Dune 2 star Rebecca Ferguson reveals she was ‘screamed’ at by former co-star

Rebecca Ferguson has said she refused to work with a former co-star again after they screamed and swore at her on set.

The Swedish actress, 40, recalled the first time she spoke up for herself on set during an appearance on Tuesday’s episode of the Reign with Josh Smith podcast.

The Dune star claimed she worked with an “absolute idiot of a co-star” who was “number one on the call sheet”, who shouted at her and said: “You call yourself an actor? What the f*** is this?”

“I did a film with an absolute idiot of a co-star and it doesn’t matter who it was. I’m going to try and not give this away.”

She clarified it was not her The Greatest Showman or Mission Impossible co-stars Hugh Jackman or Tom Cruise.

“I remember there was a moment and this human being was being so insecure and angry because this person couldn’t get the scenes out,” she said. “And I think I was so vulnerable and uncomfortable that I got screamed at.”

“But because this person was number one on a call sheet, there was no safety net for me. So no one had my back. And I would cry walking off set.”

“This person would literally look at me in front of the whole crew and say ‘You call yourself an actor?’, ‘This is what I have to work with?’, and ‘What the f*** is this?,’ in front of the whole crew. “I stood there just breaking,” she added.

Ferguson hoped she would have the support of producers in that situation but said she had “no one”.

However, she claimed that when she returned to filming the next day, she decided to speak up and told the person: “You get off my set. I’m gonna work [with] a tennis ball I never wanna see you again”.

Tennis balls on sticks are used as stand-ins to substitute actors who are absent and might be added in later by visual effects or CGI.

“I remember being so scared,” she said. “I looked at this person and I said, ‘You can F off.’”

She said the producers couldn’t ask the actor to leave the set because they were “number one”.

Ferguson said that she insisted she would only act to the back of her co-star’s head.

She claimed she then went to the director after the scene demanding to know why her co-star’s behaviour was allowed to continue.

“The director said, ‘You’re right. I am not taking care of everyone else. I’m trying to fluff this person. Because it’s so unstable.

“It was great from that moment, but it took so long for me to get to that. It’s within my last 10 or 12 years and I’ve acted since I was 16,” she added.

At the end of the podcast episode, Ferguson pretended to reveal who the A-list actor was, by saying: “And the person is…” before stopping herself and laughing.

Ferguson has reprised her role as Lady Jessica, the mother of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, in Dune: Part Two, which is now out in cinemas on Friday (1 March).