Hollywood about Hungary: Austin Butler and Christopher Walken praise Budapest
Budapest has stolen the hearts of many world stars and celebrities in the past. Two Dune actors now join the list: Austin Butler and Christopher Walken have bestowed encomiums on the Hungarian capital after shooting the film here.
Both parts of Dune was shot in Budapest
As Player.hu reports, the first real blockbuster of the year, Dune: Part Two, like the first part, was shot in Budapest. A host of new actors have been recruited for the sequel to bolster the already illustrious cast, with Austin Butler joined by the ingenious Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, ruler of the universe.
This line-up has already done the Hungarian national image some good, as Butler raved about Hungary at the New York premiere of the second part of Dune.
I was in Hungary for the whole time that I was there. It’s beautiful!
he said to the interviewer talking to him.
He also said that he was dragged out of his hotel room by Florence Pugh, with whom he went on a trip and visited very special places. Check out the video below:
@enews Hey AustinButler, are you and #FlorencePugh taking applications for another hiking buddy? Dune: Part Two in theaters March 1.
After Austin Butler, Christopher Walken, interviewed by Vanity Fair, also praised Hungary. Walken returned to acting after a four-year hiatus. When asked by a reporter why he chose to say yes to the sequel to Dune, the actor replied:
“I had, of course, seen the first Dune a number of times. I loved it, and I admired [Villeneuve’s] movies. Arrival, I thought, was wonderful,” Walken told Vanity Fair.
“And to be with all those terrific actors — Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, and Stellan Skarsgård — and to go to Budapest, which is a beautiful city. And of course, that’s what I do for a living. It was only, I think, three weeks. So, everything about it was attractive.”
This is definitely great publicity for Budapest. It not only attracts tourists to Budapest, but also enhances the city’s already good international reputation among filmmakers and could attract more productions to the city in the future, Player.hu concludes.
Academy Awards/Oscars Gala 2024: Hungarian awardee
As we reported a few days ago, Hungary’s Zsuzsa Mihalek has won the 2024 Academy Award (Oscars) for Production Design. Mihalek won the acknowledgement for set decoration, along with James Price and Shona Heath for production design, for their work on director Yorgos Lanthimos’s feature Poor Things.
Mihalek had also won the British Film Prize, the BAFTA, for her work on Poor Things, but was not in London to receive the award. She was not there in Los Angeles for the Oscars either. Price and Heath mentioned that they missed “Zsuzsi” not being there.
In eight years, Zsuzsa Mihalek is the fourth Hungarian filmmaker to be honoured by the US Film Academy. In 2016, László Nemes Jeles received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Son of Saul, Kristóf Deák won the Best Live Action Short Film category for With Everyone in 2017, and Zsuzsanna Sipos received the Golden Statue for her work as the director of the first part of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune in 2022.
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Featured image: depositphotos.com