Indira Varma is adding another big genre role to her repertoire. The Game of Thrones, Carnival Row, and Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi actor (pictured above) will now be Padishah royalty as Empress Natalya in the HBO Max and Legendary Television series, Dune: The Sisterhood.
Deadline broke the news that Varma would be joining already-announced cast members Shirley Henderson and Emily Watson on the show. We don’t much about Varma’s Empress, other than that she, according to Deadline, is “a formidable royal who united thousands of worlds in her marriage to Emperor Corrino.”
Varma is a fantastic actor, and I’ve no doubt that she’ll give an excellent performance as an Empress reigning over thousands of worlds. We don’t know many more details than that, though given Dune: The Sisterhood takes place 10,000 years before Paul Atreides gets way into spice on Arrakis, it’s possible that she and Emperor Corrino are—if not the first than one of the first—rulers of the Corrino Empire, which lasted until Paul Atreides came along.
The series’ focus, however, is on Henderson and Watson’s characters—Harkonnen sisters who help found the Bene Gesserit. Their two characters, Valya and Tula, are in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson‘s novel Sisterhood of Dune, the book the show is based on. No news yet on when the show will go into production or make its way to your television screen, but we’ll keep you updated!
