Daily ‘Dune’: David Dastmalchian to Play Harkonnen Mentat

The remaining roles of Denis Villeneuve‘s upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s seminal science fiction novel Dune at Legendary Pictures are finally filling up, with an important piece of the Harkonnen puzzle fitting into place.

According to Deadline, David Dastmalchian (Ant-Man, Almost Human) has joined the film as Piter De Vries, Mentat in the service of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The Mentats are “human computers” in the world of Dune– hardcore training preventing them from breaking certain edicts…until Piter.

It is by will alone that he’ll set his mind in motion. No word on whether we’ll be seeing the juice of sapho stains.

Dastmalchian joins an already impressive cast including Timothée Chalamet as Paul, Rebecca Ferguson as his mother The Lady Jessica, Oscar Isaac reportedly joining the film as Paul’s father Duke Leto Atreides, Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Charlotte Rampling as the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as the Beast Raban Harkonnen, Javier Bardem as Fremen leader Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, and the rumor (that we’re still waiting to get confirmed) of Zendaya as Chani.

Cameras are reportedly set to start rolling sometime in March, and we’ll let you know what we hear about any other news from Arrakis.

Dune is set to hit theaters on November 20th, 2020.

Shai Hulud.