De Armas plays the artificial companion in Blade Runner 2049, a character whose affection is either genuine or a product feature, and the film deliberately never answers. She plays sincerity throughout rather than hinting at programming, which leaves the audience to decide and makes the eventual scenes considerably harder to watch.
She is Cuban, trained in Havana and began her career in Spanish language film and television before moving to English language work, which she has described as requiring her to learn the language for the job. She has since moved between action, biographical drama and comedy at major scale.
Recurring subjects: authenticity and whether it can be verified, women whose function in a story is contested, and warmth played without irony. She commits fully to sentiment, which is precisely what makes ambiguity work: nothing in the performance signals that the audience should be suspicious.
Her science fiction role is widely discussed in relation to how the film treats artificial companionship, and she has drawn an Academy Award nomination for a biographical lead. Her career is a common example of a performer building an international filmography in a second language.
For viewers who want a supporting performance that carries a film's central question. Suited to anyone approaching the science fiction sequel, and to those interested in Spanish language cinema before the crossover.
