Steven Spielberg and Denis Villeneuve appeared together on DGA's Director's Cut podcast, where the filmmaker behind sci-fi classics Close Encounters of the Third Kind heaped praise on the Dune director for his latest directorial. Dune: Part Two is the second film in the action-packed franchise and it stars Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and others.

Here are the 4 best bits from the chat between the two auteurs:

Zendaya to be a director?

Spielberg questioned Villeneuve about working with the actors, and Villeneuve noticed that Zendaya appeared to be particularly interested in his direction, coming to set and observing him and listening even when she wasn't in the scene. “There's someone that spent a lot of time behind the camera listening -- Zendaya. She's very clever. I would not be surprised if one day we learn she wants to go behind (the camera).”

‘One of the most brilliant sci-fi films’

Spielberg was all praise for Dune: Part Two. “This is truly a visual epic, and it's also filled with deeply, deeply drawn characters. Yet the dialogue is very sparse when you look at it proportionately to the running time of the film. It's such a cinema. The shots are so painterly, yet there's not an angle or single setup that's pretentious. You have made one of the most brilliant science fiction films I have ever seen,” he said.

Sea-like desert

Spielberg also pointed out how Dune: Part Two made him yearn for water. “For all the sand you have in this film, it's really about water -- the sacred waters that you are yearning for; green meadows and the blue water of life. You filmed the desert to resemble an ocean, a sea. The sandworms were like sea serpents and that scene (of Paul) surfing the sandworm is one of the greatest things I have ever seen, ever. But you made the desert look like a liquid,” he said.

In the list of ‘world-builders’

Spielberg hailed Villeneuve as among the short list of ‘world-builers’ in Hollywood. “There are filmmakers who are the builders of worlds, and we know it's not a long list, but we know who a lot of them are.” Spielberg then went on to spell out the names of all the filmmakers, which included Georges Melies, Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen, Federico Fellini, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro. “But it's not that long of a list, and I deeply, fervently believe that you are one of its newest members of that list,” added Spielberg.

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