The Manipulation of Stories and Specificity of Character with ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Showrunner Alison Schapker

From the expansive universe of Dune, created by acclaimed author Frank Herbert, and 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides, DUNE: PROPHECY follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit. DUNE: PROPHECY is inspired by the novel SISTERHOOD OF DUNE, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

For those familiar with the original text of Dune, written by Frank Herbert, it's a laborious read. While there is a strong backbone and foundation for the story and characters, it can be a rather confusing slog to keep track of who is who, where is where, and what does this mean again. The filmmakers behind the latest Dune films, part one and two, did the text justice, breathing new life into the characters and tracking all those storylines and characters with grace. (Not to knock David Lynch's take, which also was laborious to watch, the production design was terrifically otherworldly.)

While the new HBO series is based on a different set of text, Sisterhood of Dune, written decades after the original “Dune bible” by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson – I’m sure there was also a lot at play in managing this complicated story web, from how do you keep true to the original tone, character voices, and above everything else – the world? Well, luckily for us viewers, Alison Schapker, the showrunner of Dune: Prophecy, and her team did the required heavy lifting, with a deep focus on what was important in the source material to what was important to them as storytellers. Dune: Prophecy is undeniably good TV.

Alison Schapker recently spoke with Script about the development and adaptation process, character development, her emotional connection to the story and characters, women’s roles in the Dune universe, navigating a world full of truth and lies, exploring sexuality in storytelling, and more. Plus, she offers great advice on adapting existing IP with a strong fanbase.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Let’s talk about the adaptation process and the development strategy you had with your co-developer Diane [Ademu-John], but also the importance of character and their voices and how that shapes the show.

Alison Schapker: I came on in the summer of 2022 and very much at that time the sort of premise for the show was set. And some of that was because it was very clear that everyone was working from the source material of the Sisterhood of Dune and Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's Schools trilogy. So we knew we were telling the origin story of the Bene Gesserit. And right there in the books, you have two Harkonnen sisters at the center of this institutional sisterhood and a sort of sense of the world we were going to be exploring and the questions we were going to explore. Like, what does it mean to have a Harkonnen family that would one day become the uber villains of Dune at the start of this institution, at a very fragile time.

And one of the things that was important to me in working with the material...in building out, which I did for two years after that is what you said, which is character, really trying to ground the story in specificity of character, and letting everyone, even our acolytes, we tried very hard to give everyone a real point of view, a backstory, a sort of a worldview, that would make them unique and nobody's replaceable. Nobody can be interchangeable.

Sadie: Was there a personal emotional connection to the material, especially with these characters and it being female-centric and driven? There are women in different hierarchies, in this society, I just feel like there's a lot of subtext at play here too.

Alison: It was exciting to me. And I do want to credit Dune on the one hand...it is a universe that allows women to be power players, very much in the Imperium. And even in our material, we're setting our story in an early time period, 10,000 years before the films. And humanity is just a few generations out from a massive struggle for sort of existential survival. Even from the heroes and martyrs of the war.

And then, of course, the Sisterhood is starting up, and they have a very specific reason for being an all-female institution. It's kind of grounded in this, I want to say, skill or power, that the founder sort of discovered, which was unlocking the genetic memory of all her female ancestors and accessing the wisdom of and the pain of many generations who come before and that expanding her vision for what the Imperium needed, and really feeling a calling that she needed to guide the Imperium forward and unlock this skill in other women. And it was a female-based skill, and that's part of the reason that she recruits only women to kind of pass on this knowledge. That's just all the specific ways women are centered in the story already.

But yes, to tell that story now, to have it be embraced now as the next place to go, sort of in the Dune-iverse, and to put so many women front and center to the narrative, the Harkonnen sisters - and women we're going to explore at different time periods of their lives, both the coming of age story of Valya Harkonnen as the second Mother Superior, but also a leader who's mature and grown her institution and is under crisis and is in a more mature part of her life. And how does she react? And what does it mean that they are both, on the one hand, occupying a public role, and they have a mystique, and they're out there saying, we can do things for you, people in power, that nobody else can do. 

