Rutger Hauer: Blade Runner actor dies aged 75
Actor Rutger Hauer, who starred in 1982’s Blade Runner, has died at the age of 75. The star died in the Netherlands on Friday after a short illness, his agent confirmed.
Hauer played the murderous replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, which was directed by Ridley Scott and also starred Harrison Ford.
Hauer’s character gives a famous speech during a face-off with Ford at the end of Blade Runner, dialogue which he helped write himself.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he is seen telling Ford. “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
Hauer is quoted as telling an interviewer his character – who had only a four-year lifespan – wanted to “make his mark on existence”.
“The replicant in the final scene, by dying,” he said, “shows Deckard [Ford’s character] what a real man is made of.”