For Timothée Chalamet, playing Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies has been the role of a lifetime.

After being cast nearly a decade ago as the series’ central character in the Québécois filmmaker’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s celebrated science-fiction novels, Chalamet, now 30, has spent a big chunk of his working life playing Paul — the warrior prince and chosen one of planet Arrakis.

That all comes to an end later this year when Dune: Part Three — the reportedly final entry in Villeneuve’s film franchise — concludes on the big screen.

“This was the most emotive on a personal level,” Chalamet said recently at a trailer event in Los Angeles that was also simulcast in Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, London, Berlin, Mexico City and Abu Dhabi. “I’ve been living with this for so long, and I’m so proud to live with it and proud to work with Denis and his family. So I felt like there was a finality in the exercise.”

Chalamet was 29 when he shot the third Dune movie, but said that when filming wrapped he felt he was “losing a part of me.”

Looking back, he said if he could have given himself advice when he took the role, it would have been to “savour it.”

“Savour every moment,” he said. “And try to realize how rare it is to work on something at this artistic level.”

Villeneuve, who joined his star to unveil the new trailer, quipped that his recommendation to his younger self would have been to “sleep as much as you can.”

But he went on to call it a honour to realize Herbert’s story on the big screen.

“It was the privilege of my life to work with all of you,” he said, turning to Chalamet.

When the film’s first trailer was unveiled in March, Zendaya, who plays Paul’s one true love Chani, said her role in the movies was also transformative.

“These movies have meant so much to me over the years,” Zendaya said. “I’ve literally been able to grow up my entire 20s doing them. They have a special place in my heart.”

In the newest trailer for Part Three, Paul is forced to grapple with the consequences for indulging in his unyielding thirst for power.

He has forsaken Chani to build an empire deemed politically necessary alongside Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan. As the years have drawn on, battle-scarred Paul has “conquered the galaxy” and “destroyed thousands of worlds,” but lost his soul.

Inspired by Herbert’s 1969 novel Dune Messiah, Part Three takes place 17 years after the events of the first two Dune movies and follows Paul as he seeks forgiveness for his murderous reign even though he’s “beyond redemption.”

Villeneuve says the movie will deal with the repercussions of Paul having gained too much control.

“It’s a different beast,” said Villeneuve, who is set to direct the next James Bond movie. “It’s more of a thriller and it’s more of an intense story. It’s definitely more emotional as well.”

Speaking to fans and press in Los Angeles, Chalamet teased that Paul’s journey serves as a “warning tale” about the moral decay that can happen to power hungry “charismatic leaders.”

“I trusted you,” a betrayed Chani says to Paul in the trailer. “You promised me that you would never take power in your name. You convinced me that this was your home — that I was your home.”

“People mistake Paul as a classic hero,” Chalamet said of his character’s dark turn. “(Herbert), wanted to warn the world what can happen when people blindly follow leaders, and that even the good can be corrupted.”

The four-time Oscar nominee added that Villeneuve’s adaptation, which he co-wrote with Brian K. Vaughan, “ties the story together” and adds in elements “that weren’t explicit in the book.”

“I’ve been living with this for so long, and I’m so proud to live with it and proud to work with Denis and his family. So I felt like there was a finality in the exercise.”

Dune: Part Three features many returning cast-members from the previous films, including Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, Josh Brolin and Anya Taylor-Joy. The film will also feature new additions like Robert Pattinson (as the villainous Scytale), Isaach De Bankole and Jason Momoa, whose Duncan Idaho character from the first film is resurrected as a ghola.

With epic battle sequences and large-scale war scenes shown in the new trailer, Villeneuve promised that the third entry will take the story in a new direction. “I said to my crew, ‘I don’t want us to walk in our own footsteps,’” he said. “I want something that would be fresh and new … It’s the last Dune movie and it’s very different.”

“The first two are siblings,” Chalamet added. “This one has its own energy. There’s a new tone to this.”

The Oscar-nominated moviemaker also gave fans a sneak peek at the seven-minute long battle scene that opens the film and was shot on Imax. The sequence will play ahead of Imax screenings of The Odyssey when that film opens in theatres next week.

“The movie is meant to be an Imax experience and to be seen on the biggest screen as possible,” Villeneuve previously said. “Those are epic cameras. Those are the best cameras in the world.”

Initially, Villeneuve planned to make another movie before returning to the world of Arrakis.

“After Part Two … I said to everybody, ‘I’m taking a break,’” Villeneuve confessed. But he felt the urge to pick up the third entry right away when he was awoken in the middle of the night with images in his mind of what Dune: Part Three might look like.

He also thought he had a “responsibility” to finish the story for the legion of Dune fans that helped propel the first two films to eight Oscars and $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office.

“I felt an appetite and a joy and a desire to finish that story,” he said.

Beaming at the adulation he got after the rapturous trailer premiere, Chalamet said he was glad that Villeneuve didn’t delay his conclusion to the trilogy.

“He could’ve taken years between these projects, but instead he buckled in and we got it done right away,” Chalamet said, beginning to smile. “I’m a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and I’m trying to imagine the last time someone knocked out three things consecutively. I’m very grateful to Denis. In Denis, we trust.”

Dune: Part Three opens in theatres on Dec. 18.

mdaniell@postmedia.com