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This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The much anticipated sci-fi movie "Dune: Part Two" opens in theaters Friday. Its director, Denis Villeneuve, spoke with FRESH AIR producer Sam Briger about making "Dune: Part One" and "Two" and the rest of his film career. Here's Sam.

SAM BRIGER, BYLINE: My guest, Denis Villeneuve, was a teenager when he read the 1965 novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert. He was already a fan of science fiction, but "Dune" was a huge inspiration for him. Even at an early age, he wanted to make it into a movie. After successes making films like "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049," he got the chance. His movie "Dune: Part One" came out in 2021 to critical and commercial success. Now he's directed "Dune: Part Two," which comes out on Friday.

"Dune: Part Two" takes place in the distant future, mostly on the harsh desert planet Arrakis, after the feudal house of Atreides has been wiped out in a conspiracy between the Galactic Emperor and their enemies, the Harkonnens, including the head of Atreides, Duke Leto. But Leto's son Paul, and Paul's mother, Jessica, played by Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, escape the attack and are taken in by the Indigenous people of Arrakis, called the Fremen. The Harkonnens have regained control of Arrakis, and Paul and Jessica have joined the Fremen's insurgency against them. Many of the Fremen think that Paul might be a prophesized messiah figure that will help them regain control of their planet, but Paul is wary of these prophecies. He has had premonitions that if he takes on the mantle of prophet, he will set in motion a terrible galactic genocide.

The movie follows the choices he makes while pursuing his revenge against the Harkonnens. Along with Chalamet and Ferguson, "Dune: Part Two" stars Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Charlotte Rampling, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista and Christopher Walken. Denis Villeneuve's other films include "Sicario" and "Prisoners." Denis Villeneuve, welcome to FRESH AIR.

DENIS VILLENEUVE: Thank you.

BRIGER: You wanted to make this movie for a long time. How old were you when you read it?

VILLENEUVE: I read the first book at 13, but then I - there's many books, and my love for "Dune" went on through the years. So let's say I discovered it between 13 and 14 years old, yeah.

BRIGER: So what were you drawn to in that first book?

VILLENEUVE: I think that the idea that a boy finds home in another culture, that feels comfortable in a foreign country, that really moved me at that time. And also, I was in love with biology when I was a student, and it's something that - I was mesmerized how Frank Herbert use ecology to express himself. It really deeply moved me.

BRIGER: And you thought about, early on, like, making this book into a movie. Like, you made storyboards for it. Like, how old were you when you did that? Did that happen right after you read it?

VILLENEUVE: Yeah, in my - around - yeah, around the same period of time, me and my best friend Nicolas Kadima, who - Nicolas was a very strong at drawing, and me, I was very bad, so...

BRIGER: (Laughter).

VILLENEUVE: But I was good at telling stories. And we started that - our friendship was born from that dream of - that one day we could be filmmakers. It's the way we met. And we didn't had any cameras at the time, but we - I was writing stories, and Nicolas was drawing them. And we had - like, inspired from the book, we had started to do some drawings about the making of "Dune," but that was, like, very old dreams.

BRIGER: (Laughter) And this was before David Lynch's version of the movie came out in 1984. Is that correct?

VILLENEUVE: Yeah, absolutely.

BRIGER: So you've been thinking about this book visually for a long time. So what was it like for you to see someone make this book into a movie, and to see someone's interpretation of this book that you loved so much?

VILLENEUVE: I was very excited when I learned that the book will be brought to the screen, and it's something that - I remember watching the movie and being very mesmerized and impressed by how David Lynch approached it. I was also destabilized by some of his choices, and...

BRIGER: 'Cause that's not how you would have done it, right?

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. It's a - David Lynch has a very strong identity as a filmmaker, of course, and it bleeded into the - of course, it's a fantastic interpretation of the book, but there was some choices that were made that was very far away from my sensibility. And I remember watching the movie, saying to myself, someday, someone else would do it again in the future. It will happen because I didn't feel that he capture some of the essence of specifically about the Fremen culture. I felt that there was some things that were missing. And it's like, that's the nature of adaptation, you know? It's like, so I was expecting someone else to come back with the project at one point, yeah.

