Tim Blake Nelson Is ‘Heartbroken’ He Was Cut from Dune: Part Two: 'But There's No Hard Feelings'

The universe of Dune is vast — and notoriously difficult to squeeze into feature-length movies, as director Denis Villeneuve has learned.

Dune: Part Two, in theaters now, continues the events of Villeneuve’s 2021 hit sci-fi adaptation of the classic novel. Although Tim Blake Nelson was credited as appearing in the sequel prior to release, his scene was evidently cut. 

“I don’t think I’m at liberty to say what the scene was,” the Ballad of Buster Scruggs star told Movieweb in an interview published Friday. 

Villeneuve “had to cut it,” the actor added, “because he thought the movie was too long. And I am heartbroken over that, but there’s no hard feelings. I loved it, and I can’t wait to do something else with him and we certainly plan to do that.”

The French-Canadian filmmaker — credited as Dune: Part Two’s director and co-writer, alongside Jon Spaihts — used author Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune as the source material for his two-part saga. But even separating the story into two parts meant having to sacrifice scenes, storylines and characters. 

“I’m very severe in the editing room,” Villeneuve, 56, told Collider last month. “Sometimes I remove shots and I say, ‘I cannot believe I’m cutting this out.’ I feel like a samurai opening my gut.”

The identity of Nelson’s character has not been confirmed, and it turns out that fans will not be able to catch a glimpse of him in any deleted scenes as part of Dune: Part Two’s upcoming Blu-Ray release. 

“I’m a strong believer that when it’s not in the movie, it’s dead,” Villeneuve revealed to Collider. “I’m not thinking about my ego, I’m thinking about the movie... I kill darlings, and it’s painful for me.”

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The Oscar-nominated filmmaker also told Entertainment Weekly — as part of their cover story featuring stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh — that among the “painful choices” he faced in creating the two-part saga was removing a beloved figure introduced in Part One.

"One of the most painful choices for me on this one was [cutting] Thufir Hawat," Villeneuve said of the character portrayed in the first film by Stephen McKinley Henderson.

Thufir is a Mentat, a type of being in Herbert’s books who can use their minds to calculate figures not unlike computers. The Tony Award-nominated Henderson, 74, could be seen mentoring young Paul Atreides (Chalamet) as their royal house moved from their native Caladan to the desert planet Arrakis. 

In Herbert’s 1965 novel, Thufir remains a key part of the story after House Harkonnen’s deadly sabotage of the Atreides on Arrakis. Despite his absence from Villeneuve’s Part Two, the character survives the massacre in the source material. 

“It's the nature of the adaptation,” said Villeneuve of cutting Thufir from the sequel. "He's a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation. That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be.”

In the novels, the Bene Gesserit are a sisterhood of witchy superhumans working behind the scenes politically to influence the universe’s emperor and royal houses. Led by Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in the films, the order includes in their ranks the emperor’s daughter Prince Irulan (played by Pugh) and Paul’s mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). 

Following Villeneuve’s Warner Bros. adaptations, the mysterious Bene Gesserit will also be the main focus of their own HBO Max spin-off series, Dune: The Sisterhood. 

While a Part Three has not yet been confirmed, Villeneuve has indicated his dream is to make “at least three” Dune movies, as he told EW in 2021. 

"It's not that I want to do a franchise, but this is Dune, and Dune is a huge story,” he said at the time. “In order to honor it, I think you would need at least three movies.”

Dune: Part Two is in theaters now.