\n\tWondering how much longer before we roll, I turn to see David Lynch<\/a>, the film\u2019s director, up on a desert dune in a yellow hat, white collared shirt, the shortest shorts on earth, and brown loafers with white socks pulled up to his knees. (He has a particular distaste for sand in his shoes.) He\u2019s talking to cinematographer Freddie Francis, shirtless in a boater hat, and to the assistant director, Jos\u00e9 \u201cKuki\u201d L\u00f3pez Rodero, in a white panama hat. They are huddled together around the camera, looking like a bizarre collection of bandits.<\/p>\n \n\tFreddie\u2019s crew is setting up big silver reflectors to light the actors\u2019 faces, which bounce the sunlight right into our eyeballs. Brutal. (Now I understand why Clint Eastwood characters are always squinting.)<\/p>\n \n\tIn the distance, across the Samalayuca Dune Fields, men are burn\u00ading old tires to get the right color and intensity of black smoke. As a key point of the plot, the planet Arrakis, aka Dune, doesn\u2019t have water; thus, it has no blue sky. But of course, Mexico does. Can\u2019t get around that. So, our intrepid director, the 37-year-old for\u00admer Eagle Scout from Montana, the Oscar-nominated visionary be\u00adhind Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, Lynch has taken on the not-inconsiderable task of blotting out the sky.<\/p>\n \n\tThose tires are still burning in the distance, but now the black smoke is moving in the wrong direction, away from us. So, we wait. We can blot out the sky, rip up the desert, but we can\u2019t control which way the wind blows.<\/p>\n \n\tAssuming it\u2019ll be some time, I unzip my stillsuit to down around my torso and tie the arms around my waist, my black T-shirt comically drenched: I\u2019m now half Paul, half Kyle. Both of us carrying a lot on our minds \u2014 and shoulders.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tKyle Maclachlan<\/a>\u2018s memoir, Fictional Selves<\/a> (Crown).<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPenguin Random House<\/p>\n \n\tDune is populated by an impressive list of international talent on and off camera: acclaimed actors like Max von Sydow, Francesca Annis, J\u00fcrgen Prochnow; up-and-comers like Blade Runner\u2019s Sean Young and gigantic stars like Sting; top craftsmen like Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis, Tony Masters (Stanley Kubrick\u2019s production designer), effects wizard Kit West (Raiders of the Lost Ark), creature creator Carlo Rambaldi (who also designed E.T.), and famed costume designer Bob Ringwood, whose Batman suit five years later will be modeled on the \u201cfetish industrial\u201d look of Dune\u2019s rubber stillsuits.<\/p>\n \n\tIn Mexico for budgetary reasons, the day-to-day production has customs issues, technology issues, communication issues, construction issues, electricity issues, on top of the typical challenges that come with a movie of this size and complexity. The power goes out regularly \u2014 our home base, Mexico City, has brownouts \u2014 and the crew on the soundstages often have to switch to generators. It\u2019s a real roll-with-the-punches situation, an adventure in the grandest sense of the word. When I first arrive, I am wide-eyed, viewing the project as a throwback to the \u201csword and sandal\u201d movies of the 1950s and early \u201960s that I used to watch on TV. Go off somewhere impossible and exotic and come back and hope you have a movie.<\/p>\n \n\tDuring the scene Patrick Stewart and I are shooting that day, Paul Atreides, the character I play, has been in the desert for a couple of years. I had petitioned for my hair to go past my shoulders, Jesus style \u2014 a sexier and messiah-like Paul \u2014 but was overruled. The final decision is a compromise that serves neither side: hair extensions glued to my scalp with a latex adhesive. Taking them off at the end of each day is a painful process that involves rubbing alcohol and a light scalping that leaves behind stubborn balls of latex in my hair. Currently, I am wearing a white hairnet over my perm, to keep it in place before we shoot. Patrick, mostly bald on top, has longer hair extensions, too, given that his character, Paul\u2019s adviser and friend Gurney Halleck, has been in exile as well. We stare off into the distance, catching our breath, saving our energy.