BRIGER: And that turned out to be you.

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. Which is - I'm still pinching myself.

BRIGER: In "Dune: Part One," you have to spend time setting the scene. Like, this is a very complicated and very strange universe. The story takes place on multiple worlds. There are these competing power factions, including secret societies. How did you decide how much you were going to have to explain versus how much you were just going to show?

VILLENEUVE: It's a fine line. I tried to find a balance, trying to - I tried to make the movie as cinematic as possible. The first decision was to focus this adaptation on the Bene Gesserit sister power, that sisterhood that controls the politics from the shadows, that use religion as a political tool. And there's a lot of school of thought in "Dune." There's a lot of different - there's the manta, the Spacing Guild, there's a lot of group of people. And I focused on the Bene Gesserit sisters.

And then in "Part One," the idea was to really see the reality through this young man's eyes, to - the camera will be just above Paul Atreides' shoulder, and that we will - the reality of the movie will unfold slowly through his eyes. So it's a movie that is much more meditative, contemplative. And the boy is an old teenager in "Part One," so he's a - let's say, a victim of the events. He has no control. He's just trying to survive. So - which is the - in "Part Two" is totally the opposite. He became active, he became a guerrilla fighter and take control of his own destiny. And it's like a - so the second movie was meant to be more of an action movie.

BRIGER: When you say you tried to make it as cinematic as possible, by that, you mean not using just a lot of exposition dialogue, right?

VILLENEUVE: If I could have made movies with one - without any dialogue, it would have been paradise. I - dialogues, for me, are - belong to theater or television. I mean, it's like, I'm not someone who remember movies because of their lines. I remember movies because of their images, because of the ideas that are being hidden or unfold through images. And that's the power of cinema. For me, it's not about dialogue. And I hope, one day, I will be able to make a movie with as little dialogue as possible.

BRIGER: Yeah. You...

VILLENEUVE: With "Dune," it's a bit - it was a bit difficult, but that's my goal.

BRIGER: Yeah. Have you thought of making a silent movie sometime?

VILLENEUVE: I would be definitely tempted, yes. By the way, that's why silent movies were so powerful and that is still today, the best movies. I mean, it's like normally, a great movie, you should be able to watch it without sound. And that's the ultimate goal, yeah.

BRIGER: So were there lessons that you learned from making "Dune: Part One" that you applied to making "Part Two?"

VILLENEUVE: Multiple, and it would be boring to mention all of them. But there was - I will - let's say that there is something about the rhythmic (ph) of my mise en scene, you know? - how I can convey ideas through choreographies and the movement of camera and trying to be more efficient. I was trying to find an energy that I found more in "Part Two," and also being more agile with a visual effects. And more specifically, I will say where I think there was a lot of improvement is in their screenwriting, trying to be more cinematic. But the project itself, the nature of the project itself, was - allowed me to go to something much more playful cinematically.

BRIGER: You actually film a lot of the movie in the desert, and I was just wondering, like, what complications that brought up. Like, were you always worried about getting sand in the camera?

VILLENEUVE: The complication is, first, to bring a full unit deep in the desert requires a lot of logistics for - to protect the crew.

BRIGER: And, like, how many people are in a unit?

VILLENEUVE: Several hundreds.

BRIGER: Several hundreds. Wow.

VILLENEUVE: And maybe in Jordan we're at 800 sometime or some - I could not give a number for Abu Dhabi exactly - because - but several hundred people that - because at one point you need people to take care of people.

BRIGER: Right.

VILLENEUVE: It's just the structure of the base camp. We had to build roads - eco friendly roads, I must say - roads that don't exist anymore, but that at the time were meant to - built to bring the trucks deep into the desert, and a path also, a sidewalk that - to bring the crew where I wanted them to be. There was a massive logistic that was deployed to have, like, shelters to protect actors and the film crew from the heat. And the heat was our enemy.

BRIGER: Right.

VILLENEUVE: I mean, there was a period of time in the middle of the day where I - it was the soup mode, and you felt that your brain was cooking.

BRIGER: Wow.

