Warning, spoilers for Dune 2 follow: Already at the world premiere of Dune: Part Two, the involvement of a star who had not previously been in the cast of the Dune sequel was leaked: Anya Taylor Joy isn’t even in the credits, but has a long-hidden cameo in the sequel. And even though her guest appearance is very brief, it has a big meaning, which we want to break down for you here.
Dune 2 guest appearance explained: Who is Anya Taylor-Joy playing?
In Dune 2, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) drinks the Water of Life, obtained from a young sandworm, in a sacred Fremen cave. He survives this dangerous undertaking and thus sharpens his vision of the future.
In his subsequent visions he encounters one mysterious young woman with spice blue eyes, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga). Before saying “I love you,” the stranger tells Paul that she will show him truths about his family that will hurt him to his deepest core. After that, Paul is no longer the same. He now knows that Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) is his maternal grandfather.
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Anya Taylor-Joy in The Miniaturist
Although this is the first time we see Anya Taylor-Joy’s face in Dune 2, it is not her character’s first appearance. In fact, her character introduces the sci-fi sequel right at the beginning: as a baby in Lady Jessica’s (Rebecca Ferguson) womb. Because the woman in the future vision is Paul’s sister Alia Atreides.
Alia was conceived before Duke Leto Atreides’ (Oscar Isaac) death. Jessica is pregnant when she drinks the Fremen Water of Life, becoming the religious Venerable Mother of the Desert People. The embryo in Jessica is also affected by the transformative spice effect of the drug and the simultaneous memory transfer of her predecessor. Little Alia achieves consciousness before she is born and can therefore have mental conversations with her mother from within Jessica.
Unlike the novel by Frank Herbert, Dune 2 does not yet show Alias’s birth. But Paul is allowed to confront his adult sister in a vision of the future. Which already means that Trail laid to Dune 3 in which Anya Taylor-Joy will certainly have a bigger appearance.
Who is Alia Atreides in the cosmos of Frank Herbert’s Dune saga?
In Frank Herbert’s sci-fi books, Alia Atreides becomes a central protagonist from the second novel, The Lord of the Desert Planet * (in English: Dune Messiah *), at the latest. Their accelerated development does this precocious girls with the above-average intelligence, the special abilities and the entire wealth of experience of the Bene Gesserit Outsider. Many Fremen are afraid of her and Jessica and Paul can hardly compete with the strange family member.
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Alia Atreides in previous Dune film adaptations (1984 & 2003)
Bene Gesserit mother Helen Mohiam calls Alia Atreides an “abomination” that should never have existed and wants to eliminate her. Unlike Denis Villeneuve’s Dune 2, in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune it’s not Paul, but her two-year-old Alia, who kills Baron Harkonnen: with a poisoned needle prick during her deliberate captivity in the enemy camp.
In the following Dune novels, Alia becomes an important mentor figure for the new Atreides descendants, receives a influential place in the power structure and ultimately forms a romantic relationship with a certain Hayt, who becomes important in Dune 3.
But we won’t reveal more about Anya Taylor-Joy’s Alia Atreides at this point so as not to spoil too much. Director Denis Villeneuve will probably make a few changes to her role anyway, as the character’s time frame already deviates from the book in Dune 2.
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