<\/p>\n \n\tThe first thing I noticed when I met Patrick was his voice. I went to school for three years to learn how to speak onstage, but I\u2019ll never sound like him. Coming from the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, Patrick has the most mellifluous tones, regal and elegant. No one can make the line \u201cBehold, as a wild ass in the desert go I forth to my work\u201d sound correct except for him. He is Gurney Halleck, master swordsman and troubadour. And because he\u2019s also Patrick Stewart, he\u2019s suave and debonair about it. When he puts on the Atreides battle jacket or the Fremen stillsuit, it\u2019s like he\u2019s lived in it all his life. He also has the most marvelously shaped head of any human I\u2019ve ever seen, and I tell him so. He gives me a \u201cthank you, I think\u201d kind of look.<\/p>\n \n\tPatrick is in his early 40s at the time, but this is only his third film, and he\u2019s a neophyte when it comes to the complicated world of Dune. Because he\u2019s a last-minute replacement \u2014 for Aldo Ray, whose struggles with alcoholism have rendered him out of commission \u2014 I try to offer assistance. Patrick simply hasn\u2019t had time to soak up the extensive Dune lore I have spent a lifetime accumulating. Still, we are both newcomers to film, so we share a certain awe about the hectic and bizarre world spinning around us.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tMacLachlan (left), Patrick Stewart (center) and Sting (knife), in Dune.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUniversal\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n \n\tPatrick is a mix of stately confidence and thoughtful inquiry. He regularly leans over and, sotto voce, asks me questions about what\u2019s going on. Though he presents a very cool and collected mien, he is just trying to figure shit out like me. We connect on our theater background \u2014 I did Shakespeare the previous summer \u2014 and laugh at the exponential difference between simple theater productions and \u2026 whatever this is. The size and scope of the film often leave us speechless, and I feel less alone with him beside me.<\/p>\n \n\tOn his first day of shooting, he and I took our seats in a half-built \u201cornithopter,\u201d which is like a giant, multifaceted bee that flies over the desert. We were seated in front of a gigantic blue screen, where the landscape would be matted in later. I could feel Patrick\u2019s nervousness as we prepared to \u201cfly\u201d over the shield wall and the Great Desert of Arrakis. He leaned forward and quietly asked, \u201cKyle, what are we looking at here?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI leaned back and spoke in an undertone: \u201cThere\u2019s a sandworm down there bigger than a tractor trailer.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAha. And there?\u201d he asked, pointing lower down. \u201cIt\u2019s swallowing one of the harvesters.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHarvester?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s like a large metal factory on wheels.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSeems like a risky mission,\u201d he said, a trace of somber gravitas. \u201cTremendous risk,\u201d I said quietly.<\/p>\n \n\tPatrick\u2019s key line in the scene is \u201cThe worm is eight minutes away, sire.\u201d After the first take, he had a question. \u201cPardon, David?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYES, PATRICK,\u201d David said in his distinctive honk.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHow exactly would I know how far out the worm is?\u201d I\u2019m impressed that Patrick exists deeply enough within his character to ask such a thing.<\/p>\n \n\tDavid stopped, re-calculating in his mind. \u201cEXCELLENT QUESTION, PATRICK,\u201d he said, like a supportive teacher. \u201cTHANK YOU.\u201d He then dispatched a propman to construct a gauge, with analog hands to be inserted later.<\/p>\n \n\tHaving carried the world of Dune in my head for years, I, too, arrived on set with such inquiries. Carefully and diplomatically, I at first pushed back on some production details. I know the book inside and out \u2014 I am likely the only one on set who does \u2014 so I feel I carry a responsibility to the story.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen I was fitted for the stillsuit, I felt some things were missing: \u201cHow come these suits don\u2019t have hoods?\u201d \u201cWhere are the capes?\u201d \u201cWill there be a headpiece?\u201d \u201cWait, where\u2019s the mouthpiece so you don\u2019t lose moisture when you breathe?