Blade Runner 2099 is hoping to pull a Big Little Lies and Feud: Bette and Joan by having both of its lead actresses nominated at awards shows.
Gold Derby has learned exclusively that Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer are submitting alongside each other in the Best Limited/Movie Actress category at the upcoming Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and SAG Actor Awards. Yeoh is no stranger to awards, having dominated the 2022 film season for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Euphoria star Schafer is still looking to break through on the awards beat.
The Prime Video limited series serves as a sequel to the motion pictures Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). The cyberpunk science-fiction franchise is based on the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
In Blade Runner 2099, Yeoh plays Olwen, a Replicant Blade Runner who’s nearing the end of her life. Schafer takes on the role of Cora, a human pretending to be a Replicant.
Prime Video is also submitting supporting actors Dimitri Abold, Lewis Gribben, and Tom Burke for awards consideration.
A limited series being nominated for multiple lead actresses is quite a rare achievement. The last time it happened at the Emmy Awards was in 2019 for When They See Us (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Niecy Nash). And in 2017, it actually happened twice, for Big Little Lies (Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon) and Feud: Bette and Joan (Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon).
The double-lead-actress Emmy feat also occasionally occurs with dramas — most recently in 2024 for The Morning Show (Jennifer Aniston and Witherspoon) — and comedies — most recently in 2020 for Dead to Me (Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini).
Here is how Prime Video describes Blade Runner 2099: “Fifty years after the events of Blade Runner 2049, Los Angeles has been reborn, just not by humanity. Cora (Schafer), a fugitive in a final bid to stop running, takes on one last identity: a Blade Runner. Forced to partner with Olwen (Yeoh), a Replicant days from dying, she hunts down a runaway hiding a truth that could collapse their fragile city.”
Silka Luisa serves as showrunner and executive producer along with fellow EPs Ridley Scott, Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Ben Roberts, David W. Zucker, Clayton Krueger, Tom Spezialy, Richard Sharkey, Michael Green, Cynthia Yorkin, Frank Giustra, and Isa Dick Hackett. Jonathan van Tulleken is an executive producer and also directed the first two episodes.
All eight episodes of Blade Runner 2099 will premiere on Nov. 25.
