Some actors arrive in science fiction hoping to look heroic. Robert Pattinson had a different ambition for Dune: Part Three: he wanted to look like he did not belong on this planet. That instinct suits Denis Villeneuve’s desert saga, where power is engineered, and familiar faces conceal something unsettling. Pattinson joins a world crowded with prophecy and paranoia, but his character brings a stranger threat: one that can change its face.

Villeneuve initially had a more ordinary idea in mind, but Pattinson’s appetite for the alien won out and gave Scytale his eerie look.

In an exclusive interview with Empire, Robert Pattinson said he entered the project wanting to look like an alien.

“I went into it being like, ‘I want to look like an alien,’ and initially Denis was saying, ‘Well, I think he’s got to fit in with everybody,‘” Pattinson recalled. He said he had felt a "little bit disappointed" when Villeneuve reasoned with him that the character, in fact, should look like a regular person. 

That changed before filming began. Villeneuve emailed the actor with a new visual idea, and Pattinson realised Scytale would be “very much not like a normal guy at all.” The finished look features pale skin, bleached hair and no eyebrows.

“It’s like he’s grown in a lab,” Pattinson said. “There’s a little element of a baby about him, which I really, really liked.”

The transformation Pattinson talked about with Empire also feels right for a character whose danger lies in being difficult to read. Scytale belongs to the Bene Tleilax, a secretive faction known for biological manipulation, and his shape-shifting abilities make the boundary between appearance and identity particularly slippery.

Pattinson’s laboratory-grown look gives that unease a physical form, steering away from the familiar science-fiction shorthand of making an antagonist imposing or conventionally monstrous. Instead, Scytale looks almost unfinished, as if someone assembled a human being from memory and deliberately left a few things out.

“I’m Super Angry About It”- Josh Brolin Has Beef With ‘Dune: Part Three’ Before It Hits Theatres

Villeneuve’s next chapter has more than a new face to introduce: it shifts the saga into the aftermath of Paul Atreides’ rise.

Set for release on December 18, 2026, Dune: Part Three adapts Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah, moving the story forward nearly two decades after Paul seized control of the Imperium. Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul, with Zendaya as Chani, alongside Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor-Joy, Javier Bardem and Jason Momoa. 

That time jump matters because Paul’s victory has never been the uncomplicated triumph it might have appeared to be. Dune: Part Two ended with him embracing the path to imperial power, setting a holy war in motion as Chani recoiled from the future he had chosen. Herbert’s Dune Messiah turns toward the consequences of that decision.

Denis Villeneuve directs and co-writes with Brian K. Vaughan. Robert Pattinson’s Scytale, a shape-shifting assassin from the Bene Tleilax, becomes a key new player in that threat. With Scytale’s unnerving design, Pattinson seems ready to bring a flavor of menace to Arrakis. In a universe where appearances can be weapons, his wish to look alien may be the most human thing about him.

'Dune: Part Three' Lives Up to the Hype as First Screenings Get Early Thumbs-Up

What do you think Scytale look like? Alien or human, or both? Let us know in the comments.