Austin Butler named Gary Oldman and Heath Ledger as the two actors who inspired him for his role as Feyd-Rautha in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.”
“I’ve always been inspired by Gary Oldman in many of his roles. ‘Léon: The Professional,’ or ‘True Romance,’ or ‘The Fifth Element,’” Butler said in an interview with NME.
“And you know, we’ve talked about Heath Ledger a lot, the sense of play that he had. And like I say, it’s not the specific things, but it’s more general inspiration.”
The actor recently revealed to Jimmy Fallon that he met Sting –– who portrayed Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch’s 1984 “Dune” adaptation –– at the New York City premiere for “Dune: Part Two” last month.
“It was so surreal. My mind was blown. He’s the best,” he said.
“He came up afterward, and he was so, so lovely and just debonair. I asked him about [the original ‘Dune’], and he said he still has the codpiece from the original [‘Dune’]; he said he’s going to dry clean it and let me wear it if I want to.”
Butler, who portrays the nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (played by Stellan Skarsgård), is a menacing character who wears a bald, eyebrow-free look with black teeth in the film.
He explained how he got into his character to “The Tonight Show” host.
“The thing with a villainous character — I’d never played a character quite like him, and I didn’t want to judge him, so it was a lot of imagining what his childhood was like,” Butler said.
“Dune: Part Two” has soared to earning over $200 million at the global box office, doing so less than a week after it hit theaters.