Set 10,000 years before the events of the films, ages before the arrival of Paul Atreides. Despite the large gap, it still tells important new lore about the biggest families in the planet’s history. Prophecy stars Chernobyl’s Emily Watson and The Crown’s Olivia Williams as Valya and Tula Harkonnen, alongside stars like The Witcher’s Jodhi May and Vikings’ Travis Fimmel.

The show follows the Harkonnen sisters as they establish the iconic sect known as Bene Gesserit, the powerful religious group that has gained great power by the time of Villeneuve's movies. The specific prophecy the show’s title refers to is the Kwisatz Haderach, a male Bene Gesserit, foretold to be the next step in evolution. However, as it’s so many years before the films’ events, the focus is instead much more on the origins of how the group came to pursue the prophecy in the first place, and how it ties into their political aspirations.

Screen Rant interviewed stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams to discuss forming their on-screen sibling relationship, Dune: Prophecy politics, and secrets that will be exposed this season.

Stars Tease That Harkonnens Will Go To "Obscene & Absurd Lengths" For Their Goals

How The Harkonnen Family First Begins To Claim Their True Power

Emily and Olivia, you guys are brilliant. I love seeing you on camera together. Emily, how does Mother Raquella's influence shape Valya's leadership within the Sisterhood? Does that affect her strategies in facing new threats?

Emily Watson: Yes, she's recruited by Raquella in the sense that she's a woman full of doubt and fear and vengeance. Her heart has been utterly shattered by the death of her brother, but she knows she's got a lot of power. Then there's this moment where Raquella sees her and says, "I see you. You are really special, and you are chosen. Come and be part of something. Come and help me shape the history of humankind.”

And that's a very dangerous thing to a young person, because they suddenly get an overblown sense of their own importance, I think. Because Valya is so powerful and has such a powerful mind, she really does become a tool of the Sisterhood to shape humanity — and that's how charismatic leaders work. They prey on people who are vulnerable and angry and all of those things.

Olivia, can you share insights into Tula's connection with Lila? How does this relationship evolve when she steps out of her sister Valya's shadow to lead the Sisterhood?

Olivia Williams: Yeah, I talked to my mom about this, who went to a very strict Catholic convent in the 1940s and early '50s, and she said that the nuns there... Some of them would sometimes sort of fall in love with the girls at the convent. Some would want to mother them, and some just thought they were filthy hoes that should be burnt in hell. So, it is somewhere between there.

I think for [Tula], Lila is that child. Her feelings for Lila are those for a child that she doesn't have. And the absolute problem is what alarming religious institutions do, which is they ask you to either break relationships or destroy the thing you love more than you love the Sisterhood. And so, [Valya's] demand that she use Lila is a dreadful thing to ask of her. She struggles with the realization that she's formed a relationship, but in a context would be considered inappropriate.

Emily, The plan to place Ynez on the throne has been in motion for decades. How does Valya view the potential reckoning that Raquella warned about, and does it influence her approach to safeguarding the Sisterhood?

Emily Watson: Yes, absolutely. I think when our part of the story starts, we see them poised to set sail in a bit where everything is going really well and the plan is working, and they're going to have a sister on the throne. And then pieces on the chessboard start to get out of their control and things start to go very wrong.

Olivia Williams: I love that image of pieces on a chess board getting out of control. That's really scary. You've got an image there that has not featured in any other interview today.

Tula harbors some important secrets. What lengths does Tula go to in order to protect these secrets, especially concerning Lila’s mother?

Olivia Williams: I wouldn't say that's her biggest secret. I think you have to wait for episode 6, and the length she will go to is to make you wait till episode 6 airs to find out. That's the lengths I'll go to. Yeah, that's just the tip of Tula's iceberg.

Valya engages in a thrilling cat-and-mouse game with Desmond Hart. What was it like collaborating with Travis on these intense scenes, and how does their dynamic enhance the storyline?

Olivia Williams: Have you interviewed Travis yet today? You get a sense of what being on set with him might be like.

Emily Watson: He's a wonderful anarchic force to be around. Everything he does is slightly surprising and wrong-footing, so that was a real sense of going in and kind of just looking him in the eye and saying, "I see you." And it was a great sense of being adversaries who were equals in a way.

