Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner sequel has a new addition to its cast, and the news is more fraught than it may have been a few months months ago, before said addition became the poster child for why method acting has been reduced to an annoying press stunt. Jared Leto — the Suicide Squad Joker who upstaged his own performance with his real-life Joker-y antics — is joining the future world of replicants.
According to Variety, Leto’s character is being kept a secret, at least for now. Which means that, at least for now, it’s impossible to predict exactly what Leto will have to do and who he’ll have to torment in order to get into character. (Or not — perhaps the disproportionality of criticism v. effort put into trying to impress will lead him to have a more standard collaborative process in future roles.)
His lucky future collaborators include previously-announced cast-members Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, and Harrison Ford, reprising the role of Rick Deckard. Little is known about any of their characters (of course with the exception of Deckard), except for that they exist a few decades following the first Blade Runner, which, incidentally, was set three years in the future from where we are now (2019, that is). Meaning that we have three years to bioengineer humanoids before that film risks obsolescence. (May not be too much of a stretch.)
The sequel is scheduled for release on October 6, 2017.