The Seduction and Sensuality of ‘Dune: Prophecy’

“Steamy” is not a term typically associated with Dune. Not in any sense of the word. The recent films have been praised for their intensity, action, and intricate world-building—and yes, Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Zendaya’s Chani do develop a wartime romance. But there’s something decidedly chaste about love in stillsuits, the moisture-preserving armor that encloses their whole bodies and culminates in a hose up the nose.

The new HBO series Dune: Prophecy, set about 10,000 years before the events of the recent films, takes a much more seductive approach. Since the show’s political skullduggery unfolds on many worlds, its oligarchs, royalty, rebels, and religious zealots are no longer tethered to the arid planet of Arrakis. Away from the blisteringly harsh desert, the characters can more easily shed their inhibitions—and the rest of their clothing as well.

Eroticism in movies and TV shows keeps threatening to make a major comeback after proving to be a key part of the allure of shows like Bridgerton and Outlander. A decade ago, Game of Thrones cracked the formula with a dizzying blend of both sex and violence, although it was heavily tipped toward the latter. Since then, younger generations of viewers have recoiled from depictions of sexuality onscreen, leading to discourse about the influence of “puriteens” on pop culture. Dune: Prophecy may be one sign that this ice age is beginning to thaw.

Showrunner Alison Schapker, a veteran of Charmed, Alias, and Fringe, spoke with Vanity Fair about crafting a companion piece to Frank Herbert’s landmark 1965 sci-fi novel and the Denis Villeneuve film adaptations, while also devising something entirely new. Ancestors of the great families of Dune scheme against each other, conspire to commit murder and revolution, and lay the groundwork for one another’s destruction. But without the show’s passionate and romantic storylines, who would be left all those generations later to do the same?

Vanity Fair: I know that this show went through a lot of iterations before it landed in your lap. So what did you pick up and carry with you, and what did you just start from scratch on when you joined the Dune series?

Alison Schapker: I joined a series that very much knew it wanted to tell the origin story of the Bene Gesserit. And it anchored itself in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson‘s Sisterhood of Dune novel [published in 2012], where we get to see not just the early days of the Sisterhood, which is what the organization was called at the beginning. But also we come into our premiere on the night where power transfers from the founder, who’s on her deathbed, and needs to choose who is going to carry the group forward. She has a moment of prescience and foresees an enemy and a threat coming that will threaten not just the Sisterhood, but also the Imperium. And she charges young Valya Harkonnen [played by Emily Watson] to lead the Sisterhood forward.

This show is about the roots of power. What connections do you want the viewers to make to the story they might know from much later?

We consciously tried to design the show so it could be pleasurable both for fans of the Dune universe, people who are fans of the books, fans of various adaptations, and obviously fans of Denis’s films. And at the same time, if you happen to be someone who didn’t engage with any of that stuff, you could start here. That was obviously a tightrope to walk.

You just mentioned the name Harkonnen, which connects us to the villainous family from the movies. Other names turn up: Atreides, of course, and Corrino, which is the family of the Emperor played by Christopher Walken in the second film. What is the impact of these names on the viewers?

For better or worse, these are not the same Harkonnens that are in the films and they’re not the same Atreides. They are the origins of these families, but they’re not immortal. But they are going to put in motion plans and machinations that are going to play out in the future and have a tremendous ripple effect. That allows a lot of room for surprise, because nobody really knows how these play out. You’re like, “Well, the name is going to survive”—but how?

One common trait between your show and the films is that both stories are about playing the long game.

The 10,000 years of separation, that is very Dune. The plans that Frank Herbert put in motion in his books had been unfolding in the Imperium over many thousands of years. And the Bene Gesserit plan to bring about a messiah figure that ultimately ends up being Paul Atreides. Yeah, they play a long game. They say plans are measured in centuries, plans within plans.

The Bene Gesserit see themselves as part of a continuum. They have their mortal lives, but they live on in a supernatural way in the memories of the living.

