It may be a mystery to famed director David Lynch that Patrick Stewart was an acclaimed actor when the latter showed up on the set of his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Well, sometimes directors have a clear vision of the ideal actor for a role, while other times, a happy accident can result in unexpected greatness. Such was the case with Lynch’s original 1984 Dune adaptation, in which he erroneously cast Patrick Stewart in a role that was meant for someone else.
Yes, Stewart, 83, inadvertently obtained the role of Gurney Halleck. In the process of replacing Aldo Ray at the eleventh hour, the director erroneously cast another Patrick Stewart.
Aside from being a financial disaster and receiving negative reviews, the film has developed a cult following over the years, and this intriguing casting mishap is just one of the many oddball tales surrounding its creation.
Patrick Stewart’s Honest Account of His Painful Dune Memories
The surprising story that Patrick Stewart, best known for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, was unintentionally cast as the tough, pistol-wielding Gurney Halleck, has drawn attention from movie buffs.
The actor later characterized the incident as memorable despite being uncomfortable, especially because of the “stillsuit” costume he had to wear. The mix-up happened during a rush to replace actor Aldo Ray in David Lynch’s film.
While many Dune fans appreciate Patrick Stewart’s work in the film, Screen Rant believed it was somewhat erroneous.
“Speaking of Gurney Halleck, Sir Patrick Stewart was awarded the role by mistake. In the rush to replace Aldo Ray at the last minute, Lynch thought he was hiring another actor named Patrick Stewart for the role.”
Such an error of such great magnitude is what caused Stewart to become somewhat distant from Lynch during the initial stages of filming. The actor actually claimed that the director was “hurtful and discouraging”, as we learned from Spectator.
Despite everything, Stewart had an even harder time because he did not recognize one of his co-stars.
The Untold Story: Patrick Stewart’s Ignorance of Sting During Dune Production
The musician Sting played Feyd-Rautha, the villain in the Universal Pictures film Dune. SlashFilm claimed that Patrick Stewart, who played Atreides warrior and musician Gurney Halleck, “had to pretend to play Gurney’s baliset, a fictional stringed instrument invented for the book by Herbert” for a scene that was eventually cut from the final cut of the movie.
Stewart revealed to the audience in a video from the 2013 Emerald City Comic Con that he was unaware of Sting during the filming of David Lynch’s Dune (via Independent). The former added:
“I had never heard of Sting. That’s how isolated I was from the music world. I heard he was a musician … and so the second or third day we’re just hanging out on the set, just him and me, and I say, ‘So, you’re a musician?’ And he said, ‘Yup.’ And I said, ‘What do you play?’ And he said, ‘Bass.’ And God bless him, he said, ‘No, bass guitar.’”
When Dune was released, critics gave it mixed reviews; the box office performance was disappointing (Box Office Mozo). It did not make enough money at the box office to cover its large production costs. Brad Dourif, Dean Stockwell, Virginia Madsen, José Ferrer, Sean Young, Sting, Linda Hunt, Max von Sydow, and Kyle MacLachlan, in his feature film debut as Paul Atreides, are among the many members of the ensemble.
Notwithstanding these early disappointments, Dune found fresh life in the years that followed its release, cultivating a devoted cult of fans who cherished its singular fusion of ambition, grandeur, and surrealism.
Dune is available for streaming on Max.
