Hunter Schafer Goes Into Action Hero Mode for Blade Runner 2099, Continuing the Sci-Fi Series’ Queer Legacy
When Euphoria returned for its long-delayed final season, there were countless reasons why the new episodes weren’t as well received. But our number one complaint? Not nearly enough Hunter Schafer!
Seriously, how do you bring back one of your series’ biggest breakout stars and then just stick her in a high-rise apartment to paint for a minute or two in only a handful of the episodes?
Thankfully, it looks like Schafer’s got plenty more to do in her follow-up TV role, kicking *ss and taking all sorts of names as one of the leads in Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming miniseries Blade Runner 2099.
Set in a dystopian future LA first introduced in Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner, and taking place 50 years after its 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049 (see, we can do math!), its story envisions a world where sentient androids called Replicants are barely indistinguishable from humans, yet treated as second-class citizens who are designed for specific labor purposes and killed if they go rogue.
By 2099, the robots have revolted and now run the city, with humans outnumbered and overpowered. The series stars Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh as Olwen, an older Replicant who serves as an eponymous Blade Runner, tasked with tracking down a missing group of Replicants.
And Olwen is partnered with Schafer’s Cora, a younger agent who is actually a human fugitive, only pretending to be a Replicant. Whoa, trippy!
This week at Comic-Con fans got their first look at the series, which is set to premiere on Prime Video on November 25. A first teaser trailer shows of the franchise’s signature retro-futuristic film noir style, as well as heart-pounding thrills, with Schafer in particular throwing herself head-first into the action.
And we do mean head-first literally. During the Comic-Con panel, Yeoh spoke highly of her co-star, saying she’s “never seen a more fearless action hero,” while also letting slip that Schafer got a concussion while filming—so she bought her a baby safety helmet for protection.
Schafer, for her part, struggled to avoid spoilers as she hinted at the journey her character Cora will go on throughout the season. What we do know is that she’s extremely excited to join the revered Blade Runner universe and explore some new genres, harrowing stunts and all.
And we’re excited, too! Since Euphoria, Schafer’s taken on small but memorable supporting roles in films like Kinds Of Kindness, Mother Mary, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, even getting the chance to play a leading “Final Girl” in the gonzo body horror Cuckoo in 2024.
But Blade Runner 2099 feels like the true star turn she’s always deserved, leading an epic, action-packed extension of a beloved sci-fi franchise that’s coming to a mainstream streaming platform, with the no-doubt massive production budget and marketing support of Amazon behind it.
It’s not lost on us how incredible this is for a trans actress to get this kind of opportunity, and we have no doubt Hunter Schafer’s up to the task.
Hunter Schafer’s affirmation went viral after her passport renewal reverted her gender marker. She continues advocating for the trans community.
Of course, we’re already bracing ourselves for conservative backlash. We saw what happened when Elliot Page was cast in The Odyssey, with hateful transphobes rejecting the idea that he could play a Greek warrior (well, jokes on them because, even though it’s a small role, Page is the heart & soul of the movie). And considering Blade Runner has its own massive fandom, we’re sure there will be bigots who can’t handle the idea that Schafer is this story’s newest hero, the heir apparent to Harrison Ford in the original.
And to them we say: Shut the hell up! Schafer’s a bad*ss who is going to eat this role up. And, besides, Blade Runner has always been pretty queer when you think about it…
The Queerness of Blade Runner
Ever since the original premiered in 1982, folks have founds queers themes & allegories in the world of Blade Runner. Here, Replicants are ostracized outsiders, their very existence a threat to the norms of a patriarchal society not too far off from our own.
In that sense, Replicants are the other, who could ultimately represent any minority community, but there’s an extra potency in the question of whether or not they can “pass” as “normal humans,” evoking an entire history of queer & trans folks trying to pass as straight for their own survival, or otherwise doing their best to assimilate into a heteronormative world.
It doesn’t seem accidental that many of the Replicants we see in the movie are queer-coded in their behaviors and the way they present themselves, especially in contrast to the human characters, who are frequently shown to be cold and detached.
The Replicants want to live and crave connection, they’re passionate and show interest in the arts—Leon (Brion James), for example, has a photography hobby. Pris (Darryl Hannah) and Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) are sex workers. And then there’s Roy Batty (Rutget Hauer), leather-clad, bleach blond, and so in tune with his emotions he even sheds tears in the movie’s unforgettable rain-soaked climax. (“Batty,” by the way, is and old Jamaican slang word for gay—and we don’t think that’s a coincidence!)
There’s even a moment when Ford’s Rick Deckard gives an advanced Replicant named Rachael (Sean Young) a test to see if she’s human, showing her the image of a nude woman: “Is this testing whether I’m a replicant or a lesbian Mr. Deckard?,” she asks. Yes, she’s making a joke, but it can also be taken as a signal to draw comparisons between the two.
Because Blade Runner is ultimately about identity and what actually makes us human, questioning the very systems that determine that. And in turn, it calls to mind the way the anti-LGBTQ+ movement will try to paint queerness—and transness—as unnatural, as if it’s up to them how we can or can’t exist in this world.
But don’t just take our word for it: There are plenty of thought-provoking pieces that ponder the queer reading of this particular sci-fi series, like this one that explores ” The Querness Of A Replicant” and another that lays it all out quite simply: ” Blade Runner is Gay and I Can Prove It.”
All of which makes Hunter Schafer’s casting in the upcoming Blade Runner 2099 incredibly fascinating. It’s both an opportunity to finally see a trans actress as an action hero in a major mainstream piece of entertainment, and a continuation of the queer legacy of one of our most thought-provoking sci-fi stories.
Blade Runner 2099 will premiered November 25 on Amazon Prime Video.
As a man given a new identity from a shady company, Hudson’s performance is potent—and downright chilling.
Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to stay on top of the hottest stories in LGBTQ+ entertainment, politics, and culture.