40 Fun Facts About Rutger Hauer

Rutger Hauer was considered for the lead in which 1987 film but judged too large to move comfortably in its suit?

RoboCop went to Peter Weller instead. Its director, Paul Verhoeven, was the man who had given Hauer his screen debut in the Netherlands.

What is the name of the fugitive replicant leader Rutger Hauer played opposite Harrison Ford in Blade Runner?

Roy Batty dies in the film's Los Angeles of 2019, which turned out to be the very year Hauer himself died.

Which director cast Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner without meeting him, after seeing three of his Dutch films?

Ridley Scott knew him only from Paul Verhoeven's Dutch dramas. One of the screenwriters later credited Hauer and Harrison Ford with offering ideas about the dialogue.

Which author, whose novel became Blade Runner, called Rutger Hauer perfect as its lead replicant?

Philip K. Dick called him cold, Aryan and flawless in the part. The novelist died shortly before the film's release, but was pleased by a 20-minute test reel screened for him at the studio.

Which creature does Rutger Hauer's dying replicant hold during his rooftop farewell speech in Blade Runner?

A white dove flies up at the moment the character dies. Hauer had rewritten the speech himself and presented his words to the director on set before filming.

In which 1986 thriller does Rutger Hauer's John Ryder stalk a young motorist across the highways of West Texas?

The Hitcher made such use of Hauer's menace that co-star C. Thomas Howell said he found him frightening and spent the shoot in a constant state of fear.

Which actress played Isabeau, cursed to live as a hawk by day, opposite Rutger Hauer in Ladyhawke?

Michelle Pfeiffer's Isabeau and Hauer's Navarre are kept apart by the curse of a bishop obsessed with capturing her. Matthew Broderick plays the escaped thief who helps them break it.

Rutger Hauer made his American film debut as a terrorist hunted through New York by which star of Nighthawks?

Sylvester Stallone played the detective on his trail, with Billy Dee Williams as a fellow officer. Hauer's bomber Wulfgar has facial surgery so he can slip into the city unrecognised.

Rutger Hauer played the undead king Lothos in which 1992 film that later inspired a hit television series?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast Kristy Swanson as its cheerleader heroine. Writer Joss Whedon disliked the direction the film took and remade his idea as the television series.

Rutger Hauer plays William Earle, an executive taking a family firm public, in which 2005 superhero film?

Batman Begins has Earle running Wayne Enterprises while its heir is missing. Once back in Gotham, Bruce Wayne buys a controlling stake and fires him.

Rutger Hauer became a familiar face on British television fronting darkly humorous adverts for which drink?

Guinness ran the adverts in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and they made Hauer as well known there for his commercials as for his screen roles.

Rutger Hauer played navigator Fred Noonan in a 1994 television film about which aviator's last flight?

Amelia Earhart was played by Diane Keaton. The film follows the 1937 round-the-world attempt on which her aeroplane disappeared, with Noonan aboard as her navigator.

Having played Count Dracula himself in 2005, Rutger Hauer later played which enemy of the Count for Dario Argento?

Van Helsing was his part in Argento's Dracula 3D, seven years after he took the title role in Dracula III: Legacy, which makes the Count a transformed Judas Iscariot.

What stopped Rutger Hauer, who went to sea on a freighter at 15, from ever becoming a ship's captain?

Colour blindness ruled him out after a year travelling the world with the Dutch merchant navy. He came home, took odd jobs and finished his high school diploma at night.

Rutger Hauer was born in 1944 in which Dutch town that gave its name to a New York City borough?

Breukelen, in the province of Utrecht, is the namesake of Brooklyn. Hauer was born there under German occupation, the son of two actors who ran an acting school in nearby Amsterdam.

Rutger Hauer played an assassin in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the 2002 directing debut of which actor?

George Clooney directed Sam Rockwell as game show host Chuck Barris, whose memoir made the unsubstantiated claim that he had moonlighted as a killer for the CIA.

Rutger Hauer joined which HBO series in 2013 as Niall Brigant, the fairy grandfather of its heroine Sookie?

True Blood brought him in for its sixth season, in which Niall arrives in Bon Temps to help Sookie and her brother Jason hunt the creature that killed their parents.

Which Nazi architect and minister did Rutger Hauer portray in the 1982 television film Inside the Third Reich?

Albert Speer wrote the memoir the film is based on. Derek Jacobi played Hitler opposite Hauer and was nominated for an Emmy for it.

In Ladyhawke, Rutger Hauer's cursed captain Navarre is doomed to turn into which animal every night?

A wolf by night is his half of a bishop's satanic curse. His beloved Isabeau takes her animal form by day, and the spell breaks only if the two face the bishop together as man and woman.

Which 1973 love story starring Rutger Hauer was named the best Dutch film of the twentieth century in 1999?

Turkish Delight was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign-language film. It was the film debut of both Hauer and his co-star Monique van de Ven.

Which 1977 film about Leiden students under German occupation brought Rutger Hauer international recognition?

