Dune: Part Two's Stillsuits Are Beautiful, But You Can't Pee In Them
Frank Herbert's "Dune" may be a serious sci-fi epic, but it also features a lot of delightfully unserious lore. There's a giant space worm, spice is drugs, and, perhaps most ridiculously of all, our heroes can be assumed to be canonically drinking their own pee at any given moment thanks to the innovative recycling technology of "stillsuits."
These space suits look extremely cool in Denis Villeneuve's on-screen adaptations of the book, but they're pretty weird on the page. According to Herbert's original descriptions of the stillsuits, they keep the wearer safe and hydrated in Arrakis' harsh desert climate by recycling pee (it includes a catheter), sweat, and spit into drinkable water. As gross as it sounds, it keeps the story's heroes alive. According to "Dune: Part Two" star Zendaya, though, the suits worn on set weren't nearly as high-tech as their fictional counterparts.
"[The suits are] not ideal," Zendaya admitted in the latest subscriber issue of Total Film magazine. "I wish it was real. I wish it had a cooling system, and turned our bodily fluids into water, and that you could pee in it. But you can't." The actor, who plays Fremen warrior Chani in the upcoming film, noted that she "learned that the hard way" before clarifying that she did not actually try to use the suits as a bathroom. "I didn't pee myself, but one of the days, it was very hot — obviously — and it was a long shooting day," Zendaya explained. "I thought it was a smart idea not to drink a lot of water so that I wouldn't have to pee in my costume."
Learn from Zendaya's mistakes
According to the actor, taking off the suits is a pain in itself. "It takes a while to take it off, and the restrooms, you have to hike down quite a long way to get to the restrooms. So I was like, 'I just won't drink that much water.'" Zendaya reasoned. Unfortunately, that decision played out exactly how science would lead you to think it would: "I got very dehydrated that day. So, a bad idea." The performer seems to have learned a valuable lesson from the ordeal, though, as she's ironically now a Global Ambassador for Smartwater.
Zendaya's tips for wearing a stillsuit include learning how to dress and undress quickly and scheduling your bathroom breaks. Even after becoming a stillsuit pro, though, it sounds like she got worn out wearing the bulky outfit. "Although it's beautiful and wonderful to look at, it's not the most flexible or breathable thing I've ever worn," she told Total Film. "It always made me laugh that by the end of the day, you're like, 'Dang, why do I feel so heavy?' And your whole thing is just filled with sand." The actor even joked that she "got a good workout" from carrying around all the sand that accumulated throughout the day in her shoes and suit. Frankly, that all sounds miserable, but I bet those desert scenes are going to look cool as heck on the big screen.
Audiences will finally get to see Zendaya suit up (for more than seven minutes of screen time) when "Dune: Part Two" hits theaters on March 1, 2024.