Michelle Yeoh explores replicant identity in Blade Runner 2099 role

Michelle Yeoh says her role as Olwen in the upcoming series *Blade Runner 2099* led her to explore what it means to be human. She plays a replicant whose manufactured life and approaching, preprogrammed death shape the character, in a story that also examines the blurred boundary between humans and synthetic beings.

Yeoh describes Olwen as fluid and unsettling, with no childhood or sense of private space, and says she wanted viewers to be unsure what she might do next. The series is set 50 years after the previous *Blade Runner* instalment, when replicants hold power and humans occupy a permanent serf class; Hunter Schafer plays Cora, a human pretending to be a replicant. Yeoh, who began as a dancer and action star, won the 2023 best actress Oscar for *Everything Everywhere All at Once*.