77-year-old, English-born acting veteran Charlotte Rampling has primarily been seen in European arthouse works for much of the past half-century with acclaimed turns in films like “The Night Porter,” “Swimming Pool,” “Melancholia,” “45 Years” and “Benedetta”.
Yet every now and then she’ll pop up in more global mainstream fare including studio features like “Red Sparrow” and “Assassin’s Creed” to TV series like “Dexter” and “Broadchurch”.
Most recently she was seen in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel “Dune” in the small but key role as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. The character is the leader of the secretive Bene Gesserit religious sect and appears early in the film to run the ‘Gom Jabbar’ test on Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet).
Rampling will reprise the role for the film adaptation of the second half of the book with Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” opening this November. Speaking with Indiewire, she confirms she nearly starred Alejandro Jodorowsky’s famously abandoned 1970s film adaptation of the property:
“I’ve always loved the book. When Jodorowsky was preparing it, he was thinking about having me play the role of Jessica. My husband at the time, Jean-Michel Jarre, really wanted to do the music. I loved this book and I loved the character of Jessica.
He was unable to do it, and the next one was the David Lynch one, which I was not in. [Laughs.] Denis Villeneuve, I’ve been admiring his work, he makes very big films but he has a European heart – he’s Canadian, but he has a great intimacy in the way he works.
When he asked me to do that, it seemed to make sense. I said, ‘There’s something happening here that’s working,’ because it wasn’t just going into a big-budget film. It was a character.”
The role of Paul’s mother Lady Jessica in Lynch’s version went to multi-award-winning “Partners in Crime” actress Francesca Annis, whilst rising “Mission: Impossible” star Rebecca Ferguson takes on the role in Villeneuve’s films. The role Rampling plays in Villeneuve’s films was played by British acting legend Dame Siân Phillips in the Lynch film.
“Dune: Part Two” opens in cinemas on November 3rd.
