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Tim Blake Nelson has opened up about his role that never was in Dune: Part Two. The actor's casting was announced back in January 2023, but he doesn't appear in the final cut of the movie and his character was never officially confirmed.
"I don’t think I’m at liberty to say what the scene was," Nelson told MovieWeb. "I’d leave that to Denis [Villeneuve] if he wants to talk about it. I had a great time over there shooting it. And then he had to cut it because he thought the movie was too long. And I am heartbroken over that, but there’s no hard feelings. I loved it, and I can’t wait to do something else with him, and we certainly plan to do that."
It's rumored that the Watchmen and The Incredible Hulk star was going to play Count Hasimir Fenrig, one of the Emperor's advisors and the husband of Léa Seydoux's character Lady Margot Fenrig. He's also a Mentat, a human in the world of Dune whose brain has been trained to have the same power as a supercomputer.
This speculation makes sense when Villeneuve chose to cut another Mentat from the movie, too: Stephen McKinley Henderson's Thufir Hawat. "He's a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation," the director explained to Entertainment Weekly. "That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be, but it's the nature of the adaptation."
It's highly unlikely that we'll ever see Nelson or McKinley Henderson's Dune: Part Two scenes, as Villeneuve is opposed to releasing deleted scenes – even though there's over an hour of unreleased footage from the sequel. "I’m a strong believer that when it’s not in the movie, it’s dead. I kill darlings, and it’s painful for me," he previously told Collider. "Sometimes I remove shots and I say, 'I cannot believe I’m cutting this out.' I feel like a samurai opening my gut. It’s painful, so I cannot go back after that and create a Frankenstein and try to reanimate things that I killed. It’s too painful."
Dune: Part Two is out now in cinemas. For more on the movie, check out the rest of our coverage:
- Dune 2 ending explained
- Does Dune 2 have a post-credits scene?
- What could happen in Dune 3, according to the books
- The Dune 2 and book differences
- Who does Anya Taylor-Joy play in Dune 2?
- When will Dune 2 be on streaming?
- Dune 2's divergence from the novel shifts the focus to women – and motherhood
- Zendaya and Florence Pugh discuss the women of Dune 2
- Zendaya discusses Chani’s personal journey in Dune 2
- Director Denis Villeneuve on comparisons to The Empire Strikes Back
- Director Denis Villeneuve on Timothee Chalamet’s transformative performance
- Actor Stellan Skarsgard on playing the villain
- Actor Stellan Skarsgard on working with Austin Butler
