Rutger Hauer

Born on January 23, 1944, in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Rutger Oelsen Hauer has an acting bug in his blood, as his parents, Teunke and Ared, were stage actors. Curiously, at first he was more inclined to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, a soldier in the Navy. Although he got to join the army, he had to leave it because of his color blindness.

After a season earning his salary as a construction worker, and living as a bohemian poet in Amsterdam, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his parents, took acting classes, and took his first steps in the theater.

With his talent and photogenicity, he impressed his compatriot Paul Verhoeven , who after a test gave him the leading role of Floris , a series that was successful in the Netherlands in the 1980s. Verhoeven paired him with Monique van de Ven in Turkish Delight and A Girlfriend named Katy Tippel , and cast her as the lead in Eric, Queen’s Officer .

Director and actor triumphed internationally, and earned immense prestige among the film community. Hollywood called Hauer first, to play a dangerous international terrorist facing off against Sylvester Stallone , in The Nighthawks .

But the most memorable role of his career would come from the hand of Ridley Scott , who turned him into Roy Batty, leader of the Blade Runner replicants , in search of his creator to give him more time to live, whose phrases have remained for the cinephile story: “It’s quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it?… That’s what it means to be a slave”, or “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe…”. This adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel was not very successful at the time, but given enough time it became a cult film.

Hauer was also a controversial TV host who helps a CIA agent unmask four Russian spies in Key: Omega , by the legendary Sam Peckinpah . He was the first film adaptation of a novel by Robert Ludlum , the creator of Bourne.

When Verhoeven made his American film debut with The Lords of Steel , he again cast Hauer, who played a bloodthirsty mercenary betrayed who becomes the leader of his comrades. The actor stood out especially in another medieval film, Lady Hawk , where he was Navarre, a knight in love with Isabel ( Michelle Pfeiffer ). By a curse, she becomes a hawk by day and he a wolf at night.

Divorced from his first wife, with whom he had a baby, he became a father again with Ineke ten Kate, to whom he has been together since 1985. His daughter Ayesha Hauer is also an actress.

He played a relentless psychopath in Highway to Hell , and a blind martial artist in Blind Fury . For the telefilm Final Escape he won the Golden Globe, his most important recognition. He did especially memorable work in Ermanno Olmi ‘s The Legend of the Holy Drinker , where he was a wanderer in search of redemption.

But light that shines twice as brightly lasts half as long, and Hauer’s star went out in the early 1990s. On the one hand, his choices weren’t entirely good, for example, he turned down being the lead in RoboCop , again with Verhoeven. In addition, series B productions, such as the futurist Dangerously United and Bloody Second , did not have the desired impact. Not even the feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) , where Lothos was a vampire leader, achieved the success that the subsequent series would later have.

He was about to play another vampire, Lestat, in Interview with the Vampire , since Anne Rice , the author of the book, had been inspired by him to create the character, but the project took so long to be brought to the screen, that when he got light, Hauer was already too old to play him, so he was replaced by Tom Cruise .

Since 2005 his career was going through a shy resurrection, when Christopher Nolan gave him a small role, as an executive of Wayne Enterprises, in Batman Begins . Robert Rodriguez made him a cardinal in Sin City . He then made, among others, Hobo with a Shotgun , an action film starring him, based on one of the fake trailers that were shot for Grindhouse , and The Rite , an exorcist film starring Anthony Hopkins .