VILLENEUVE: It was like, really - I had to bring the crew away from the sun a couple of - in the middle of the day. It was too warm. It's - the big challenge also is that - and that I'm fully responsible for that - is that I wanted to shoot the movie as much with natural light as possible. I mean, we shot entirely with - exclusively with natural light in the desert, which meant that in order to make no compromise aesthetically, it drove my first assistant crazy because it meant that you had to - according to sun position, to deconstruct the whole shooting schedule according to the sunlight - sun position. And it was for - and my cinematographer and I and for the actors quite a crazy puzzle. Yeah.

BRIGER: So that that means that if you're shooting one scene and then you want to do it again or add on to that scene, the next day, you have to wait till the sun's in the same position.

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. For some, for some scenes specifically, yes, or to deconstruct the scene in different areas in the desert so you can have your maximum aesthetic quality for the shot. But it meant that an actor could throw a line to another actor in two different location. That's what people say, OK, that we can do, but when it becomes 12 location or 14 location, it becomes a bit complex for the crew.

BRIGER: Well, we need to take a short break here. If you're just joining us, our guest is director Denis Villeneuve, whose new movie "Dune: Part Two" comes out on Friday. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. We're speaking with filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, whose new movie "Dune: Part Two" comes out this Friday.

One of the most stunning scenes in the movie is when Paul first rides one of the sandworms. And the sandworms are these huge creatures that live in the desert, and the Indigenous people ride on the backs of them. So Paul goes - stands up on top of the sand dune, attracts this worm using this sort of mechanism that that creates sound waves, and you're looking off into the horizon and you see this cloud of sand, and you - it's sort of like "Jaws." like you, the sandworm is approaching. He has to jump on the top of it, using these hooks to attach to it. And it's kind of like riding a train, but the sandworm is more the size of a skyscraper kind of on its side. And you've said that this was the most complex scene you've ever done. Can you talk about what it took to get it?

VILLENEUVE: First of all, I'm very pleased that you mentioned "Jaws" because it is the exactly (laughter) - the reference I used at the beginning when I was in "Part One." I was with the VFX crew, saying that I was in love with the idea that you could know the presence of the sandworm just by seeing suddenly the landscape shifting in the distance. You didn't hear nothing, but just suddenly sand dunes appeared. That's - I absolutely love how it's more frightening to not seeing the beast than actually seeing it. And so "Jaws" was a very important reference for the sandworm.

And this moment where someone rides a sandworm, it's a very important moment in the book, but it's kind of suggested. I mean, there's part of it that are quite vague how you get actually on the worm. So that was one of the first thing I had to decide, is how I will make this believable, how I will believe that a human could actually get on top of that beast. And first of all, I had to think about the behavior of the beast. For me, a sandworm is - it's a powerful creature, but it's a very shy creature, and it's a creature that doesn't want to be at the surface. It's a creature from the underground. And it wants to expose itself as less as possible.

And that's the way Fremen rides with the worm. I love the idea that when you look at the Fremen in the desert, he looks like a motorbike rider. It's like the worm is under the surface.

BRIGER: Right. Just the...

VILLENEUVE: It's like, he looks like a surfer. And it's inspired from different extreme sport, like people who are jumping in ski on the high peaks in the wild. And so I designed the way someone could jump on a worm. I did the diagrams, and I explained that to the crew. There was, like, a kind of seminar where I explained to my crew how actually...

BRIGER: How to Ride a Sandworm 101.

VILLENEUVE: Exactly - how to ride a sandworm, first. And once I explained that, I said, oh, we will do it. Then there was a big silence because I didn't want to make any compromises. I wanted it to be as real as possible. And in order to do that, we had to use the most powerful tool we had in our hands, which is natural light. And it meant that this sequence would be shot over the course of many weeks. And in order to do so, I had to figure out a way to split myself because it was not possible to be - to - if I had done that worm ride myself, I would still be shooting right now.

BRIGER: Right.

VILLENEUVE: So it meant that I will be - I will need to be at two place at the same time. There will be - I was directing my main unit as there was what we call the worm unit. The worm unit was a special dedicated crew that were doing the - according to my specs and the storyboards, and the tech vids - were doing all the research and development. Each shot required a specific way of shooting that has not been done before. And we - I was, like, giving them precise instructions. That crew was under the supervision of my wife, Tanya Lapointe.