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI wasn\u2019t trying to be difficult; it\u2019s just that I had absorbed the reality of Frank Herbert\u2019s story so completely. If Paul had to survive in that desert climate, in those bleak conditions, with only this protection, he would die. And if being stranded on Dune wasn\u2019t a life-or-death situation, then that would change a whole series of things that affected the characters\u2019 decisions. There was an internal logic that needed to remain intact. My concerns were never about my ego or vanity, but about the truth of that world.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cKale,\u201d said producer Dino De Laurentiis, still struggling to pronounce my name. \u201cWe don\u2019t hire famous actors to cover their faces where no one can see them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis did have an unavoidable logic to it. He had plenty to worry about already, and often he and his daughter Raffaella De Laurentiis, also a producer on the film, and David were managing a hundred things at once on a scale I couldn\u2019t even conceive.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter my third degree about the costume, I made a point to choose my battles more carefully.<\/p>\n \n\tStill standing around in the broiling desert with Patrick, waiting for the smoke to change direction, we walk over to where Everett McGill is sitting on a chair beneath umbrellas, out of the sun. Everett, who plays Stilgar, a tribal leader of the indigenous \u201cFremen,\u201d has the calm but commanding presence of an Old West sheriff. He\u2019s got classic movie-star features, a strong jaw and penetrating eyes, but he remains offbeat enough to stay interesting.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHey, young buck,\u201d Everett says, his nickname for me. \u201cSurviving?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI part my hands, like Take a look, making a dramatic flourish of my current state \u2014 hairnet, half-removed stillsuit, sweat-drenched T-shirt.<\/p>\n \n\tEverett is a different breed of actor, and I\u2019m instantly drawn to him. He\u2019s a taciturn guy who grew up in Kansas, and he has that cowboy feel about him, even down to his badass boots, which I make sure to find a pair of for myself. To protect his vocal cords, he carries a converted soda bottle from which he regularly inhales. It is lined with damp cotton, to hold moisture. He wants Stilgar\u2019s voice to have the deep timbre of a respected elder. Everett is meticulous and thorough, if eccentric, carefully considering all kinds of little details for his character.<\/p>\n \n\tPatrick, Everett, and I stare at the thick black smoke coming off the burning tires, the most toxic cloud I\u2019ve ever seen. \u201cYou think that\u2019s why we couldn\u2019t shoot this in the States?\u201d I ask, and Patrick and Everett laugh.<\/p>\n \n\tEverett seems more sanguine about our current conditions. He\u2019s been around. \u201cThis is child\u2019s play,\u201d he says, \u201ccompared to what we went through on Quest.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe has been entertaining us with tales from Quest for Fire, the historical fantasy film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud that he recently made with Ron Perlman and Rae Dawn Chong. The film had a legendary shoot, nearly a year long: actors sitting for five hours of makeup a day, learning a completely invented language, dealing with the elements in freezing Scotland and blistering Kenya.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt was grueling,\u201d Everett says, carefully inhaling from his bottle and regaling us like a chieftain before a campfire. He starts enumerating on his fingers. \u201cRon and I both got frostbite, they had real bears and elephants on set, a volcano eruption we had to plan around, and a set designer got anthrax from animal skins.\u201d He says it all matter-of-factly, a little pride in his resonant voice.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cJesus,\u201d I say. I glance over at Patrick, and he looks mystified. But as a Hollywood veteran, Everett takes things in stride.<\/p>\n \n\tAssuming the Dune pictures will keep me in the space-fantasy business for a while \u2014 after all, I had signed an enormous book of a contract for five Dune (and three non-Dune) films for Dino\u2019s company \u2014 I listen to his stories in a little bit of awe. I\u2019m excited, even gung ho about clawing my way through those kinds of challenges. The exuberance and stupidity of youth have me embracing the idea of testing myself on a film set. I can\u2019t wait to come back with stories.