Chalamet and Pugh might be professional artists on the rise, but they’re still young Millennials — or old Gen-Zers, depending on how you look at it — and have a tendency to get up to a bit of horseplay on the side. In a piece for TIME concerning Pugh (one that’s even titled “Florence Pugh Might Just Save the Movie Star From Extinction,” per my earlier point), Villeneuve called Pugh “mischievous” and confirmed that she and Chalamet had to be kept separate on the “Dune: Part Two” set due to their shenanigans whenever they weren’t filming. Mind you, once the cameras started rolling, it was all business for the two of them, with Villeneuve praising Pugh for her “firepower” as an actor.
Pugh confirmed this story during an interview with Fandango alongside the rest of the “Dune: Part Two” cast. “I was reading that you guys had to be separated on set because you were having so much fun, and I know you like calling him Chalamala Bing Bong,” noted host Naz Perez. “Well, my gran calls him Chalamala Bing Bong, so…,” Pugh playfully replied. Not about to be left out of the fun, Chalamet followed that up by quipping, “And we know how much you respect your grandparents from the last interview.”
This might be the standard fluff you expect when actors are promoting a movie, but it’s entertaining all the same. It also makes for an amusing juxtaposition to Villeneuve’s “Dune” films, which are dead-serious, mythical sci-fi epics about warfare, politics, and the ways people can be propped up as messiahs to serve the purposes of others. For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, actors are ultimately big kids playing make-believe.
The spice will flow when “Dune: Part Two” opens in theaters on March 1, 2024.