Blade Runner The Final Cut Sir Ridley Scott, Rutger Hauer and Edward James Olmos

This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Blade Runner and to mark the mementos occasion, Blade Runner - The Final Cut has been released. The film recently premiered at the Venice International Film Festival where Sir Ridley Scott told reporters that this is the "movie I really intended to release". Additions include new and improved special effects and never-before-seen scenes that Scott added specifically for the new edition. (Deckard’s replicant status is still unclear however). The film looks stunning and Scott received a ten-minute standing ovation, a considerably different reception to what occurred a quarter of a century ago. Back then it was deemed a failure and yanked from cinemas to make way for Spielberg’s ET. Gaynor Flynn caught up with Sir Ridley Scott, Rutger Hauer and Edward James Olmos at the ritzy Italian festival, and he’s what they had to say 25 years on

Gaynor Flynn: What was going on in your life back then?

Ridley Scott: Well I was extremely successful in advertising, extremely. So I could afford to be my own completion bonds and I could pay for the deals basically. But my first engagement in feature film would be The Duellists and then the next one was Alien so the beginning of the film career was pretty damn good. So when I was going to Hollywood to do this film which was based on a novel by Philip K Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep at first I said no because it was another science fiction. I was mixing Alien and I thought I don’t want to do another sci-fi and to cut a long story short I said you know what, leave it with me. I’ll come out and see you guys. So came out and met Hampton Fancher who was very bright and great fun so I got on board.


Gaynor Flynn: At the time was it regarded as a disappointment or a success?

Ridley Scott: A disappointment. Lots of cult fanatics and freaks wrote me lots of letters basically saying we loved the movie but for the general audience which when you’re at $22 million you’re making it for the general audience, that was a failure. I think, we barely broke even.


Gaynor Flynn: What was your reaction at the time?

Ridley Scott: I was really devastated. That was the first time I went through that very bad disappointment and out o that you evolve and clear your head and after that the mantra is its only a movie.


Gaynor Flynn: It’s aged superbly well, why do you think its had that longevity?

Ridley Scott: I think its way ahead of its time. I think what it did it side stepped us from the view that space is always about space ships and the future is always about spaceships. And whilst they’ve have been films about the urban future, there was a French film in fact with Eddie Constantine called Alfaville but they age pretty badly. The one I loved most was On the Beach. The original writer was Neville Shute, and it was made it into a very, very good movie with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. It didn’t play well because everyone felt it was really depressing because it was about the end of the world, really well done. I think the same thing with Blade Runner, I think they found the future mechanics of what I’ve done depressing. Funny enough we touch on all kinds of shit like global warming and pollution.

Rutger Hauer: I think the movie is better than what it was before. I think it’s a more honest movie in a way but I haven’t seen Ridley in 20 years and when I hear him talk its really nice to hear that this is what they were hoping to do in the beginning.


Gaynor Flynn: Have you seen the movie in the last 25 years?

Rutger Hauer: I’ve seen the directors cut when it came out in 1982. And there was a voice over in the script and the first thing we did when the writer was there was say get the voice over out of the way. Its funny how people got use to the voice over but I never got use to it but I never think it was telling me anything I needed to know in order to watch the movie more. So I’ve seen it a couple of times over the last three decades.


Gaynor Flynn: Blade Runner turned you into a sex symbol didn’t it?

Rutger Hauer: What are you going to do? You know I just go to work and play and that’s what I do. It’s beyond me why you can do that for so long because most people can’t but it seems like I can so I do and I like it.


Gaynor Flynn: What was your life like 25 years ago?

Rutger Hauer: You’ll have to buy my autobiography. It’s out soon.


Gaynor Flynn: What about a thumbnail sketch?

Rutger Hauer: Well I was an actor with a repertory theatre company for four years after acting school. I was acting in a small company out in nowhere basically because I wasn’t sure about acting anyway and I thought I don’t think I’ll learn much in school and maybe with this little company that does relatively conventional plays like Beckett and Pinter I will. They were playing for farmers, that was the charm for me. They would bring the theatre out into the country rather than asking the country to come into these temples we create for our f***** selves and I thought it was interesting. And I got discovered by some guy who came to see a performance and there was a fencing scene in there and I was a pretty good fencer and he saw that and said that’s pretty amazing. He said well it so happens I’ve written this Robin Hood series and it’s going to go on television and you would be a good choice. He said can you ride a horse? I said yeah I’ve been riding horses since I was 14 so that was how I got discovered for film.