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYeah, we kept it light, though,\u201d Everett says. \u201cYou gotta. Or you\u2019d go insane. Ron and I were always pulling shit on each other. One time, I had to traverse this sandhill barefoot where the ground temperature was nearly a hundred fifty degrees. When it was Ron\u2019s turn, I waved him up without saying a word, and boy he nearly killed me. The bottoms of his feet were bright red! Nearly scorched them off!\u201d Everett laughs aloud in his rich tenor. Between him and Patrick, I\u2019m surrounded by the most melodious sounds.<\/p>\n \n\tThe three of us are becoming fast friends, and though I\u2019m over a decade younger, I feel comfortable with the relaxed camaraderie in the midst of the madness. I\u2019m discovering that friends on a shoot can become a type of family. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Everett is playfully envious of my youth \u2014 that\u2019s what the whole \u201cyoung buck\u201d thing is about. \u201cYou gotta get out there and graze,\u201d he tells me. \u201cEverything is out there for you. You can go all night, come to set without sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI find his words equally inspiring and demoralizing. I\u2019m not great at embracing the moment and a little gun-shy about real-life adventure. But I have always wanted to traverse the country on a motorcycle; for some reason, after time with Everett, I will make a plan to do exactly that when the shoot ends. It goes against all my natural caution, so it is perfect.<\/p>\n \n\tSuddenly, the wind shifts. Now the black smoke is blowing right across our faces; it is pure poison, lethal in our throats and lungs, a shock to breathe in. It\u2019s like a neck punch, freezing my vocal cords, stopping me from speaking. Again, not ideal. Everett puts his head down and inhales from his bottle. The rest of us just have to breathe as little as possible.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cOKAY, EVERYONE.\u201d David\u2019s distinctive honk comes through nearby walkie-talkies. \u201cGET IN POSITION, PLEASE.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tExtras spread out across the dunes. Crew members scurry over to the actors with a gardening-type tool, opening the nozzle and blowing a cloud of yellow and red dust onto us. I close my eyes as it covers my hair and face, hold my breath as it gets up my nose and the grit lodges in my teeth.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBOBBY,\u201d David says over the walkie. \u201cWILL YOU HIT KYLE ONE MORE TIME?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSomeone from wardrobe runs over and shoots me with the dirt gun again for good measure. Now I\u2019m completely covered in it. When I turn around and face the camera, I notice that every single crew member is wearing a nose mask, face covering, and giant black-framed goggles. I have to keep from laughing.<\/p>\n \n\tThe \u201cdirt\u201d is actually a calcium-based clay called fuller\u2019s earth, a powder that gives images texture and a sense of depth. The effects team has set giant airplane propeller\u2013type fans right off camera. During the shot, they feed fuller\u2019s earth into the fan blades to be blown onto the actors. When I get home that night, I\u2019ll have to rinse out my teeth, spitting red-dirt saliva into the sink. The epitome of Hollywood glamour, just like Cary Grant.<\/p>\n \n\tI get into position, the fans blowing dirt and smoke across my face. We spent hours waiting for the wind and then create our own. This is madness. This is Dune.<\/p>\n \n\tPaul\u2019s costume includes a \u201cweirding module\u201d attached to his throat; it sticks out like a giant door hinge. In the scene, he and Gurney recognize each other in the desert after years apart, a heartwarming moment. But as he hugs me, Patrick accidentally jabs the module back into my Adam\u2019s apple. I am stunned as my breath and voice stop sharply. My eyes fill with tears from the pain, and I make a slight grunting sound. I don\u2019t speak because I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n \n\tThe wind shifts again right as we finish, so that\u2019s the take that goes into the film.<\/p>\n \n\tMoving on.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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