‘Sometimes you have to take one for the team’: Stephen McKinley Henderson not ‘heartbroken’ over being cut from Dune: Part Two

Stephen McKinley Henderson expressed that he was “disappointed, but not heartbroken” after being cut from ‘Dune: Part Two’.

Despite not making the final cut, the 74-year-old actor enjoyed his time filming in Budapest while reprising his role as House Atreides mentat Thufir Hawat in Denis Villeneuve’s sequel.

He shared with 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 that his cut storyline remained “faithful” to Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, involving Hawat being captured and manipulating the Harkonnens against each other.

He stated: “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.”