He is the one element in all of this stuff that Valya controls. Things surprise her, but mostly she can immediately think of a solution and another plan and a strategy. But he's the one element that she can't figure out. She can't work out where he's come from, who he's representing, what he wants, what he is. That really drives the drama of Valya's story; trying to overcome that.

Olivia Williams: Basically, you underestimate Travis at your peril.

Tula's leadership reveals her inner strength. How does she demonstrate that true strength isn't always visible on the outside, and how does this impact her role within the Sisterhood?

Olivia Williams: I think she's stricken with a thing that's not at all useful in the Sisterhood, [which is that] she has a conscience and lacks her big sister's confidence. And so she might appear to be a soft touch, but actually as the younger sister, she has this desire to please, and she takes that to obscene and absurd lengths.

Williams & Watson Were Able To Use Their Personal History In Dune: Prophecy

How A Long-Time Friendship Aided Their Collaboration

Out of curiosity, did you both know what was going on in the characters' past? Because in episode 3, there's something that happens, and my jaw was on the floor with the Harkonnen and Atreides families, as we dive deeper into that lore. Can you talk about that family feud?

Emily Watson: Yes, we were very much aware. There were very collaborative conversations all the way around between Allison and the cast . And obviously, we were so lucky to have Jessica and Emma playing our younger selves because they both deliver our characters, in their raw form before they found their path, in a brilliant way. We are so lucky to have them.

Olivia Williams: There was a real exchange of DNA with them. We had been cast first and had filmed some scenes, so they took some of our mannerisms. But then they also ran with that, and we watched what they'd done and learned from them. It was a really interesting exercise, which I hadn't done before.

We get to explore House Harkonnen more throughout this series. What is one aspect of House Harkonnen that you think is most reflected in each of your characters?

Olivia Williams: I think neither of us are bald. [Laughs] We're quite angry.

Emily Watson: Yes. I think the original sin for House Harkonnen is the fact that their destiny was to be banished, to be cast out, to be vilified — and it's based on a lie told by House Atreides. And that is the wheel that sets everything in motion.

Olivia Williams: What she said.

I can only imagine being on set for this show because it's the same scale as the films, which is crazy to me. Can you talk about some of these sets and the immersion that you feel when you walk on set into this world?

Olivia Williams: There was a beautiful scene I had; a very intimate scene with Chloe Lea as Lila. But it was shot on our biggest set, which was a real building; an abandoned open-air oval church in the middle of a forest in Hungary. This intimate scene began with a camera half a mile away on a crane that's bigger than my house, and it flew in almost like a drone into this scene in close-up.

Just to be able to play with space and the sense of a vast universe, and also the tiny biological cellular detail of the scientific scenes. I just love the scale of it and the ambition of it.

Emily Watson: What she said.

This show's brilliantly written, but what did you want to bring to the roles of Valya and Tula that went beyond the page?

Emily Watson: Well, we've known each other for decades. We first met the Royal Shakespeare Company way back when, but when we were first cast, we went to the National Portrait Gallery in London and sat in front of portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. All those families who have this appalling blood feud.

These women who were incredibly powerful and who [became] incredibly powerful by controlling the narrative, that's how they had their finger on everybody. They knew what everybody was up to. There were spies everywhere, and they controlled the narrative. It was, "I could marry you or I could kill you." That was really the choice. Or both!

Olivia Williams: What did I want to bring to it? I think it's only interesting, when you are dealing with drama on this scale of controlling the universe, if you bring it right into the human exchanges. And ultimately, we were two sisters in a power struggle that could be either played out in outer space or over the breakfast table, and people loved that scale. To go from the macro to the micro in a scene is thrilling.

More About Dune: Prophecy Season 1

From the expansive universe of Dune, created by acclaimed author Frank Herbert, and 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides, DUNE: PROPHECY follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit. DUNE: PROPHECY is inspired by the novel SISTERHOOD OF DUNE, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Check out our other Dune: Prophecy interviews here:

• Alison Schapker
• Jodhi May & Mark Strong
• Travis Fimmel & Jordan Goldberg
• Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, & Chris Mason

Dune: Prophecy premieres November 17 at 9pm EST on HBO.

Source: Screen Rant Plus