Many Dune fans forget that a minor character has the book's opening line. The above passage belongs, of course, to Princess Irulan, daughter of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, chronicler and eventual wife -- in name, at least -- of Paul Muad'Dib Atreides.

Julie Cox, who plays Irulan in the new Frank Herbert's Dune miniseries, told SPACE.com that adapter and director John Harrison beefed up her part. The main addition shows Irulan going to Atreides home planet Caladan to tell them the Emperor wants them to replace the Harkonnens on Arrakis.

"There's a standoff," said the English-born actress. "Paul assumes she's a floozy and she shoots back. It's more playful. There's just a spark."

Cox said Harrison added this scene to make her more of a love interest and to offset the weirdness of Paul marrying a stranger at the end.

"They've made her a more active role," she said. "There's a connection made that lasts throughout the whole story."

Whoa. A love interest? All Dune fans worth their weight in water know that while Paul needs to marry Irulan to solidify his claim to the Imperial throne, Fremen babe Chani is his one true squeeze. So why add this extra wrinkle?

Remember, Irulan has a much larger -- and more mischievous -- role in the Dune sequels. Since the SCI FI Channel and production company BetaFilm, which owns the rights to all six books in the original saga, have already planned to adapt the second book, Dune Messiah, the expanded role may foreshadow additional royal shenanigans.

But it's Chani who Paul's mother, a concubine herself, is talking to when she speaks the novel's last line, "history will call us wives." How did Cox the actress and Irulan the character deal with the competition?

Memorably, Cox said.

"The final scene was shot in a very theatrical way. Paul recognizes her. She's been following him on his journey. She offers herself as a sacrifice and acknowledges that Chani will be his real wife," she said. "The final moment where she walks across that vast space to present herself to Paul Atreides will be very moving. It's very sad because she's left alone."

"A good thing as long as they don't leave pollution in space."

To get into character, Cox said she built off Irulan's career as a historian -- her academic nature and objective perspective on the story's events.

"She's noble, trying to do good," she said. "She's frustrated by her father because she sees him making mistakes. She monitors what's going on." Cox added that Harrison included extra shots of Irulan in the library. "She's always returning to her scholarly pursuits."

But Irulan is hardly a nebbishy bookworm. She's supposed to be dazzling. Cox said she tempered Irulan's studiousness with a reminder from Harrison that Dune works on many levels -- that it's about court intrigue and politics as well as nature and ecology.

"She is nobility and has great pride in that. She will always serve that duty," she said, later adding that she filled Irulan's elaborate costumes by drawing on her theater experience.

"Being English helped. I've done a lot of costume dramas where you have to hold yourself a certain way," she said. "And she's very catlike -- confident, poised. People in that position never hurry."

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now) gave each actor a color to embody. What was Irulan's? Indigo.

Cox said some of the most fun moments during the shoot happened when the different worlds of Dune would collide -- between soundstages.

"We had both units working at the same time, doing the Imperial scenes on one stage and the battle scenes on another," she said. "I'd pop out for a cigarette and ask them how their scenes were going and they'd say, 'Oh, shut up,' covered in dust."

Cox has been a sci-fi fan for most of her life, having read Dune when she was 15. Her other favorite SF authors include Isaac Asimov, William Gibson and Iain M. Banks, a Scottish SF writer Cox champions.

One of Cox's more eccentric favorites is the underrated 1980 film Flash Gordon, (produced by Dino De Laurentiis, who also backed David Lynch's Dune). Cox specifically said the fight between Timothy Dalton and Sam J. Jones on the floating, moving, deadly spike platform is "awesome".