Everything We Know About <i><em>Klara and the Sun</em></i>

Jenna Ortega is heading back to the big screen this fall—but in a role unlike any she’s played before. In Taika Waititi’s upcoming adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun, Ortega stars as an Artificial Friend, or AF, designed to ease loneliness in a near-future society. The film pairs her with Amy Adams, Natasha Lyonne, Mia Tharia, Steve Buscemi, and Aran Murphy.

After debuting its first trailer in June, Sony offered audiences a closer look at the sci-fi story ahead of its theatrical release this October. Here’s everything to know about Klara and the Sun so far.

Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s book of the same name, the film follows Klara (Ortega), a solar-powered Artificial Friend waiting in a store to be chosen by a family. Her chance arrives when Josie (Tharia), a teenager living with a mysterious illness, selects her despite Klara being an older model.

As Klara settles into Josie’s home, she begins to understand the complicated relationships surrounding the family while developing a deep bond with the teenager herself. Throughout the story, Klara’s optimism, curiosity, and unwavering loyalty shape her understanding of love, sacrifice, and what it means to care for another person.

The official trailer also hints at tension between Klara and Josie’s mother (Adams), who initially views the robot as a temporary purchase rather than a permanent member of the household.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel is set in a near-future America and unfolds through the eyes of Klara, an Artificial Friend who carefully observes the humans around her as she learns about love, hope, loneliness, and sacrifice. The book became a New York Times bestseller following its release.

Ishiguro serves as an executive producer on the film adaptation. Klara and the Sun is also the latest of his works to make the jump to the screen after 2010’s Never Let Me Go, starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley.

Yes! Sony released the film’s first trailer on June 22, introducing Ortega’s gentle, wide-eyed Klara. The preview opens with the Artificial Friend hoping she’ll finally be selected by a family before following her journey into Josie’s home.

The footage also offers the first look at Lyonne as the manager of the Artificial Friend store, Steve Buscemi in an undisclosed role, and Adams as Josie’s skeptical mother. By the trailer’s end, Klara becomes convinced the sun—which powers her own existence—may also hold the key to helping Josie and her family.

Watch it here:

Ortega leads the film as Klara alongside:

• Amy Adams as Josie’s mother
• Mia Tharia as Josie
• Natasha Lyonne
• Steve Buscemi
• Aran Murphy
• Simon Baker

Although Waititi is widely known for balancing comedy with heartfelt storytelling, he told Vanity Fair that Klara and the Sun became a much different creative challenge than he initially expected. “This one probably may even be my most dramatic film,” he said.

Waititi also explained that he wanted the film’s vision of the future to feel both familiar and slightly unexpected.

“I wanted to do something to subtly suggest that we somehow fucked everything up and they took the internet away from us,” he told Vanity Fair. “It’s like this idea that we went way back…and that, to me, is a more interesting version of the future, which I think, possibly, is actually a more realistic version of the future.”

Ortega, meanwhile, said playing Klara gave her the opportunity to explore a very different kind of character than audiences have come to expect. “I don’t think it was intentional at the moment,” she told Vanity Fair, “but in hindsight, maybe I did want a break from the angsty teen/young adult category I felt a bit stuck in sometimes.”

Klara and the Sun arrives exclusively in theaters on Oct. 23, 2026.