C
oming from the Quebec backwater
of Trois-Rivières can put a crimp on a
14-year-old’s craving for movies.
For the headstrong Villeneuve,
‘fanzines’ such as Fantastic Films and
Starlog were his only contact with the
outside world. He has a clear memory of
the day Blade Runner made the cover of
Starlog: a sombre-looking Deckard on the
case. He knew immediately that this was
grown-up science-fiction.
“The aesthetic impact of that film... My
God,” he recalls. “That was the moment
when I was starting to dream about being
a filmmaker.”
Cut to Los Angeles, 2013, and a
meeting with Alcon about Prisoners.
After a while, producer Andrew Kosove
apologetically told Villeneuve that he had
to cut their conference short: “Ridley Scott
is waiting for us. We want to do a sequel to
Blade Runner.”
“I was like, ‘Whoa!’” laughs Villeneuve,
giving it his best Keanu. As a fan it
sounded both insanely exciting and a really
bad idea. He would keep bugging them, the
crazy geek: “Don’t screw it up!”
A year later, during his shoot for Sicario,
he met Kosove again for lunch. This time
the producer slid an envelope across
the table, marked with the codename
‘Queensborough’. “This is the Blade
Runner sequel,” he said slowly. “We want
you to consider directing it.”
Villeneuve found himself in tears. Yet he
hesitated. Could he handle the pressure?
Could he live up to his 14-year-old
raptures? To his surprise, he found out the
answer was yes. “I realised I could do this.”
A few tweaks to the script aside, he
had one stipulation: he needed Scott’s
blessing. “I had to have Ridley out of the
way,” he explains. “Otherwise you feel like
a vandal in someone else’s building. This
movie had to be faithful to the poetry of
the first movie, but have its own identity.
Thankfully, he gave me full freedom.”
Nevertheless, watching the first dailies
felt very strange. “It was Blade Runner...
but from me.”W
ith the script calling for a younger Blade
Runner in Officer K, someone with the
same grave disposition as Deckard and a
glint of deadpan humour like Ford, only one
name had sprung to mind — Ryan Gosling.
“The part was written for Ryan right from
the start,” confirms Villeneuve. “He was
perfect.”
Gosling had likewise been 14 when
he first watched a VHS of the original,
borrowed from his uncle’s video store in
London, Ontario. “It wasn’t clear how I was
supposed to feel when it was over — it felt
so truthful even though it was a heightened
reality,” he says. The star of Drive said
yes the same day he finished the script,
unaware he was the only potential K.
Even when Scott handed the reins to
Villeneuve, Gosling’s enthusiasm never
waned. He had loved Prisoners, loved
Sicario, and they were both Canadian
boys, shocked to be handed the legacy of
this film. When they first met in New York,
Villeneuve leant forward conspiratorially and
said to his fellow countryman, “In my Blade
Runner, it snows.”
Ultimately, Gosling helped develop
the script — not only in terms of hisVision quest: Jared Leto plays a blind
scientist named Niander Wallace.
Director Villeneuve said the Suicide Squad
star went blind for real by wearing sight-
blocking contact lenses. “He entered the
room, and he could not see at all,” said
Villeneuve. “He was walking with an
assistant, very slowly. It was like seeing
Jesus walking into a temple. Everybody
became super-silent, and there was a
kind of sacred moment. Everyone was in
awe. It was so beautiful and powerful —
I was moved to tears. And that was just
a camera test!”