Princess Irulan's relationship with her husband, Paul Atreides, is one of the more complicated dynamics in director Denis Villeneuve's Dune trilogy. The pair got married at the end of Dune: Part Two, but it was far from a love affair. It was a union of convenience, born from Paul's ambition to sit on the Imperial throne. Irulan agreed to the political marriage to save her father, Emperor Shaddam IV, whose life was under threat after Paul toppled him and seized power. There is obviously a lot of friction between the two, and Florence Pugh, who plays Irulan, has revealed that barely spending time with Timothée Chalamet, who portrays Paul, helped forge that tense dynamic on screen.
Florence Pugh made the reveal in the latest issue of Empire Magazine, where she discussed Dune: Part Three, the Warner Bros. blockbuster that arrives on December 18 in a same-day clash with Marvel Studios' Avengers: Doomsday that fans have dubbed "Dunesday." Dune: Part Three adapts Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah and jumps 17 years past the events of Dune: Part Two with Paul Atreides now deep into his tenure as Emperor. Paul wields immense power, enough to turn any man's heart cold, and the Lisan al-Gaib has burnt many bridges, including with his Empress. In the interview, Pugh highlighted the challenges Irulan faces and how "she's watched the world change":
"He's a hero that ended up with a lot of power, and it's twisted. She's watched the world change. She's watched morals change. She's watched people die. She's watching the [man] that she believed in turn from her."
Irulan is forced to live with a man who is worshiped as a god by a multitude of loyal followers. He has no feelings for her, and neither does she. Paul is instead in love with Zendaya's Chani, the Fremen girl from Arrakis who helped him ascend the throne. Even she is no longer on the same wavelength as Paul, since he ended up marrying someone else after all they had been through. Given all this tension, Irulan would naturally be tense and scared whenever she's around Paul, a genocidal maniac who can quite literally see the future.
It's imperative that the audience feels this immense tension. According to Pugh, she and Chalamet "barely had any time together," which likely made them feel like strangers while shooting their scenes and made the disconnection between Paul and Irulan easier to sell:
"Timmy and I barely had any time together. One of the things that I really loved being able to portray, and something that Denis really wanted to see, is that she's genuinely terrified. The fact that she hasn't seen her husband in a long, long time also adds to the fear. She's scared of being killed, being executed. She's been put in this position where she actually has immense power but is totally terrified of using it."
Pugh went on to describe Irulan's predicament as "wearing golden handcuffs," adding, "She's living a life that she's supposed to be grateful for. To me, it feels like she's obviously trapped." She teased that "there's one way out. But she can't do it alone." That last detail is one fans familiar with the source material will recognize, and it hints at where Dune: Part Three's story is headed.
In Dune Messiah, Irulan becomes entangled in a conspiracy against Paul, and the film has already set those pieces in motion. The trailers for Dune: Part Three showed Irulan in conversation with Robert Pattinson's Scytale, the shape-shifting Face Dancer plotting a regime change. In the trailer, Scytale floats the idea to Irulan, who replies, "Idiot. You've just signed our death warrants." That conversation perfectly sums up what Pugh means when she says Irulan knows what to do to be free of Paul but is too scared to do it.
Will Princess Irulan Muster the Courage to Take Down Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides?
Princess Irulan might be scared, but she's bound to eventually muster the courage to move against Paul. Dune: Part Three is set to be a very different movie from the first two entries, with Villeneuve describing it as "a thriller" that is "more action-packed, and more tense, more muscular." The thriller element comes from the conspiracy against Paul, and Irulan will eventually play her part. She could prove vital to defeating him, given her brilliant mind, her deep knowledge of the court, and her Bene Gesserit training.
The trailers show Paul as a tyrant in the final movie, and tyranny breeds discontent. Irulan could easily use her wits and her command of the political game to turn more people against Paul and join the rebellion against his regime. Chalamet himself has described Paul as having "become his worst vision," struggling to retain his humanity.
Pugh is being handed a much larger role in the third Dune movie, and Villeneuve has been promising that for a while now. "I approached her saying to her that Irulan will have the same journey from Part Two to the next movie as Chani [had] from Part One to Part Two," he explained to RadioTimes back in 2024. A bigger influence on the plot means Irulan will be actively working to bring Paul down from the shadows, and the trailer scene where she rebukes Scytale for raising regime change hints that she becomes a co-conspirator.
She likely only rebukes him because she believes there is a smarter way to operate than voicing such ideas out loud. Since the film is adapting Dune Messiah, her part in the conspiracy is all but confirmed, as she is a key player in the source material. In the book, she even goes so far as to secretly dose Chani with contraceptives for years to prevent her from bearing Paul's heirs.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