BRIGER: So that was happening simultaneously while...

VILLENEUVE: Yeah.

BRIGER: ...The rest of the movie was being filmed.

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. That was the most difficult thing for me to do because cinema is an act of presence. It's like - I'm used to work with one camera at a time. I'm very old-fashioned in that regard. It was by far the most challenging but rewarding creative experience of my life.

BRIGER: At what point did you have the idea that you might want to make movies and that there was this person, like a director, whose job it was to actually create the films that you were watching as a kid?

VILLENEUVE: It is something that happened progressively. As a kid, I was a dreamer. I was reading a lot of books, and I absolutely loved cinema. And, of course, I discovered at the time a lot of movies through television. I remember the first time I saw the beginning of "2001: A Space Odyssey." That was like - really, like, absolutely frightening. It brought a lot of beautiful anxiety in me. I remember the shock of it and just watching the opening because after that, my parents wanted me to go to bed.

But I remember the first time I saw "Duel" as a kid, being very impressed by the power of the ideas of creating a being with a truck and then learning later that there was something else called "Jaws" that I was too terrified to watch, but - and then "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind." And it's like just - and then there was always a name attached to these movies that was - and this name was Steven Spielberg. And then I started to - being more interested about what it meant to be a director. And I was absolutely, at 13 years old or something like that, absolutely fascinated by the idea of the power of the that tool, the camera. I didn't have any camera in my life, but I was fascinated.

There was something so romantic, so powerful about making movies. And I became obsessed with the idea of filmmaker. And I met this friend, Nicolas Kadima at the time, who had the same passion as me. Nicolas wanted to redo "Star Wars" in his basement. That's the way we - I was introduced to him. There's a friend of mine who said, you want to need - you need to meet that guy. He's as crazy as you. And we started to - we did some short films together, and we were, like, obsessed trying to find - that's when I - we discovered Eisenstein, Leos Carax, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese. We were like sponges, trying to discover movies. And at the beginning, it was not easy because there was no VHS at that time, at that period of time, at the birth, at the beginning.

BRIGER: No, there wasn't.

VILLENEUVE: It was just the beginning, you know? It's always like - there was not a lot of thing available. It was - and, yeah, it was - but it - those were exciting times.

BRIGER: Denis Villeneuve is the director of "Dune: Part Two," which arrives in theaters on Friday. His other films include "Dune: Part One," "Blade Runner 2049," "Sicario," "Arrival" and "Prisoners." He'll be back after a short break. I'm Sam Briger, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Sam Briger. I'm speaking with director Denis Villeneuve, whose movie "Dune: Part Two" comes out this Friday. His other movies include "Blade Runner 2049," "Sicario," "Dune: Part One," "Arrival," and "Prisoners."

Denis, you've told the story before about how you got into science fiction as a kid. Your aunt brought you this box of magazines and it contained some issues of this sci-fi magazine. Can you tell us that story?

VILLENEUVE: It's a very, very important moment in my life. It's like one day my Aunt Huguette came - who was in love with science fiction and "The Lord Of The Rings" and "Star Wars," etc., she was, like, always bringing - she brought home three boxes filled with magazines which were, like, monthly or weekly graphic novels, "Metal Hurlant" or "Tintin Magazine," which were, like, filled with all those stories from those authors from Europe, like Bilal, Druillet, Christin, Jean-Claude Dunyach, Moebius. Those masters that absolutely made that huge revolution in the '70s went so far, creating those worlds. As a kid, it really was - it was a electroshock. It was, like, really like a massive - my brain - I don't know if my brain melted or exploded, (laughter) but I'm still haunted by those boxes. The power of creativity that was in those boxes.

BRIGER: "Metal Hurlant" was known in the U.S. as "Heavy Metal," but here, it was more decidedly R-rated. I think that you've said that it was a different magazine that you read.

VILLENEUVE: It is true that the English - American version was much more for adult, which was not the case for the European version. It was a more about pure sci-fi.

