it will become very pure. ”

Ferguson didn’t hear the full power of sound until the first time he saw the last movie-she liked it.But she said that another classic process is the same dune Trap: Sandworm.

“Paul [Lambert], The person with great visual effects, he is on the set almost every day. You can’t see the shape of a sandworm, which is cool because no one really knows what it looks like. So we can play with shape and size again, it fits our own imagination very well. ”

dune It will be released globally on September 15th and will be released in theaters and HBO Max starting at 6 pm Eastern Time on October 21st.