Harrison Ford Isn’t In ‘Blade Runner 2’ That Much, Teases Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling has revealed that he filmed most of Blade Runner 2049 without Harrison Ford, which suggests that the 74-year-old’s role as Rick Deckard in the sequel won’t be as substantial as was originally predicted.

Ryan Gosling made this admission while talking to Fandango about his work in La La Land, the musical from Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) that hit select cinemas on Friday and will be released across the U.S. in the coming weeks. The discussion soon turned to Blade Runner 2049, though, and as you’d expect Ryan Gosling heaped praise on Harrison Ford, before teasing just how brief his part is. Gosling remarked,

“I can say that we shot for many months before Harrison [Ford] arrived, and obviously there was a lot of anticipation as to when he would show up and how that would be, and it was just a relief. The second he got to set, he just rolled up his sleeves and we all just got to work. It was a real great pleasure to get to work with him.”

We don’t know too much regarding Blade Runner 2049 at the moment, except that it’s set 30 years after the 1982 original and that Harrison Ford is once again portraying Replicant hunter Rick Deckard in the film. Other than that information is at a premium. What we do know is that the acting and creative talent on Blade Runner 2049 makes the film one of the most anticipated of 2017.

That’s because it is being directed by Denis Villeneuve, who over the last few years has proven himself to be one of the most impressive directors in Hollywood. The Canadian director has overseen Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015), and Arrival, which was released last month to ecstatic reviews and is being touted as an awards season contender.

It has also been written by Michael Green, who most recently wrote the script for the upcoming Logan and Alien: Covenant, as well as the screenwriter for the original Blade Runner Hampton Fancher, too. Meanwhile, Roger Deakins, one of the most renowned and celebrated cinematographers in world cinema who has received thirteen nominations for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, is plying his trade on Blade Runner 2049, too.

Its cast is also rather supreme, as Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford will be joined by Robin Wright (House Of Cards), Dave Bautista (Guardians Of The Galaxy), Ana de Armas (Hands Of Stone), Mackenzie Davis (The Martian), Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), and Jared Leto (Suicide Squad).

Based on the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”, Blade Runner is set in a dystopian Los Angeles where the Tyrell Corporation have created genetically engineered replicants, which are indistinguishable from humans, to work in dangerous conditions on off-world colonies. They are banned from Earth.

Those Replicants that set foot on Earth are then hunted down and killed by police officers known as Blade Runners, and Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi thriller revolves around Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) hunting down a group of escaped replicants in L.A. While it was initially a box office flop, grossing just $33.8 million from a $28 million budget, while its reviews were also polarizing, Blade Runner went on to achieve a cult status amongst film fans, and is now deemed a classic.

There’s hope that Blade Runner 2049 will live up to this success, too, with Harrison Ford previously telling Ridley Scott that it was one of the best scripts that he’s ever read. Ridley Scott, who is producing Blade Runner 2049, made this admission back in September, 2015, telling the Hollywood Reporter, “I got Harrison [Ford] back. Harrison said, ‘Meh,’ and I said, ‘No, read this,’ And I think he said, ‘This is the best script I’ve ever had.’ We’ve been working on it for a couple of years.”

We’ll find out if Blade Runner 2049 can live up to the hype when it’s eventually released on October 6, 2017.

[Featured Image by Warner Bros]