This week, Dune: Prophecy moved deeper into its exploration of the Sisterhood that will eventually become the Bene Gesserit, even as a mysterious new enemy flexes an even more mysterious new power against them. The older generation—especially Emily Watson’s Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen—are active movers in the drama, but the young women who are in training at the Sisterhood’s school have, so far at least, been observing from the sidelines.
What lies ahead will be revealed over the next four episodes, but in the wake of “Two Wolves,” which saw yet another tragedy befall the Sisterhood, io9 got a chance to talk to Aoife Hinds (who plays the pious Emeline) and Faoileann Cunningham (the rebellious, skeptical Jen) about what it’s like playing sci-fi nuns-in-training on the HBO Dune prequel.
Cheryl Eddy, io9: So far we’ve learned just a little bit about Emeline and Jen’s backstories. How much detail did you get about them ahead of time, and did you do any of your own research to help shape your characters?
Faoileann Cunningham: It was a constant conversation. The creators on this story are incredibly generous and obviously they have done [a huge] amount of research; generally they were amenable if we had ideas going forward about what things looked like or questions we also had of, like, the person experiencing something within the moment. It was constantly evolving and just generally, there was a lot of trust going on in both directions of, like, sometimes very, very clear pieces of information that were very important—and sometimes just letting it live ambiguously and playing things off in lots of different ways also.
Aoife Hinds: We had these conversations with [showrunner] Alison [Schapker] before we started filming, about our characters and where they’d come from and why they’re [joining the Sisterhood]. But it was all quite fluid and flexible. And also we could go to her for any questions we had because she’s just so knowledgeable—she is a Dune encyclopedia. That was so brilliant to have, and I think that’s exactly what we needed.
io9: Since Dune: Prophecy is a prequel, did knowing that the Sisterhood would eventually evolve and grow—and not in fact be wiped out, as they fear it will on the series—help inform your performances?
Hinds: The idea that they’re going to become the Bene Gesserit is [certain, but also undefined]—we have no idea when it’s going to happen, and we don’t know how close we are to it, and we don’t know who’s going to initiate it, or who it’s going to come from. … All this, I think, is something that we could kind of build on, just these young women coming to this Sisterhood school and not even knowing much about what they’re going to learn. Bit by bit, as they learn, as they get there, they see how deep it goes and how the training will change them mentally and physically. And that will then naturally develop into something else. Definitely also with the Sisterhood maybe coming under threat, that’s going to inform the rest of what’s going to happen.
io9: Emeline and Jen have divergent viewpoints on faith, with Emeline being deeply religious, and Jen being more of a rebel. Can you talk about the contrasts between your characters and also what common ground they share?
Cunningham: The common ground is the competition of [how] everybody wants to be ahead of the other person. It’s that thing that happens when you’ve got [a group of] people who are really ambitious and all clearly really smart in different ways … Also, I think there’s a common ground [in] that they’re curious about the people that hold the power and the delivery of the pedagogy, as it were, and what the course curriculum is. I think they’re all curious in their own ways.
Hinds: They come from very different backgrounds. Jen is very rational, in comparison with Emeline, who’s very spiritual—at the beginning, that has them in opposition a bit and they don’t really quite get each other and where they’ve come from … But they kind of don’t have much choice but to ally themselves together [especially after what] happens in episode two [when Lila dies], as well as at the end of episode one [when Kasha dies]. I think they’re kind of like, “We have to get to the bottom of this together.”
Cunningham: It takes a physical metaphor in the form of Lila because [she’s] basically a child, and we both have very strong views about the potential ways you could raise that child, and the potential that you open to them in the world. And then we collectively lose that opportunity … we lose that physical person in a bunk bed next to us. Whatever way they respond to that, they’ve experienced that together. And that’s going to always be, you might not agree on what the version of the story of losing that was, but you have lost that thing together.
io9: Can you describe their feelings at the moment when they witness Lila’s death?
Cunningham: Shock, I think genuinely … Jen knew that something bad would happen, and [Emeline] was conceptualizing going, “Yeah, cool, you know, give up your life.” But like when you see someone die, it’s just a different thing, right? And it’s just happening there and then and it’s in the present tense. As we get further into the season, obviously you have the unfurling of [that] grief [and the] PTSD from being traumatic.
Hinds: Definitely, shock. And when we were filming that scene, there were these feelings of guilt coming to the surface because of what [Emeline] said to Lila—and how actually [those feelings of guilt are] contradictory to anything that she believes. It was really interesting to play, that kind of thing tugging inside of her of “that’s wrong, something’s wrong.”
Cunningham: And we’re left with quite a complicated situation, because what they said they were setting out to do as a Sisterhood—the ultimately very confusing part is that we knew that they wanted to put [Lila] through this to get some answers from our foremothers. They have achieved that, but she has died as the collateral. So there’s also this dual thing that we’re like, “What the hell does the Sisterhood know about what you can gain from the Agony or what is the information that they’re looking for?” There’s that part of it that’s also opened up, I think, very much forward from this point.
io9: Would you say, without spoiling anything, that audiences will have a different point of view on your character by the end of the season?
Hinds: Yes.
Cunningham: Yeah. I think they’re just gonna have to strap in.
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New episodes of Dune: Prophecy arrive Sundays on HBO and Max.
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