They have their skill of being able to be basically a human lie detector, it makes them very valuable, and they get basically employed by all these great houses and the Emperor, and their skill gives them access. But then the idea that there's this whole shadow layer to the organization, and actually that's the tip of the iceberg in terms of their power and how they're wielding power, and what does it mean that they are wielding so much power from the shadows and pulling levers and manipulating people and have no problem doing it for the long game. They don't feel like they need to be transparent with everyone they're interacting with. 

And how much of that is a choice, and how much of that is a role that they are in some ways forced into by the way power is structured. And who tends to be leading the great houses and the Imperium, which, to this point, are mostly men.

I think that's really pertinent. I think that that's very relevant. And how comfortable are we with women up front and not and then also, what do I think both women specifically, but also, how do we feel about institutions? Whether they're all women or they're not? What I love about it is I'm not trying to say any one specific thing about women in power, I'm trying to show a bunch of women who are in power and men, and they're all wielding it for different reasons to different ends, and women are as much players as anybody else, but I love centering them in the narrative.

Sadie: Without going too far into spoiler territory, there were a couple of lines of dialogue and moments that stood out to me. In episode one, during one of the Sisterhood tests, there’s this discussion about how lying is like a survival tactic. And then later on in episode three, one of the elder sisters says, “Hubris brings division.” And I feel like that line and moment just complement each other so well. They both anchor what this series is.

Alison: I think it's really true and relatable that we don't live in a sort of perfectly transparent state all the time where we're authentic with everyone, and that lying is effort, and it takes work, and it takes physical work, and that's part of as human evolution has gone forward, and these women are out on the edge, they're able to kind of perceive. But I do think, in a society that has so much political power is bound up in the manipulation of stories and what stories are we going to believe about our leaders, about our institutions, where do we put our faith? Who do we trust? Who do we not trust? That to me, is central. How do you live in a world that's full of truth and lies and where everyone could be truthful or lying at any moment, and it's disconcerting.

And you see why, ‘Oh, it'd be really nice to have somebody navigate that terrain,’ because I think we're all groping for the skills we need to deal with our information ecosystem and the stories we're being given and what we choose to believe and what we're telling ourselves. And so, I think that truth and lies are bound up in narrativizing story. And these women are all about what story is getting told at any given moment.

Sadie: For you and the writers’ room, how do you map all that out and keep track of the web of lies, and then what the truth is behind it?

Alison: It's really fun. It's got a bit of a spy genre sense. People are occupying positions, you know, at certain moments in their day, and then you realize, ‘Oh, their agenda is much more complicated.’ We just at any moment are trying to be very clear on what a character wants truly, and how are we getting that out in the story, and then when are we going to be enjoying their lives, or the stories they're telling? We definitely are constantly mapping that.

Sadie: For me personally, as a viewer, I just can't stand sex scenes in shows or movies, because they just feel like plot filler. But as I was watching this, I had the a-ha moment of, ‘Oh, I see what you guys are doing!’ You’re utilizing this as a storytelling device, especially for characters on how they manipulate and deceit one another. It’s not just sex for sex's sake.

Alison: Not for sex's sake, but to have it serve story, and to have it serve a sort of full story. And I feel like, on the one hand, the source material, certainly sexuality is at play in the story. And it's at play in the Sisterhood, which is so nice, like they're not a celibate organization, they're not a religious organization that's based on a kind of sexual prohibition. In fact, they're about super controlling their mind and bodies to the point where they can actually wield their pheromones, and have effects on people. So, I think we'll see the Sisterhood, like you said, and that's, by the way, that's as messy for them as it is for the people outside. Even in the in the films, 10,000 years from now, Lady Jessica, was supposed to do one thing, and then falls in love and ends up having a boy and not a girl and you just realize, no story is perfectly controllable. And then, even in the sex that we depict between our characters who are just out having sex, it's part of the story. It's part of their character. Have you seen episode two?

Sadie: Yeah, I've seen the first four episodes.

