Dune’s Hair Designer on Timothée Chalamet’s Princely Mop, Zendaya’s Curls, and More

Any book-to-movie adaptation brings about tons of criticism from long-time fans. One major difference Herbet readers noticed immediately was that there were a lot of red-headed characters missing from the trailer. To be specific, they were referring to House Harkonnen. The antagonists of the books and films have always had red hair, like Herbert originally intended, but Villeneuve had another idea: to make them bald. When you hear Villeneuve explain why — the environment of the planet these characters reside is an artificial world clouded by pollution — it makes sense. House Harkonnen is completely hairless, so Mowat used eyebrow blockers and gave the actors, including Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), pale and borderline sickly skin.

But the Baron wasn't the only redhead missing — so was Chani, who's been described as having tawny-red hair. So, why does Zendaya rock her natural brunette colour? Although Mowat is a fan of creating fiery red looks, he admitted that it's been done before and felt like this adaptation warranted something new.

While promoting the film at the Venice Film Festival, Villeneuve was asked about the most challenging aspect of directing Dune. His answer: Chalamet's hair. He assured this was a joke, but Mowat confirmed that the actor's hair was, in fact, a little "problematic."

While there's only been one hair designer who's drastically changed the actor's famous mop of brown curls for a role (Alessandro Bertolazzi for The King), Mowat said, in the case of Dune, it was 110 percent the right choice to keep Chalamet's hair as it was. Although Mowat did consider changing it, he said that the look lent to the storytelling.

"You see [Chalamet as Paul Atriedes] kind of boyish and geeky very early on," he said. Then, Paul lands on Arrakis and the wind and dust turn his mop into a lion's mane. Mowat recalls once instance of testing Chalamet's hair to see how it would really come alive. "I just stood him in front of a fan while we were in the studio and said, 'Turn that fan on!'" he recalled. "It was the right move." He is clear, though, that it was difficult to capture Chalamet's hair in reshoots and pick-up shots.

He ends his point by alluding to the anticipated sequel Villeneuve has in mind for Dune. "I was also in my head thinking where do we go?" he said. "There's more to the story." The odds of Chalamet having a buzzcut in the next film are slim, but never zero.