BRIGER: So what intrigued you about science fiction? Like, were you drawn to the spaceships and technology, or did you appreciate what Ray Bradbury said about science fiction, that it's the history of ideas?

VILLENEUVE: Wow. That's a nice quote. I never heard that before. I will say that it's like a way to digest reality and to explore it in a very poetic way. And it's in a way, the ultimate way of dreaming because you project yourself in the future. It's an act of hope. And I think that I've been raised - being raised in a village, very tiny village, where there was two structures. One of them was the church, the other one was a nuclear power plant. And I was raised between both powers. And the idea of having that nuclear power plant in the horizon, that power - the nuclear power, with what - everything what it meant. At the time, I was raised in the '70s with the fear of the atomic bomb, which was, like, the big threat at the time. There was something there, that fear of science, that fear of the unknown, that fascination of - for science, also.

BRIGER: So how much of a prevailing fear was there in your town in Quebec because of this power plant?

VILLENEUVE: The thing is that the scientists were there to reassure us all the time. I think that me, as a kid, I had the fear. But around me, the adults were very excited by the (laughter) this - the economical potential of the - of those powerful devices. I didn't feel the fear until they were explaining to us that if there was an accident and the wind was blowing in that direction, then you started to question (laughter)...

BRIGER: Right.

VILLENEUVE: ...The technology.

BRIGER: Everything's fine unless...

VILLENEUVE: Until the - yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was meant to be a very safe technology. It was just that unconscious fear of the atom. It's a power that we are not supposed to - we went too far. And it's something that you know inside yourself that it's like you're playing with the power of the stars.

BRIGER: So, you know, there are atomic weapons in "Dune: Part Two," and one of the characters sort of thinks that they're going to be the solution to all the problems. I was wondering, when you did those scenes, if you had been thinking about your hometown.

VILLENEUVE: When you do something as an artist, you're always talking about your hometown (laughter). So, yeah, I think - I will say when I'm thinking about the Fremen, I'm thinking about French Canadians, the idea of the alienation of religion, the idea that a population is under the control of the church, and that the church is linked with the politics, and that for many years, we were - we didn't - the French Canadian did not - they didn't have any economical power, and were under the control of the church and submitted to this power where the church was telling us where to vote. And it's very powerful. It's the absolute power. I mean, if you say to - someone tells you, if you vote for this guy, you go to hell - religion is a good thing, but it's not meant to be linked with politics.

BRIGER: Was your family religious?

VILLENEUVE: Yes, my family was religious.

BRIGER: Do you recall hearing about hell and whether you would go there, depending on how you behaved?

VILLENEUVE: Absolutely. I was raised as a Catholic. And I always say that I had, like, I really, absolutely loved the chance there's something - and it's one of the first discussion I had with Hans Zimmer was about those church...

BRIGER: Who wrote the score for "Dune."

VILLENEUVE: Exactly, exactly. And to have that kind of sacred power, I mean, though it was, like, a very inspiring, those the chance that - we were singing as kids, there was something I remember being elevated by a - I'm not a religious person anymore, but at that time, there was a time where I was like everybody else in my hometown.

BRIGER: When you were young, like, how did you imagine what your adult life was going to be like? Did you see yourself staying in that town?

VILLENEUVE: That's a good question. I will say that I became happy when I landed in Montreal. Why? It's because finally, I was in contact with culture, with movie theaters, with museums, with big libraries, with bookstores, with - I remember the first time I walked in Montreal as a young adult, the impression to be in "Blade Runner." And I was like - I was absolutely, deeply excited by a culture and the power of having all those resources all around me to learn more about the world. Yeah.

BRIGER: Well, let's take a short break here. If you're just joining us, we're speaking with director Denis Villeneuve. His movie "Dune: Part Two" comes out on Friday. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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BRIGER: This is FRESH AIR. Our guest is filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. On Friday, his movie "Dune: Part Two" comes out in theaters.

So, Denis, I wanted to ask you about some of your earlier films. I thought - I think the first film you made in the United States was "Prisoners." This is a very brutal movie that takes place in Pennsylvania. Just to give a summary, two girls are kidnapped, and a man, played by Paul Dano, is arrested. However, he's released because the police don't believe he could have done it. He has a very low IQ, and there's no forensic evidence that he had kidnapped the girls.

