Mr. Hauer was born in Utrecht, the same city as my dad. Does that give me some affinity with him? Of course, not. But it means I know he grew up in a typical Dutch place, flat all around, canals, dikes and windmills. It’s an old part of Holland, it’s the medieval centre. So, it seems only appropriate Rutger would first make his name playing a Dutch knight on TV, play a knight in his most beloved role, although not his most iconic, and later to be made a knight for his services to Dutch culture.
Blade Runner was not the first time I’d seen Rutger Hauer and it’s not the first time I felt there was something unique about this actor. His first English speaking film was Nighthawks (1981), he played the charismatic but villainous terrorist against Sylvester Stallone’s bearded stalwart cop. Then, for Inside the Third Reich (1982) he was Albert Speer, a problematic character I became invested in, as played against the likes of Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Trevor Howard, and John Gielgud.
In the documentary Blond, Blue Eyes (2006) he says he always tried to see himself as a working actor. He doesn’t do method. As he puts it, “I pretend for an audience.”
He said it is tempting to believe what they say about you in Hollywood.
“What did they say?” Asked the interviewer.
“That you’re brilliant,” Rutger replied.
“Why don’t you believe it?”
“Because I’m not.” He responds with a look of “And I’m fine with that.”
Roy Batty was when I first wanted to know the name of this performer. So did many others. Although at the time Blade Runner (1982) was a film rather shunned by critics and the average filmgoer. At the following Academy awards Lou Gosset Jr would still have romped it in for his turn in An Officer and a Gentleman, but if voters were not so prejudiced against genre back then I think Rutger would have nudged out one of the other nominees for a spot as Best Actor in a Supporting Role. It has since become an iconic performance of ‘80s culture, a symbol of the cyberpunk aesthetic, and the dawning of the post-human. A transition from David Bowie’s ambiguity of gender to the ambiguity of human identity. And with few exceptions, that aura followed Rutger for the next decade.
After functional roles in Eureka (1983) and The Osterman Weekend (1983 – and I liked him in that one), he got his first romantic lead in Ladyhawke (1985) which created his second fan base. And it reminded audiences that though Rutger commands a scene by his physical presence, he is nuanced in face. You can see under the surface the constantly shifting thoughts, yet he would stand there resolute in purpose.
He did the same but with a very different character in Flesh & Blood (1985) directed by his past Dutch collaborator Paul Verhoven. A darn good film of medieval chivalry, bastardry, and the plague. But, by golly, it must have been a shock for a previously swooning Ladyhawke fan. Still, you are left no doubt to his physical presence, and his skill to create a character that elicits conflicting emotions.
He followed that up with the entertaining Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986), which comes across as trying to turn him into a Mel Gibsonesque action star. But this is not playing to his strengths as an actor. That would come with the other film of that year, The Hitcher (1986), his third iconic role and the third pillar of his fanbase. Rutger’s ability to hold two conflicting characters in the same persona was perhaps at its zenith with the psychopathic John Ryder. A character both mesmerizing and repulsive. The Hitcher is an excellent film thanks to all the leading cast, the writer and director. But that it was such a big hit and a genuine cult classic is down to the presence of Mr. Hauer.
But this success also came with a curse. It meant he’d never quite get to be the powerhouse a-list actor he deserved to be. He won a Golden Globe for his performance in Escape from Sobibor (1987) and critical praise in the festival scene for The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988). But the Hollywood money wanted him for the b-movie. But thankfully that gave us the entertaining Blind Fury (1989) that allowed Rutger to show his comic side. And his sleeper cult The Salute of the Jugger (1989), which perhaps gave us the role that best embodies how we see Hauer. As a tough hard-arse warrior with a poet’s heart. For Rutger Hauer fans, it remains a favourite performance.
But I think this was a time when Rutger knew how his career was going to play out. He knew he had a fanbase and he knew what they wanted. So he did the pedestrian sci-fi chaser Wedlock (1991), only lifted out of the doldrums by Rutger’s sense of tongue in cheek. As he did in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992). And too in the seriously flawed while still underrated Split Second (1992). For which I have a personal fondness, not least for his coffee-addicted cynical cop enhanced by Rutger’s fondness for emoting an internal conflict, with a hint of both genius and madness, that can almost come off as something he does for his amusement, to keep himself from being bored on set.
In the ‘90s he made a lot of films, many of them minor. But he said at the time he gets paid the same for a small picture as he did for a big one. During that period, I saw most of what he was in. Including crap like Omega Doom (1996), Precious Find (1996), Bleeders (1997), and Redline (1997), to the rather good like, Hostile Waters (1997), Call of the Wild (1997), and Fatherland (1994 – for which he got a Golden Globe nomination).
But despite, not because of, the mediocrity plaguing his films, Rutger’s mythic status was only growing. He made twenty wonderfully surreal Guinness ads. Which on their own made him a wealthy man and cemented the simple truth that no matter how you look at it he was a successful and very un-mediocre actor.
He was never out of work. How could he? He was still the famous Rutger Hauer. But he made sure he could get in games of golf, sail his yacht, drive his black 16-wheeler around Europe, ride his motorbike, be in a Kylie Minogue video, be on film jury’s, run masterclasses in acting, found an aids research charity, and be on the board of advisors for the Sea Shepherds. And spend time with his wife of 50 years whom upon first meeting thought he was “a blonde god who has no idea”.
And in his later years, between character spots in big budgeters, make the odd film like Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) to remind us he was still that awesome Rutger Hauer.
He is now part of cinema history. And foremost, he is Roy Batty. A performance that will be studied for decades to come. Not many actors have that sort of legacy.
Skull Movies 