Blade Runner 2049: How Ana de Armas, Mackenzie Davis and Sylvia Hoeks’ characters shaped the film’s driving theme of love
The sequel advances the original story’s theme, this time through the characters of Joi, Mariette and Luv who all examine love in varying ways
One of the big themes in the original Blade Runner was the search for the meaning of love as played out in Rick Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) final assignment. Blade Runner 2049 not only continues the story of the efforts by law officials – known as blade runners – to deal with robotic replicants but the journey of K (Ryan Gosling) who is also dealing with aspects of love seen through his relationship with Joi (Ana de Armas).
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“The definition of love is definitely a theme in this film,” de Armas says. “Joi is meant to satisfy people’s needs in a very specific way and Officer K’s needs are different. Joi has to adapt and process what she needs to give him. She learns throughout the film and she transforms.
“Love is something you can really see in her. [But] she’s probably the one in the movie that shows more love than anybody else.”
This search for the meaning of love was something that de Armas understood from her first meeting with director Denis Villeneuve. There are a lot of other things going on in her life but at the very heart of Joi’s character is the continuation of the examination of love introduce in the original film.
This becomes very clear in scenes between de Armas and Gosling. “Love is missing in K, and together with Joi, they become one,” de Armas says. “She completes him. Everybody wants a Joi.”
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In the perspective of my character, what it means to be human is the ability to appreciate the brevity of life.
But, because there were so many deeply emotional scenes, the shooting schedule was so long and the actors often worked on real sets (not those created through computers in post-production), it was tough for de Armas to get away from the work.