Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet's 'magic hour' during Dune 2 filming

Even two of Hollywood's brightest stars need some assistance with romantic scenes. Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet were no exception on Dune 2.

Even Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet need some assistance when filming romantic scenes. The actors gave a behind-the-scenes look at the pressure of shooting their romantic scenes on Dune: Part Two during a recent interview.

While Zendaya and Chalamet's characters Chani and Paul Atreides hardly shared the screen in Denis Villeneuve's Dune (2021), expect that to change in Part Two as the two characters will begin getting closer (spoiler for anyone who hasn't read the book or know the story). One of the challenges of a sci-fi film being shot as practically and on-location as much as possible is the weather. In the case of Part Two, there was a special window of time dubbed the “magic hour” when the sun is setting and the world has a gold tint. That left very little time and room for error with these romantic scenes.

Speaking to Vanity Fair for their cover story, Zendaya said, “There's kind of, like, a ticking timer. You kind of feel like, Okay, we got here, but we have maybe an hour to get this. So we revisited a bit every day, and over a few days, that gives us a few hours.” She continued, “Every time we revised it, we kind of got to sleep on it and think about it, and come up with a new set of ideas.”

Denis Villeneuve. spoke about the two actors and their acting chops. “Zendaya is a fierce warrior. [Her character] has a very strong opinion about her world, about the politics of this world, about the religions and all the impact of colonization on their culture, but there’s something about that young man that cracks her heart. And Timothée did a beautiful job to bring that sincerity onscreen,” he said.

Returning back to Arrakis is exciting, and knowing that we'll have more of Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet together on-screen is a plus. The film is a direct continuation of Dune and a second part (not a sequel), something Villeneuve directly says in the Vanity Fair piece, and stars Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Chirospther Walken, Léa Seydoux, Javier Bardem, and, of course, Zendaya.

Dune: Part Two will be released on November 3.