The Rebecca Ferguson performance inspired by Donald Duck: “I don’t know where I was going with it”
Not to be confused with the X Factor runner-up of the same name (she’ll always come to mind first for me, anyway), you probably recognise Swedish actor Rebecca Ferguson from many huge blockbusters, which she seems to collect and add to her resumé with extreme ease.
Seriously, one of her first big film roles was in the Mission: Impossible franchise alongside Tom Cruise, and she has since appeared in the likes of The Greatest Showman and even the Men in Black series. Nothing is too out of reach for Ferguson, who has climbed up to the biggest moment of her career to date with her role as Lady Jessica in the Dune series.
Portraying the mother of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, she plays a vital role in the films, with the actor set to reprise her role in the third instalment scheduled for 2026. The character means a lot to Ferguson, who has received widespread recognition for her performance, which includes winning a Saturn Award for Dune: Part Two. But strangely, one of the characters she looked to for inspiration was Disney’s beloved Donald Duck.
Let me explain. In Dune, Lady Jessica is part of the Bene Gesserit – a powerful sisterhood with intense physical abilities, including the knack for controlling people with just their voice. They can command anyone by simply tweaking the tone they use, putting them completely under their spell. So, when it came to nailing that vocal delivery, Ferguson had to find the perfect approach. And who better to take inspiration from than one of the most iconic voices in pop culture?
Talking to Polygon, Ferguson revealed: “The Voice was a fun thing to play around with. When we were on set, Denis [Villeneuve] didn’t really have a clear idea of exactly how it would sound which gave such a freedom for me and everyone else to to interpret it the way they wanted to, and that’s a creative freedom.”
Being given such creative freedom as this as an actor is surely a delight, but Ferguson wasn’t sure what direction she wanted to take the voice. You don’t want to make it sound too silly after all, and there still has to be a level of believability that it could actually get people to do whatever you so desire.
“I actually started doing like, Donald Duck sounds, and I don’t know where I was going with it,” she added. “I thought, If I can play around and animate a sound, I think Denis will go, ‘Oh, that’s amazing. Let’s do that, Rebecca!’ Never happened. So we focused mostly on where the energy came from.
“It’s like yoga, it’s like meditation. If you are in complete calm, and in line with your thoughts and your soul and your body, there is a directness when you cut out all of the other stimulants around you,” Ferguson explained.
So, maybe her choice to take inspiration from Donald Duck wasn’t the greatest idea, but it certainly helped her to channel something into her performance that she needed in order to get into this unique frame of mind. In the end, the Bene Gesserit Voice was modified with special effects, but if you listen deep enough, you might just be able to hear traces of Donald Duck.
