The main villain of Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is portrayed with oily,
gruff menace by Stellan Skarsgård. But who, exactly, is this gross, powerful man with a
penchant for hovering feet above the ground? This is "Dune's" villain Vladimir Harkonnen explained.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen wasn't always an unappealing mound of malice and rolls of fat.
In fact, he used to be quite the looker.
In his younger days, Vladimir was closer to a classic fantasy bad guy, with a well-trained
frame, "red-gold" hair, and the requisite, villainous widow's peak. By the time "Dune"
takes place, years of debauchery have turned the Baron into the kind of man you see in the movie:
So massive that he relies on lifting devices known as suspensors to move around.
There's also an "Expanded Dune" universe take of the Baron's unsavory appearance, which involves
a condition he contracted as a punishment for certain particularly disgusting actions.
"You haven't met the Harkonnens before, I have. They're not human, they're brutal!"
Frank Herbert's first "Dune" novel came out in 1965, and when the author crafted a bad guy for
the book, he didn't mess around. The Baron is a ruthless sadist in pretty much every aspect.
In fact, the gross, manipulative monster in Denis Villeneuve's "Dune"
spares audiences the worst of it. As sinister as he is on film,
he's still a heavily revamped version of the character's irredeemable print version.
Villeneuve recognized that certain aspects of the book's Baron wouldn't work for modern
sensibilities, which is why he gave the character a pretty heavy redesign.
"Kill them all."
Stellan Skarsgård is a wonderful actor, but even he required some assistance to
transform into a hovering, 600-pound space despot. As the Los Angeles Times reports,
Denis Villeneuve wanted to turn him into a huge, yet physically frightening presence.
"I was trying to bring him closer to the spirit of a gorilla than a fat
baby. I wanted to get away from a feeling of decadence and more toward a feeling of power."
According to USA Today, this required the 70-year-old Skarsgård to wear an 88-pound
prosthetic suit with a hidden cooling system for the role,
and the make-up process was nothing short of arduous. In fact,
turning Skarsgård into Baron Harkonnen took 6.5 hours, and freeing him from the layers
of prosthetics and make-up at the end of the day took a further two. This CGI-free approach
demanded a lot from Skarsgård, but allowed for a realistic and terrifying performance.
"Harkonnen" seems like a pretty good made-up name for a sci-fi villain, but according to Dune Wiki,
there's actually a pretty solid and surprisingly grounded etymology behind it. The series takes
place in humanity's faraway future, and the name has evolved from the Finnish surname "Härkönen".
Per Brian Herbert's book "The Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert," the
Harkonnen-Finland connection is indeed correct, but that doesn't mean it's all that deep;
the "Dune" author apparently found the harsh-sounding name in a phone book.
The idea that Baron Harkonnen's house has its origins in this small Nordic country
is a fascinating one. Today, you might know Finland as one of the happiest
countries in the world with a unique relationship to metal music. However,
fast forward far enough into the future, and these peaceful headbangers might well
be the biggest, most depraved tyrants around ... at least, in "Dune's" world.
"Their cruelty to my people is all I've known."
The 2021 "Dune" has already given you Skarsgård's Vladimir Harkonnen,
and his ruthless nephew, the equally waxy-looking but far more physically formidable
Glossu Rabban. However, House Harkonnen's most charismatic monster is still lurking
in the shadows. This would be Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the Baron's favorite nephew.
Casual fans might mostly remember Feyd from Sting's turn as the character in the David
Lynch version of "Dune." Threatening as he is, he also memorably wears a futuristic,
winged codpiece-slash-speedo, which might somewhat undermine the terror. But don't
think for a second that the character is a joke. Feyd is a wicked, smart,
and charismatic person, who's also one of the absolute best fighters in the known universe.
Essentially, he's a dark mirror image of protagonist Paul Atreides, in that
they come from a fairly similar background -- but while Paul's house is a noble one,
Feyd has been fully assimilated into the ambitious, sadistic culture of House Harkonnen.
Young Feyd is conspicuously absent from Villeneuve's "Dune: Part One"
but might just get to make his grand entrance in the potential sequel. In many ways,
he's the final ace in Baron Harkonnen's sleeve, a critical part of a story that's only just begun.
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