Dune: Part Two hunk Josh Brolin, 56, has responded to the swirling online rumors that he wants to sleep with his co-star Timothee Chalamet, 28. 

Josh recently went viral for writing a poem extolling the qualities of various Dune: Part Two actors including Timothee, Zendaya, and Florence Pugh.

But the lines about Timothee attracted the most fevered attention, such as the remark: ‘The way you hold my gaze makes me fear my own age.’

He also wrote: ‘Because something in me tells me you are going to offer me something and, for now, I’m not sure it’s going to be something I want anymore.’

Social media flew into a frenzy about the overheated passage, speculating that Josh had sexual designs on Timothee – and now, Josh has shared his take in Vulture. 

Dune: Part Two hunk Josh Brolin (left), 56, has responded to the swirling online rumors that he wants to sleep with his co-star Timothee Chalamet (right), 28

‘I love that there’s a poem that they exploited into the idea that I wanted to sleep with Timothee,’ the No Country For Old Men heartthrob said with a laugh.

‘I’m like: “You f***ing run with it.” The fact that I’ve been around for 40 years, and [Timothee] was somebody who was like a young basset hound when I first met him.’

Josh explained: ‘He’s really an absolute raw nerve, and watching this trajectory of what he’s become, and what he’ll continue to become.’

The stepson of Barbra Streisand discussed having ‘known Zendaya and having known Timothée, and then being turned on to Florence Pugh and Austin Butler, who I’m absolutely in love with and have gotten really close with.’

He graciously said of his younger colleagues: ‘I love how much they respect the work, and yet how much fun they have during the work.’

Josh confessed: ‘It’s a selfish thing. We have to be here for three months. I can’t look into a dark corner for three months,’ he noted.

‘So there’s a lot of poking fun, and then you go into this place, and then you do your work, and then you come out and you have fun again. I found that really satisfying.’

Josh’s poem first went public in the book Dune: Exposures, a behind-the-scenes volume published to promote the hotly anticipated movie. 

Social media flew into a frenzy about Josh’s overheated poem, speculating that Josh had sexual designs on Timothee – and now, Josh has shared his take in Vulture

Josh described Timothee as ‘really an absolute raw nerve, and watching this trajectory of what he’s become, and what he’ll continue to become’; the  pair are pictured in Dune: Part Two

In the film, Timothee’s character Prince Paul and Zendaya’s Chani conduct a steamy romance, set against the backdrop of their rebellion against an evil empire.

Chani is a tribal fighter who in Part One is a siren from Paul’s dreams but who is now his comrade in an armed struggle of resistance.

Paul has united with Chani’s desert tribe in their mutual battle against the imperial regime that oppressed her people and killed his father Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac).

As Paul trains as a warrior, he comes face to face once again with his old mentor Gurney (Josh Brolin), who was his family’s old weapons master. 

The movie was originally supposed to come out last year on October 20, but on account of various delays it finally arrived in theaters only this Friday.

A couple of postponements were enacted in order to work around the release dates of other movies, and the final delay came because of the Hollywood strikes.