As Netfix launches its adaptation of Richard Morgan's novel, the cast consider the dangers of the wealth gap and why going naked marked a new phase in Joel Kinnaman's life

Dystopian futures have rarely been as in vogue as they are at the moment. The Handmaid’s Tale, Electric Dreams, Westworld and Black Mirror have all recently had their own stab at predicting how social chasms and advanced technology may take us to dark, terrible places.

Now Netflix are replacing the cancelled Wachowski sci-fi drama Sense8 with a new, Blade Runner-style 10-part drama that boasts a mammoth budget, and a plot that raises serious questions about class and racial identity. Plus, a lot of nudity and violence.

Based on the hit 2002 novel by the English writer Richard Morgan, it imagines our universe, hundreds of years from now. Other planets have been settled by humans and by downloading human consciousnesses onto a drive – known as a "stack" – it’s possible to plant people into different bodies (or "sleeves"). In fact, the only way to truly kill someone is the destroy the stack itself.

The story is as much a cautionary tale against the excesses of the one per cent and the ever widening, exploitative gap between those who have a lot, and those who have little. In this future, you need to be pretty darn rich to live again, and even richer if you want to be in a nice body. Here, deceased grandmothers can join their families for the holidays but, as we see happen to the grandmother of Detective Kristen Ortega (Martha Higareda), it might be in the body of a tall, tattooed former gangster.