But one of the missing girls' fathers, played by Hugh Jackman, has a strange interaction with Paul Dano's character that makes him think that he really is the kidnapper. And so he takes the law into his own hands, kidnaps Jones and tortures him to try to get the information out of him.

It's a really hard movie to watch. Like, the torture is really difficult to watch, and the whole tone that you create in this movie is bleak. And, like, the screenplay was part of something called The Black List, which is, like, the most-liked screenplays of the year not yet produced. And I think there was a lot of reluctance for people to make it because it was a hard movie. Was that part of the challenge for you?

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. The thing is, I knew that people were afraid of that project. You had to find a very fine line, but it felt very relevant where we were at the time. It felt, like, very meaningful to approach this subject.

BRIGER: This sort of thing of people taking the law into their own hands.

VILLENEUVE: Yeah. Yeah, and the use of torture as a righteous thing and the turmoil of - emotional turmoil of that father trying to find morality. And it felt very disturbing and meaningful. There was something true about that story. How far are you ready to go? And there was something honest about this story that I felt was relevant.

BRIGER: There's this idea that the end justifies the means.

VILLENEUVE: Exactly.

BRIGER: Like, if I torture this person and I find out where my daughter is, then it would have been worth doing those terrible things. That also plays into - part into your 2015 movie, "Sicario," which is about the U.S. drug enforcement of drugs coming in from Mexico. And, like, this movie, Emily Blunt is an FBI agent who joins this task force that's trying to bring down a Mexican drug cartel. It turns out, like, the task force is just using her position as a way to cover their extralegal behavior that they engage in. And they sort of make this argument, we're keeping the monsters out by becoming monsters in Mexico.

VILLENEUVE: There's something about being a Canadian and being raised in the suburb of United States, you know? I'm just...

BRIGER: Right, 'cause you're right on the border, almost...

VILLENEUVE: Yeah.

BRIGER: ...And the St. Lawrence River, right?

VILLENEUVE: Yeah, yeah. It's like - I have been always fascinated by the United States - the power, the creativity in United States, the beauty of the United States, but also the threat sometimes of that power and the relationship of the United States with the rest of the world. And, it's something that absolutely fascinated me. And I thought that that border between Mexico and the United States was so meaningful, saying so many things about the state of the world today.

And so both for me, there's a continuity between "Prisoners" and "Sicario" about an exploration of North America. You know, when I see United States, I incorporate, you know, Canada into it because, yeah, we are neighbors. There's something - we are like - it's not like - what happens in the United States always has tremendous impact at home. And so it's like two societies that are, like, embedded one into the other. But still, I'm not American. I have a kind of little distance that allows me to sometimes - I say that with humility - just to have, like, a different perspective, which is, I think, why maybe I'm working in the United States. Yeah.

BRIGER: "Sicario" is kind of like an anti-action movie in that, like, Emily Blunt is the protagonist. And we kind of imagine that, at some point, she's going to, like, win. Like, there are these people that are treating her poorly, and she doesn't believe that they're doing the right thing. But it sort of - it flips the audience's expectations because she's powerless to stop these people, like, that - and to stop the wrong that's happening around her.

VILLENEUVE: Both movies have been made in a world after 9/11, the idea that how far do we need to bend law in order to find justice and - or reparation or revenge or have control over the world. I think that's fair to say - I didn't wrote those screenplays, but I thought they were absolutely relevant about what they were saying about the state of the world at that time.

BRIGER: When I first saw your movie "Sicario," there was this aerial shot that really stuck with me. There's this plane flying over this landscape of hills, and there's something just expressive about the hills themselves. And, you know, there's a very similar aerial shot in "Dune: Part One," where Paul is first flying over the sand dunes of Arrakis. You like those aerial shots, don't you?

VILLENEUVE: A long time ago, I participated to - I was, like, an assistant. There's a documentary filmmaker, one of the most important Canadian filmmaker - his name is Pierre Perrault. And Pierre invited me to a shoot in the - nearby the North Pole. We spent a month on the island of - Ellesmere Island. I was there to make the soup and bring the tripod, you know? It's - there were - there was Pierre, two cameramen and me and other assistants like that. We were there to help.

