Stephen McKinley Henderson has 'no regrets' about his Dune: Part 2 scenes being cut

Some familiar faces were missing from Dune: Part Two. When Entertainment Weekly asked director Denis Villeneuve earlier this year about the hardest choice he had to make in adapting the second half of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel, the filmmaker had a ready answer: He was most bummed about losing Thufir Hawat, the Mentat adviser to House Atreides played by Stephen McKinley Henderson in 2021’s Dune.

So when EW spoke with Henderson about his role in Alex Garland’s upcoming Civil War, we wondered how he felt about not being part of Dune: Part Two. The actor confirmed that he did shoot scenes for the recent film that were eventually cut. 

“I shot stuff for them and had a great time with Denis and Austin Butler,” Henderson tells EW. “I got to have a nice lunch with Christopher Walken. It was a great thing to be a part of, and I understand it comes with the territory. Denis had to do the film that he had to do. So I just love being a part of it. No regrets.” 

In Herbert’s novel, Hawat survives the massacre of House Atreides (depicted at the end of Villeneuve’s previous film) and is forced into being a minion of the villainous House Harkonnen. So that’s why he would’ve been interacting with Butler’s character, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. 

Is there a chance we might see that footage someday? Henderson certainly doesn’t think so (“you’ll never see it,” he says) and Villeneuve has previously said that he has no intention of making “extended editions” of his Dune movies in the vein of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

“I’m a strong believer that when it’s not in the movie, it’s dead," Villeneuve told Collider in February. "I kill darlings, and it’s painful for me.”

Though he missed out on being part of the finished version of Villeneuve’s newest film, Henderson is glad he got to reunite with another auteur director, Civil War's Alex Garland, who also created the series Devs, in which Henderson starred.

“Denis told me months ago that he had to make that cut. It wasn't like I found out last week or anything,” Henderson says. “But what I was thinking was, ‘Man, I got Civil War.’ Quite honestly, this was the one that I was most looking forward to.”

So for those missing Henderson on screen, Civil War hits theaters on April 12. You can read EW’s in-depth preview here. 

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• Dune: Part Two director reveals the most painful choice he had to make in new adaptation
• Inside Civil War, Alex Garland's provocative take on what a second American conflict could look like
• Inside the Dune dynasty: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh discuss the battle for Arrakis