Jenna Ortega has spent the last few years playing characters with a dark streak, from Wednesday Addams to her turns in Scream and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Her next movie flips that completely. In Klara and the Sun, she plays a gentle, wide-eyed android who runs on sunlight and hope, and it reaches theaters in less than a month.
Klara and the Sun opens in theaters nationwide on October 23, from Sony Pictures Releasing, following its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 15. The film is directed by Taika Waititi from a screenplay he co-wrote with Dahvi Waller, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling 2021 novel of the same name.
Ortega stars as Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend, a companion android built to keep children company. Klara is not the newest model on the shelf. As Ortega herself put it, Klara is “a back-of-the-store robot,” an older model who does not stand out among the other Artificial Friends, or so it seems. She is purchased by a mother, played by Amy Adams, to be a companion for her teenage daughter Josie, played by newcomer Mia Tharia. When Josie falls seriously ill, Klara has to make difficult choices that put her own existence at risk, learning about human love and grief along the way.
The cast around them includes Aran Murphy as Rick, Josie’s neighbor and best friend, plus Natasha Lyonne, Steve Buscemi, Simon Baker, Jackson White, and Harry Greenwood. Michael Giacchino composed the score, and the film runs 116 minutes. David Heyman and Garrett Basch produce alongside Waititi, with Ishiguro serving as an executive producer.
For Ortega, the part was a deliberate departure. She told Esquire she had no idea what the film would look like until she stepped onto Waititi’s set, and that she was drawn to Klara precisely because the character is so different from the cynical, moody roles she is known for. “It was very exciting for me to play this naive, hopeful, optimistic character,” she said, describing the film as part of an “experimental phase” in which she is choosing stories and characters she feels truly connected to.
As TDN reported in June, Sony debuted the first trailer for Klara and the Sun, with Ortega introducing Klara in voiceover: “Hello, my name is Klara, I am an Artificial Friend.” You can watch it below.
Ortega’s calendar stays busy after October. She co-stars with Natalie Portman in Cathy Yan’s dark comedy The Gallerist, due December 4, and leads J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi fantasy The Great Beyond opposite Glen Powell, now dated October 1, 2027. But first, the sunniest role of her career arrives October 23.
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