I was out - just out of film school, and I spent a month with him studying the landscape of where you were and being in contact with the power of those landscapes. And Pierre taught me how to listen to the landscape and how to create poetry, how to capture the - there's something about landscape. It's like human faces. It's like - according to the light. There's always something new and something that you can bring kind of a meaning or emotional impact out of the landscape who is reflected on the character.

BRIGER: I actually thought that the hills did look like faces, like...

VILLENEUVE: Absolutely. That's - that is - I spent a lot of time in the helicopter shooting, and there was something about - absolutely mesmerizing about those landscape, and I started to study them with the camera. And I remember, with Joe Walker - when we did that shot, Joe and I thought that it felt like faces that were screaming.

BRIGER: Yeah.

VILLENEUVE: There was, like, a power in that landscape, that territory, that place where - there's a landscape where the humans draw a line, and a tremendous amount of violence happened because of that line. And it's - there's something about the power of the landscape that will prevail no matter what happened.

BRIGER: You know, you started making small independent films with shoestring budgets and unknown actors, and now you're working - like, it's, like, an almost different planet. You're making movies with $100 million budgets, huge crews, you said, like, 800 people in the desert, all A-list actors. I just wonder if you could reflect on that.

VILLENEUVE: Well, actually, I made sure to not make too big of a step between each project. I would have not been able to make "Dune" as my third movie. Some directors can. I am always impressed by directors that can jump from indie to massive Hollywood budget at ease. Me, I needed to go step by step. I'm a slow learner, and I needed to slowly build stairs, something solid under my feet.

BRIGER: So you intentionally did it incrementally?

VILLENEUVE: Yes, and - because I didn't want to be crushed by the system. I was - I wanted to keep control on creativity. And also, I will say that I approach those movies absolutely the same way as I did the indie movies, which is that, at the end of the day, I'm with actors with a camera, and I try to keep it as intimate on set as possible. It's like I'm - the big difference between the movies when I was young and now is the distance between the car and the camera and the amount of people around it. But it's like - I'm very - I have a strong capacity to forget about the scope of things and focus on the intimacy with the actors.

BRIGER: Denis Villeneuve, thank you very much for coming on FRESH AIR today.

VILLENEUVE: It was my pleasure. Thank you.

GROSS: Denis Villeneuve spoke with FRESH AIR producer Sam Briger. Villeneuve directed "Dune: Part Two," which opens in theaters Friday. He also directed "Dune: Part One." The creators of the series "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" have a new drama series called "Elsbeth." Our TV critic David Bianculli will have a review after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

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TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Tomorrow, CBS presents the latest drama series from Michelle and Robert King, creators of "The Good Wife" and its spinoff series "The Good Fight." Their newest weekly series, episodes of which will stream the next day on Paramount+, is yet another extension of the franchise. It's called "Elsbeth," and it stars Carrie Preston in the role she played in both those other series - eccentric but effective attorney Elsbeth Tascioni. But this time, Elsbeth has a new job, and she's in a new city. Our TV critic, David Bianculli, has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: Carrie Preston won an Emmy Award in 2013 as outstanding guest actress for her portrayal of a seemingly scatterbrained lawyer on the CBS series "The Good Wife." Her character, Elsbeth Tascioni, really was a character. Her conversations tended to derail into unexpected directions. Her questions never seemed to follow any logical path, but they always had a purpose, and she was keenly, almost uncomfortably, observant. Michelle and Robert King, the writing team that created "The Good Wife" to showcase Julianna Margulies, quickly recognized Preston's Elsbeth as a valuable supporting player. She appeared in six of the seven seasons of "The Good Wife" and won her Emmy there. Then she returned as the same character in "The Good Fight," which the Kings wrote as a sequel series starring Christine Baranski.