Soldier of Orange was the most expensive Dutch film made up to that time. On set Hauer met Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, the war hero whose memoir it adapts, who became a father figure to him.

Rutger Hauer became a star at home in the 1969 Dutch television series Floris, playing which kind of hero?

A knight who returns from a trip around the world to find his castle occupied, Floris was written as a fine swordsman but not too bright. His Indian companion Sindala supplies the brains.

Which award did Rutger Hauer win as Soviet officer Sasha Pechersky in the TV film Escape from Sobibor?

A Golden Globe for best supporting actor rewarded a change of pace for Hauer, then known mostly for bad guys: a Red Army lieutenant who helps lead the prisoners' revolt at a death camp.

In Wanted: Dead or Alive, Rutger Hauer plays a descendant of a television bounty hunter played by which star?

Steve McQueen played Josh Randall in the 1958 western series of the same title. Hauer's Nick Randall is an ex-CIA man in modern Los Angeles, hired to track a terrorist played by Gene Simmons.

In The Legend of the Holy Drinker, Rutger Hauer plays a homeless man lent 200 francs in which city?

Paris is where his drunken character keeps failing to repay the money to a local church. Ermanno Olmi's film, taken from a Joseph Roth novella, won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Rutger Hauer's Blind Fury is an American remake of a film about which sightless swordsman of Japanese cinema?

Zatoichi is a wandering masseur and gambler of old Japan; Hauer's version is a Vietnam veteran. He prepared by training for a month with Lynn Manning, a blind Paralympic judoka.

In Sin City, Rutger Hauer plays a corrupt member of the powerful Roark family who holds which office?

Cardinal Roark is revealed to have arranged the murder that sends the brawler Marv on his rampage. Marv confronts him, hears his confession and kills him.

Rutger Hauer won a Rembrandt Award for playing which kidnapped Dutch tycoon in a 2011 film?

Freddy Heineken, the beer magnate, was abducted with his driver in 1983 and freed for a ransom of 35 million guilders. The role brought Hauer back to Dutch cinema late in his career.

Rutger Hauer voiced Xehanort in the game Kingdom Hearts III after the death of which earlier voice actor?

Leonard Nimoy had voiced the character in two earlier games. When Hauer himself died a few months after the release, Christopher Lloyd took over for the game's downloadable add-on.

Rutger Hauer played Kurt Barlow opposite Rob Lowe in a 2004 television miniseries of which Stephen King novel?

Salem's Lot makes Barlow one of two antique dealers who buy a house with a dark history. Lowe plays Ben Mears, a writer who has come back to his Maine hometown to work on a novel.

Rutger Hauer played SS detective Xavier March in Fatherland, a thriller adapted from which author's novel?

Robert Harris set his 1992 novel in a 1960s Germany still under Nazi control, where a detective's murder case leads him to senior Party officials.

The Osterman Weekend, a Robert Ludlum thriller starring Rutger Hauer, was the final film of which director?

Sam Peckinpah, the director of The Wild Bunch, had Hauer play a television journalist recruited to spy on his own weekend guests. The producers chose Hauer for the lead a year after Blade Runner.

Rutger Hauer made a surprise cameo as a mob husband in the video for On a Night Like This by which singer?

Kylie Minogue shot the Casino-inspired video in Monte Carlo in 2000. Hauer said that nobody on the set apart from the director, not even the singer, knew he was going to appear.

Rutger Hauer sat on the board of advisors of which marine group that sends ships to impede illegal fishing?

Sea Shepherd grew out of a group Paul Watson formed in 1977, after he was ousted from the board of Greenpeace in a dispute over his direct-action tactics.

Rutger Hauer left the Royal Netherlands Army after only a few months, having trained for which role?

Combat medic training ended when he walked away because he opposed the use of deadly weapons. He went back to acting school in Amsterdam and graduated in 1967.

In The Mill and the Cross, Rutger Hauer plays which Flemish painter of The Procession to Calvary?

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted the scene in 1564 with some 500 figures. The film follows a dozen of them, while Hauer's artist explains the structure and symbolism of his picture.

In the western The Sisters Brothers, Rutger Hauer plays which wealthy boss who hires the two gunfighters?

The Commodore sends Eli and Charlie after a man named Hermann Warm in 1851. When the brothers finally turn on him and ride to Oregon City, they find he has already died.

In which 2017 horror video game did Rutger Hauer voice Daniel Lazarski, a detective who hacks into minds?

Observer is set in the Kraków of 2084 and counts Blade Runner among its primary influences, so its Polish developers cast the film's own star as their lead.

Which Dutch actor, later a James Bond villain in The Living Daylights, appeared alongside Rutger Hauer in Spetters?

Jeroen Krabbé went on to play General Koskov in the Bond film and Charles Nichols in The Fugitive. The modest American success of Spetters helped launch both men's Hollywood careers.

Rutger Hauer's The Blood of Heroes, a film built around a brutal invented game, inspired which real sport?

Jugger became a real sport independently in Germany, the United States and Australia. The film was written and directed by David Webb Peoples, one of the screenwriters of Blade Runner.