Blade Runner star Rutger Hauer did not see his character as a villain, and the actor took some exception to that notion while doing press for the film’s initial release.
The iconic Ridley Scott sci-fi movie set in 2019 Los Angeles starring Harrison Ford as a former police officer tasked with hunting down synthetic humans turns 40 on Saturday.
In an interview for the film’s 1982 release, the Netherlands-born Hauer, while being flattered by a journalist about his good looks, was asked why he would want to play a “villain” in the film when he was handsome enough to be the hero. A polite Hauer responded that he did not see his character, Roy Batty, in the same light.
“I don’t think this is a villain,” he began. “What is wrong with a man — from the point where they start chasing him, he just wants to live a little longer. He hasn’t done so much harm. You don’t see him do any harm, and then they start chasing him down. He has to fight once in a while because that’s survival.”
In Blade Runner, Hauer’s Roy Batty is a bioengineered humanoid, who, along with fellow Nexus-6 replicants Leon Kowalski (Brion James), Zhora Salome (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah) is being pursued by Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). The former LAPD officer is tasked with dispatching or “retiring” the replicants.
“I don’t think of it in those terms,” Hauer said in that same interview about hero and villain roles. “A good part is a good part. It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s more or less the American market that uses me, let’s say, in cold-blooded villain [roles].”
Largely misunderstood by the studio when it was made and then by audiences when it was initially released, Blade Runner underperformed at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics. However, it went on to become a sci-fi motion picture staple. The film is also notable for having seven different versions, a result of cuts and alterations demanded by the studio when it was released and restored over time for fans.
A sequel, Blade Runner 2049 directed by Denis Villeneuve, was released in October 2017.
Hauer died in July 2019 at the age of 75.
Watch the 1982 interview below.