Swedish actress, Rebecca Ferguson has gained widespread recognition since her role in the 2013 miniseries, The White Queen. She then rose to fame in Hollywood in 2015 after playing Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the fifth installment of the Tom Cruise-starring Mission: Impossible series.
Ferguson has since reprised her role in Mission: Impossible — Fallout and has gone on to play pivotal parts in other notable studio films like The Greatest Showman, Doctor Sleep, and Men in Black: International.
In addition, the actress played two significant roles in 2021: Reminiscence, Lisa Joy’s film, and Dune, a hugely successful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel.
Warner Bros.’ Dune provided Ferguson with the chance to push herself as an actress. However, she first put the challenge on the director (Denis Villeneuve) to persuade her that her character (Lady Jessica) was a role to which she should devote months of her life.
However, the director was successful in persuading her to accept the role by detailing how Jessica, would be developed from the original work.
And did we mention that Dune is now proving to be one of Ferguson’s most ambitious endeavors to date?
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Rebecca Ferguson Turned Down the Role of Lady Jessica in Dune
Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel served as the inspiration for the 2021 film, Dune. The film’s release date was initially delayed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. HBO Max is currently streaming the 2021 American epic science fiction film. Well, almost all reviews will recommend that you must watch the movie.
Dune has an impressive cast, including Rebecca Ferguson, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Dave Bautista, and Josh Brolin, among others.
The character of Lady Jessica is essential to the story, but Ferguson, who performed the part, initially identified the character’s original design as unappealing.
The actress has often played supporting roles to male leads. And she felt like Lady Jessica was fitting into this supporting role category only as she stated in an interview with Variety:
“When he [Denis Villeneuve] explained the character, I thought, really? You want me to be regal and poised and ask me to do a role that I have played so many times before? I would literally be a teapot for you, but I don’t think that’s the role for me, dude.”
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Rebecca Ferguson’s Role Was Later Expanded In Dune
Denis Villeneuve once described in more detail how he envisioned the character, Lady Jessica in Dune.
Despite turning down the role earlier, Ferguson came to the conclusion that she could not refuse it. She claimed that the film’s director referred to Lady Jessica as:
“The strongest woman in the world, and her fear for when she creates chaos and has to bring her son in front of death.”
The Swedish actress, 39, explained to Vanity Fair in 2020 how Villeneuve improved the character over the original as she remarked:
“She’s [Rebecca Ferguson] a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier. Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now.”
Lady Jessica’s character defied orders by choosing to have a son with Duke Leto instead of the daughter she was supposed to have. This made Lady Jessica, in the opinion of the Arrival director, one of the most crucial characters as he explained to Empire:
“[Screenwriter] Eric Roth said, ‘If you had one aspect of the novel you would like me to focus on, what would it be?’ I said, ‘The women.’ The entire story unfolds because of Lady Jessica, because of a decision she made to give birth to Paul instead of a girl [via a breeding program]. She’s a fascinating character, one of the most influential and most interesting in the novel.”
Well, Dune examined issues of race, colonization, and clashing cultural traditions. The 2021 epic science fiction film is streaming on Hulu and Max.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Pictures has planned the release of Dune: Part Two for November 3, 2023.
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Source- Variety
