Emily Watson, a two-time Oscar nominee (Breaking the Waves, Hillary and Jackie) is known for playing complex characters ranging from a nuclear physicist in the HBO miniseries Chernobyl to a grieving mother in the BBC drama A Song for Jenny. This month, she stars as Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen, leader of the Sisterhood in HBO's prequel series Dune: Prophecy.
Based on the Frank Herbert novels about an interstellar society, the show centers around the Sisterhood that manipulates the ambitions of the men leading this futuristic universe's factions. Watson playing the head of this mysterious religious order is quite a departure for the British actress, who began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
In this exclusive interview with the Television Academy, the Dune: Prophecy star breaks down her new sci-fi role and why she took it on.
Television Academy: Tell us about your role as head of the Sisterhood in the show. What are some attributes of your character that you found fascinating to play?
Emily Watson: It's interesting what comes around in your life. When you're menopausal, and feeling strong and cross, parts come your way. Valya is without the need to please in any kind of social way. She doesn't have that sort of social contract with other humans. She just knows what she wants, and she finds the best way to manipulate people into achieving the ends. To her, the ends justify the means. She has a higher purpose.
What attracted you to this show?
I'm out of my lane a little bit, but once I started reading the script and getting into the world of it, it felt like a great acting opportunity. Valya's a complex, morally ambiguous, powerful woman [who is] surrounded by powerful women. Longform television has really transformed the landscape for women my age. What's especially pleasing about doing this is there's a huge female fandom for Dune. To many people, Dune was a very formative book. It really got them into reading or opened them up imaginatively as teenagers. To be interested in the women in that world is nice.
Did you read any of the Dune books?
I didn't read all of them but read some of them. We had to do quite a crash course in wrapping our head around the whole history of what has transpired in the universe by the time [the Harkonnen] family is at the stage it's at.
What research did you do? When Olivia (Williams) and I were first cast [as the Harkonnen sisters], we sat in the National Portrait Gallery in London and looked at portraits of the Tudor queens — Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, Lady Jane Gray — all those women who lived in a world of intrigue, lies and deceit and manipulation. Back then, people either wanted to kill you or marry you. [The portraits show] a sense of power that is, in a way, veiled. I started thinking about the nature of charismatic leaders and how they recruit. They tell people that they're very, very special, and this is what happened to Valya as a young woman. She was told, "You're very powerful, you're very talented, and you are the chosen one." That's a very dangerous thing to do to a young person.
The first episode opens with you doing a table-setting voiceover. Was that in the original script you read, or was it something that came up after you had wrapped principal photography?
There was a form of it, in the first script I read, and it was refined as we went along. So yes, there was always a voiceover at the beginning.
How challenging is it to do voiceover like that? How do you invest that level of expository information with emotion?
We actually did the bulk of it on set. So, when we did it, I would be very much in character— or in the place — and the feeling of it. I’d be in my voice, with how high the stakes were.
What do you think of the Sisterhood that Valya helped to form?
What resonates in an interesting way now is that [the Sisterhood's] primary function is to be truth-sayers, so that they can advise and say, "This is a truth" or "This is a lie." But in fact, truth becomes a commodity and it's all about controlling the narrative and amplifying the right rumor to destroy somebody. That's something that's very recognizable today in our culture.
How much power do women really hold today?
"Not enough" is probably the answer. To my mind, these things are cyclical. Political ideas, historical ideas, they go in cycles, and I think we're seeing the rise of ideas and notions that we saw a century ago.
What do you find most fascinating about the Dune universe?
In the 1960s, sci-fi became a way of shining a light on current events and examining human nature in its extremes. [In Dune], the whole wrangling for power and "he who controls Spice controls the universe" is very much a metaphor for oil, energy. Religion plays a profound part in this series. People being zealously committed to a mission where the ends justify the means. There are many aspects of it that are fascinating.
Is there any moment from filming that you'll hold as a fond or interesting memory?
I think the discovery of rage in myself, or just tapping into some kind of rage — I didn't know how powerful it was. That's one of the driving forces of Valya and the Harkonnen family, raging against their fate and the injustice that has been meted out to them.
What was the most challenging part of the role for you?
Playing something over a period of over six months. It wasn't like six months on a movie. [TV works] very fast. That kind of schedule is often very chaotic. The order of things never makes sense, and you have to work really hard to find a coherent path through it. It was really fun, but proper tiring.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Dune: Prophecy airs on HBO and is currently streaming on Max.
