‘I found it quite helpful to read Spare’: Aussie star Josh Heuston channels Prince Harry for Dune series
As he prepares for his Hollywood break, Australian actor Josh Heuston – best known for his role in Heartbreak High – talks about the unlikely inspiration he took from Prince Harry.
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Cinematic adaptations of classic novels bring beloved words to life, but world-setting prequel series may be the ultimate in fan service. That was certainly the case for Dune enthusiast
Josh Heuston, now starring in Dune: Prophecy as royal rebel Prince Constantine. As the actor tells The Binge Guide, he was “literally living my childhood fantasies”.
By Siobhan Duck
While preparing to play Constantine Corrino in big budget sci-fi series Dune: Prophecy, Josh Heuston looked for inspiration in the pages of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, along with Shakespeare plays. “I did use Prince Harry, and another character, Prince Hal, to build Constantine,” Heuston tells The Binge Guide about shaping his role as the royal black sheep torn between honouring his duty to a family that doesn’t completely understand him or walking a more free-spirited path. “I found it quite helpful to read Spare, where there are lots of emotions and themes that work.”
Dune: Prophecy – set roughly 10,000 years before the events that unfold in the blockbuster Dune movies from director Denis Villeneuve – focuses on the dark origins of an order of women known as the Bene Gesserit, led by fearsome Harkonnen siblings Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula (Olivia Williams).
This sisterhood trains to master innate abilities that enable them to detect lies, manipulate minds and even control bloodlines. Their power, however, is threatened by a mysterious newcomer.
Heuston, who turns 28 this month, was thrilled to get stuck into the lore. The Sydney-based actor’s grandfather introduced him to Frank Herbert’s Dune novels and the 1984 movie adaptation directed by David Lynch when he was young.
As such, he says, “I was literally living my childhood fantasies. I used to run around the backyard with my mates and sword fight and pretend we had abilities, and now it’s my occupation.”
Explaining that he was given a “bible or a glossary to help map it out – because some of the characters come from the book and certain characters have been made for the series” – Heuston adds that he’s eager to introduce audiences to Constantine, the illegitimate son of Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong).
As his older sister, Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), becomes more involved in her duties as heir to the throne, Constantine feels cut adrift.
“A character like Constantine could be super aspirational, but he’s also deeply flawed, which I find interesting – it makes him feel [like] a much more real person, as opposed to just the illegitimate son of the Imperium,” Heuston says, adding that a lot of people will identify with Constantine’s predicament.
“In a family dynamic, there’s always the kid who feels like [an outsider] growing up, and you see that explored in this show between the siblings.”
Listen to the new episode of the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About below:
Already a fan favourite thanks to his scene-stealing turn as Dustin “Dusty” Reid in the Netflix reboot of Heartbreak High, Heuston should only increase his fanbase with his performance as the party boy prince, and potentially gain the sort of ardent attention as Game Of Thrones’ star Kit Harington.
And unlike Ewan McGregor, who found it tricky shooting the Star Wars prequel films and series as Obi-Wan Kenobi due to its use of green-screen technology, Heuston filmed on a practical set.
“The throne room that you see Mark Strong sitting in, that entire thing is built,” he points out. “It’s not green-screen or blue-screen. That makes it a lot easier for us to feel like it’s real, because you’re not having to pretend you’re in a spaceship. You actually are in a spaceship!”
Filming the show in bursts over a three-year period in Budapest, Hungary, Heuston found himself working alongside Brendan Cowell, Travis Fimmel, Yerin Ha and Shalom Brune-Franklin.
“There were disproportionately a lot of Aussies in it,” he notes with a laugh.
“I think there were like one or two Americans, and the rest were Brits. It was nice. We’d all just chill out and have our Australian banter. It just made it feel a lot more like being at home.”
Dune: Prophecy premieres on November 18 on Binge, with new episodes dropping weekly and available on Hubbl.
The full shoot and interview with Josh Heuston can be seen in The Binge Guide on the flip side of Stellar, via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA) this weekend.
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