These are women who have unlocked the genetic memory of all their female ancestors, so they have access to the past that’s very alive in the present. But they’re also gaming out how to shape humanity through the matches of people and the bloodlines of families to bring about [changes] many generations down the road. The time period we’re in is very different than what Denis’s movies were doing. This is right after the great machine wars. This is a time where humans are striving to rebuild, but also it’s a very dangerous time because there’s so much fear around what they’ve just been through.

The machine wars were a revolt against artificial intelligence and robotics, which is how the Dune world ends up having that medieval feel to it, even though it’s in the distant future.

Yeah—this is like neo-future feudalism, or ancient futurism. Human beings have been oppressed by artificial intelligence and thinking-machine technology to the degree that they had to fight a war over many years to throw off their oppressors. They also have responded by outlawing any of that advanced technology. And now the human beings are trying to fill the gap. You have the Sisterhood, which will be the Bene Gesserit, but you also have the Mentat, who are trying to think like human computers. I think it’s a wonderfully unique science fiction genre, of it not being an all-digital future.

That’s a pretty contemporary fear, right? What role does technology play in de-humanizing us and taking away our will?

I agree. It’s partly what drew me to the project and why I think it’s so pertinent to today is as we are moving into the rise of AI. We are about to outsource a lot of our thinking.

Every episode has a number of terrifying scenes, but balances out with scenes that are surprisingly passionate and alluring. Does this bring a little more humanity to the Dune universe?

That to me is the pleasure of Dune. The epicness of it makes me feel small as a person. And I think that’s a good feeling, like you’re a very small piece in a very big tapestry. It’s humbling and kind of a cool spiritual kind of place to be.

Like standing on the shore looking at a huge ocean?

Exactly. But then, it’s also about people and all their messy emotions and desires and motivations. They want to have their own personal legacies and leave their own marks and write their own destinies.

The intense intimacy has been mentioned in some of the reviews. It feels like you and your writing team have really tried to bring a little more romance and eroticism to Dune.

Well, that’s in the books too! I love the idea that these women have the trappings of a convent—they call themselves Mother Superior, and they’re sisters, But they’re not religious and they’re not asexual. Neither are characters in the Imperium. I think that makes for some fun. Yeah, there’s a sexy element to it, but also a power element, and also it’s another way to manipulate.

I’ve noticed in the episodes I’ve watched that the intimate scenes are usually followed by someone letting their guard down in a dangerous way, as with the sequence featuring Josh Heuston’s Constantine Corrino and Tessa Bonham Jones as Lady Shannon.

Yeah, it’s the amount of sway that you give over in those moments. This is a world where everything has stakes. So hopefully, on the one hand, characters are living full lives, but it also shows another lever of power. Sexuality in our show is both. It’s a lever, I would say, that our Sisterhood is not afraid to pull.

What’s your personal gauge on how far to push that aspect of it and when to pull back?

For us, I don’t know that we’re out to titillate explicitly. But at the same time, I don’t want to shy away from our characters being able to have sex lives. I just want to do it with specificity, so it’s rooted in the character.

It seems like we’re coming out of a period where that really has been absent from TV and movies.

Well, first of all, it’s really fun to be able to have your characters engage in the whole gamut, and not just violence. I think sex is also very visceral, and we don’t want to shy away from it. We want to have it be another layer to the storytelling.

You even found a unique way to create a Dune love scene, involving the personal force fields used for hand-to-hand combat. Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) has a very intense moment with her trainer, Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason). In the Dune lore, if you strike the shield, it blocks you—but if you move against it slowly, you can get through.

I thought it’s very fun to have this princess who has so many feelings and is going to express them through her training. In some ways she communicates more freely through her sword play, and that is something that transpires between those two characters. They obviously have a lot of feelings for each other, so it felt like a natural moment to enjoy the technology and also give into a different kind of moment.