Stephen McKinley Henderson was "disappointed, but not heartbroken" to be cut from Dune: Part Two'.
Stephen McKenley Henderson was cut from Dune: Part 2
The 74-year-old actor reprised his role as House Atreides mentat Thufir Hawat in Denis Villeneuve’s sequel and though his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, he has no regrets because he still had a great time filming in Budapest.
He told The Hollywood Reporter: "Well, sometimes, you have to take one for the team, and Denis went into the editing room and he came out with a wonderful film. It really is a wonderful film.
"So I can say I was disappointed, but not heartbroken.
"I’m still glad to be a part of Denis’ vision. He’s a wonderful filmmaker, and it was such a kick to shoot what I did shoot in 'Part Two'.
"I also had a great lunch with Christopher Walken that I’ll never forget. It happened to happen because we ran into each other in the restaurant.
"And [working with] Austin [Butler] and Stellan [Skarsgård] and Timothée [Chalamet], I have no regrets whatsoever about being a part of the family. And that crazy Josh Brolin! Boy, that guy is fabulous."
The veteran actor confirmed his storyline that was cut from the show was "faithful" to Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, which saw Hawat captured before going on to put the Harkonnens against each other.
He said: "I don’t know how legal all this is, but the book, yeah. I mean, it was a favourite of Denis’.
"He’d been wanting to do this for years and years and years, and he was so wise to do it in two parts. So, by the time he got to the second part, he was faithful. I’ll simply put it that way. He was faithful in what he shot, so that’s about as far as I can go with it."