Alison: That quite consciously, was trying to turn a sex scene on its head, to sort of set expectations on the one hand. And you think, ‘Oh, Constantine…’ we're learning about him as a character, and that he gives into, sort of his desires, and he's a bit boundaryless, and maybe has substance issues - that rebellion and that kind of wayward youth. But on the other hand, to discover that actually he's not in charge of that scene in the way that we thought, and that actually she had the agenda the whole time, and that the consequences are going to be played from her perspective was fun! I felt like that was a nice way to both stake a claim and say, ‘Listen, this is TVMA. We're not going to hold back.’ In the sense of, if we want to depict sexuality, we can, but I wanted to give it a spin, or feel hopefully not just the same old way to go. [laughs]

Sadie: In terms of establishing the tone for this series, from what you put on the page with your writers' room to bringing your key creatives on like your director, production designer, and your DP down to your sound designer, I'm curious about what key components were important to you, while also still tipping your hat to the Dune movies, but also making it your own?

Alison: We wanted to do grounded sci-fi that could feel like it was partaking in the Dune universe as the films depicted. So, obviously we can't be the films, nor were we. And TV is its own medium, and it's not like we thought we were making an IMAX film, but we did feel a sense of both wanting to reach very high, to try and achieve scope and beauty and elegance in our series as well. And we, I think, all the people like you've mentioned, like the director, the production designer, our visual effects team, really, everyone who was building and creating was doing so with a real sense of like, not only were the majority of them already Dune fans, but they wanted to do right by the material, but also it's an exciting time to be a Dune fan, and a lot of that is because of the movie.

So yes, so we wanted to let that inform our tone, but at the same time, carve our own lane. And part of that, I think, was going to worlds that the movies are not, and seeing planets that maybe for the first time have been put on the screen or shown in this new way. And that to me, was what was so rewarding. Because the movies take place in the majority on Arrakis, and Arrakis, of course, is important, and is important to our story, but for season one as exerting a real pull from afar and it has an economic pull and a societal pull, and a psychological pull, and it's there, but we are on the Imperial planet. We are going to Wallach (IX) nine, and seeing where the Sisterhood is based, we're going to go to the home planet of the Harkonnens. 

And those worlds had nothing, and that was sort of, how do you build a world that feels in keeping with the universe we're trying to speak to, but also has room to let everyone create, to give Dune all that they want to give it. I mean, it really was a real labor of love. And I underline both labor and love [laughs] people really worked hard to try and get something special on the screen.

Sadie: You can definitely tell everyone is in service of story. I was watching an interview with Emily Watson about her working with a voice coach to learn how to tap into her own voice, and for most, it’s something you just don't think of as a viewer, how much labor and love goes into just crafting something like this.

Alison: That's so true. I appreciate your observation of that, because there were a lot of ways we were trying to make time for that on a TV schedule, but make sure that people had time to do the work they needed to do to achieve. So, people learned battle language - that actually is from the films, we worked with the guy who was the linguist in charge of that. The older actors and the younger actors - Jessica Barden as Young Valya and Emily Watson as Valyan in charge. [laughs] All those pairings, had rehearsal time and worked together so that we would hopefully convey on screen some of the intimacy of what it was like to sort of see a character and really believe a character growing over time. And that was really fun, and it felt almost like a little Theater Workshop within...there was just a lot of ways we were trying to take care with the performance, and all the stuff that goes into the props and the sets and all that.

Sadie: From your experience on this show, any advice for adapting existing IP? I feel like you have to be aware of two things at once, fan service, but staying true to what resonates for you as the writer.

Alison: That's such a great question and such a lifelong process to figure out, but I would say I do think world-building is something that's cumulative, and that every sort of small decision you're making there are no kind of small decisions, because really, your world is going to be the sum total of every choice that you're making. And I try and really worry about them, sort of one at a time, and kind of really be present and trust that if it's being filtered through you and your core group of the creative team, that if you're making the best choice at any given moment, that that's what you kind of need to worry about for the day - and obviously looking ahead to the ones coming up. So, I would say that, because sometimes I think if you look at world-building on a whole scale, it's daunting to the point oh, my god, unwieldy. And so, I just sweat the details.

And then as far as adapting, I think we try and be emotionally connected to the story so that decisions like whether, ‘Can we include a scene or not include a scene, or does this need trimming or pruning? Or this is undeniable? We need to do it.’ Some of that is really trusting your own barometer as an audience member and trust that. 

The HBO Original Six-Episode Series Dune: Prophecy is available to stream on Max, with new episodes debuting on Sundays.