Sometimes the loss of an actor just gets you somehow, because you automatically associate that actor with a role which is highly important to you. So, yesterday, it was hardly surprising that, with the news that Rutger Hauer had passed away at the age of seventy-five following a short illness, the internet was quickly awash with Blade Runner images, celebrating Hauer’s performance as Roy Batty in one of the finest sci-fi films ever made. Batty’s last words – delivered in such a way and at such a time that you are made to debate just what being human means – will obviously take on additional prescience, when the superb actor who delivered them (and indeed helped script them) has themselves died. It was the first thing which came to mind for me, and for many others.
But Rutger Hauer’s legacy certainly didn’t begin, or end with Blade Runner.
It simply helped to place him, for many genre film fans, as a great performer who could put his heart and soul into the job. Perhaps he is chiefly associated with dark sci-fi and dystopia for a lot of us, working as he did on films like Salute of the Jugger and far more recently, Sin City, but Hauer got his teeth into a wide variety of roles over the years across film, TV and advertising.
There was a lot of love for Ladyhawke when the news broke yesterday, and this is another film beloved to many folk from their earlier years; on a completely different tack, who could forget Hauer in The Hitcher? It’s a film which taught us true dread, a role played brilliantly ominously and a sterling example of the menace he could bring to the screen. His performance in the TV version of Salem’s Lot completely revolutionised the character of Barlow, remodelling him into something not a monster, but still utterly monstrous. And, in 2011, Hauer surprised us with his role in Hobo With a Shotgun – a lowbrow, fauxploitation movie sure but, as with many of these films contemporary or homage, it had a heart, not least because of the lead role and how it was played. These are just a handful of the roles which spring to mind, and there’s a vast legacy of performances I confess I have yet to see – bittersweet, given the reminder.
It’s genuinely sad, therefore, to have lost such a versatile, dedicated and by all accounts, decent man. RIP Rutger Hauer and we thank you.