And now there's a third series, this time bringing Carrie Preston front and center. It's called "Elsbeth," and all 10 episodes have been written by co-creators Michelle and Robert King, with him directing the premiere episode. So what are they up to this time? They've transplanted Elsbeth from Chicago to New York City, where she's been hired to officially observe and secretly investigate some of the police there. In her new job, she's given so much latitude, she even can serve as an ad hoc murder investigator, and does. "Elsbeth," the series, is structured like "Poker Face" or even more obviously, "Columbo." I've previewed three episodes, and each begins with viewers seeing the murderer commit the crime. And then, and only then, does Elsbeth enter the crime scene and start putting the puzzle pieces together.

Each episode, as with "Columbo," features a prominent guest star as the killer of the week. For the premiere episode of "Elsbeth," - no spoiler alerts here because the murder is shown in the opening moments - Stephen Moyer from "True Blood" is the special guest star. He plays an acting teacher and director who has found a way to dispose of his much younger former student and lover by making it look like suicide. But when Elsbeth arrives at the victim's apartment, she ignores the dead body and heads straight for the bathroom, where she pokes around until a detective notices her and objects. But that's when we see how quickly and how sharply her mind processes things.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What's going on here?

CARRIE PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Nothing. We were just talking. I'm Elsbeth.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Yeah, I know. I would rather you wait in the hall, please, ma'am.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I thought I made that clear.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) By the way, I'm not sure this is a suicide.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) In the hall, please.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Why do you say that?

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Teeth whitening strips. I'd check her mouth, because I don't know anyone who whitens their teeth right before they commit suicide. And if she had her diaphragm in, she was probably expecting someone to have sex with.

BIANCULLI: The police aren't sure what to make of her, of course. Wendell Pierce, that wonderful actor from "The Wire," plays Captain Wagner, who is exasperated one moment, impressed the next, which is how everyone reacted to Elsbeth way back on "The Good Wife." But as with "Columbo," the most important dynamic is between the investigator and the killer. Elsbeth, like Columbo, is persistent and underestimated. But where Columbo kept his theories close to his vest or his raincoat, Elsbeth almost delights in revealing her hole cards to unsettle her prime suspect. Carrie Preston and Stephen Moyer worked together on HBO's "True Blood," and it's fun to see them together again here, this time as adversaries.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ELSBETH")

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) You know, I'm glad I caught you.

STEPHEN MOYER: (As Alex Modarian) I'm sure you are.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) This odd thing I found. Do you mind if I show you?

MOYER: (As Alex Modarian) Does it matter?

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Yes, of course it matters. This is a copy of the text that Olivia sent to her classmates a few minutes before she killed herself or was murdered. Can you see it there on my screen?

MOYER: (As Alex Modarian) Yes, I can.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Do you need me to make it...

MOYER: (As Alex Modarian) No, it's fine.

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) OK. It says I'm so sick of performing for idiots who don't understand what I'm doing. And then she writes. I'm done with it, the hiding who I really am. Do you see, there are two spaces after every period?

MOYER: (As Alex Modarian) OK?

PRESTON: (As Elsbeth Tascioni) Do you know that's something that older people do, not younger? Two spaces. Younger people, like Olivia, they do just one space after every period. So what I did was I went back through Olivia's old texts and do you know what? She always did one space.

BIANCULLI: Other episodes shown to critics feature as the murderers of the week Jane Krakowski from "30 Rock" and Jesse Tyler Ferguson from "Modern Family." Both of them bring a playful energy sparring with Preston's Elsbeth, and she really sparkles with and without them and carries the series with ease. Also, the show's New York locations add even more to the flavor and the enjoyment. Altogether, they make "Elsbeth" an undeniable throwback to an earlier TV era. But so is "Poker Face," which I love for many of the same reasons - great leading role, delightful guest stars, decent, clever mysteries that are solved by the end of each episode. And in an era where so much TV is so dark and depressing, "Elsbeth" stands out as a sweet, happy little treat.

GROSS: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new series "Elsbeth." It premieres tomorrow on CBS.

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about the impact of Christian nationalism on American democracy, including the movement's connections to Donald Trump and attempts to overturn the election. My guest will be Brad Onishi, author of "Preparing For War: The Extremist History Of White Christian Nationalism And What Comes Next." He co-hosts the podcast "Straight White American Jesus." I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.

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GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Therese Madden. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.