Blade Runner 2099 will waste no time putting Hunter Schafer through the ringer.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Schafer revealed new details about one of her first major scenes opposite Michelle Yeoh in Prime Video's upcoming sequel series, and it sounds exactly as brutal as you'd expect from this franchise.
Schafer, who plays Cora, a human hiding among replicants, revealed she was strapped to a platform, flipped upside down, sprayed with a hose and covered in a strange substance while being interrogated by Yeoh's Olwen.
"That was sort of an insane day," Schafer told Entertainment Weekly. "I was put through the ringer with that. Because I was strapped to this platform, flipped upside down, they're spraying me with a hose, and I'm covered in this weird goo that heals replicants. The amount of substances that I was covered in was kind of absurd."
Making the experience even more unsettling was Yeoh's performance as Olwen, a replicant nearing the end of her lifespan, whom Schafer described as "stoic and scary."
"Michelle was having a lot of fun with that scene being menacing," she said.
Yeoh said that was intentional. Rather than playing the scene with obvious aggression, she leaned into Olwen's unreadability, making it impossible for Cora to tell whether the replicant Blade Runner is angry, curious, or moments away from discovering her secret.
"You never know when she's angry at you or when she's just looking at you with curiosity," Yeoh explained. "And it's more scary. It's much more menacing."
"I would come close to her and almost caress her and take all that gooey stuff away from her face and her body," she continued. "And it's more scary when someone does that to you, because you know that they can kill you if they find you out."
That uneasy dynamic appears to be central to Blade Runner 2099. Although Cora and Olwen begin the series on very different sides of its human-replicant divide, Schafer teased their relationship ultimately becomes the emotional core of the story.
"I think it's ultimately about a relationship between Cora and Olwen," Schafer said. "At least, for me, that's the heartbeat of this story in 2099."
Schafer also teased that the pair gradually discover they have more in common than either initially realizes.
"They're both looking for something," she explained. "But on two completely different sides and experiences of life in L.A. at this time that we meet them. And they have more in common with each other than they think."
"It's not enemies to lovers," she continued, comparing their dynamic to the familar trope, adding, "but there are essences of that, and that they're building something there, whether they know it or not."
Schafer also commented on the bond the two actors formed on set, which she believes helped shape the complicated relationship between Cora and Olwen.
"She's such a sweet pea and we really found a kinship and a love on that set," Schafer said. "And I think it really helped develop this really kind of intricate, complicated bond that Cora and Olwen have."
Yeoh was similarly complimentary of her co-star, saying the pair found plenty of opportunities to have fun despite the physically and emotionally demanding production.
“Being with Hunter is fun. I adore her,” Yeoh said. “You know, it’s hard work. It’s physical. There are a lot of things happening. But we make everyone laugh. So we actually ended up having a lot of fun. It’s very emotional, so sometimes we don’t even know why we are laughing, but we are.”
Fifty years after the events of Blade Runner 2049, Los Angeles has been reborn, just not by humanity. Cora, a fugitive in a final bid to stop running, takes on one last identity: a Blade Runner. Forced to partner with Olwen, a Replicant days from dying, she hunts down a runaway hiding a truth that could collapse their fragile city,
Blade Runner 2099 premieres November 25 on Prime Video.