Gaynor Flynn: What was Harrison Ford like to work with? He was a huge star at the time?

Rutger Hauer: Yeah he was an established star and I think he was having trouble with Ridley. I don’t know they just seemed to not click together and I felt that but I five scenes with him and all of them are tiny. He hits me over the head once, he saves me on the roof, he shoots me well big fucking deal and he misses, what else do I have with him? On the other side of the wall that was not him on the other side of the wall, so I think I literally had two days where I had one scene with him, I never saw the guy, he was working hard. I have no idea really. Weird, but true. Actors don’t’ hang out. The most creative part of making a movie is before you start, you get to sniff a couple of your colleagues and then the moment you hit the set you’re too busy, and now you shoot really fast, they’re possessed.


Gaynor Flynn: Were you nervous about making this film?

Rutger Hauer: Yeah I was nervous. There are moments for every actor in the shooting when you know that you have the part and I have to say that over the years it’s a great feeling when you start a movie and you know you have the part but most of the time you don’t and then there’s a moment that you find it. With this film I had to start to kill my father the f******. I had to kill him and it was such a complicated scene, and such an operatic scene and so complex and so big that’s the scene that I had to start with. But you really have to buy my autobiography, it’s out this year and a lot of Blade Runner’s in there.


Gaynor Flynn: What was going on in your life 25 years ago. What do you recall?

James Edward Olmos: I for one felt the film was a great commentary on the society we live in and that’s why I chose to do it. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of my films, they’re entertaining but they have substance. That’s the only kind of film I make and this was a very important film at the time and still is because where we’re going with our lives we could honestly end up with technology trying to kill us. For four years we’ve been doing Battlestar Gallatica which is literally walk through the door that Blade Runner opened in 1982, it deals with man creating technology that comes back to kill them. But for me this film 25 years ago reads stronger today than on the day we finished it.


Gaynor Flynn: At the time was it a tough call to do the film or not?

James Edward Olmos: 25 years ago, early on in your career, did you get any advice on whether to do it not, was it considered a good career move at the time?


Gaynor Flynn: 25 years ago, early on in your career, did you get any advice on whether to do it not, was it considered a good career move at the time?

James Edward Olmos: I just knew Ridley Scott was making it, I’d seen The Duellist, I’d seen Alien. The man was very strong and so that was good because I’m hard to work with. Anybody whose worked with me will say the same thing. Why am I hard to work with? I’m hard to work with because I really have the best interest of the project I’m working on therefore all of us should we all not try and make this the best project possible? So I’ll go up to a director and say excuse me sir why are you putting the camera there? What do mean why am I putting the camera there? Yes why are you putting the camera there, I want to learn. Why are you doing that?


Gaynor Flynn: Directors love you then....

James Edward Olmos: They hate me. Ridley loved me. So I loved working with Ridley became when I came in he did not become afraid of me.


Gaynor Flynn: We know Daryl Hannah suggested the idea of the gymnastics because she was gymnast. Did you make any suggestions that were incorporated into the film?

James Edward Olmos: I suggested the usage of language that created city-speak. Ridley didn’t run from it he embraced it. It became part of the whole spectrum of his culture. When I introduced the Asianess of the story, he loved it.


Gaynor Flynn: What was going on in your life 25 years ago?

James Edward Olmos: I for one felt the film was a great commentary on the society we live in and that’s why I chose to do it. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of my films, they’re entertaining but they have substance. That’s the only kind of film I make and this was a very important film at the time and still is because where we’re going with our lives we could honestly end up with technology trying to kill us. For four years we’ve been doing Battlestar Gallatica which is literally walk through the door that Blade Runner opened in 1982, it deals with man creating technology that comes back to kill them. But for me this film 25 years ago reads stronger today than on the day we finished it.


Gaynor Flynn: Were you still playing in rock and roll bands?

James Edward Olmos: I was still playing in rock and roll bands and starring on Broadway on a piece that launched my career. It’s probably one of the most prolific characters in the theatre today. The American Theatre Wing, which hands out the Tony’s and is the curator for all the theatre for the last 150 years or so in the USA, it proclaimed the character I developed in 1978 has been one of the three most prolific characters ever to rise on the American stage. There’s Stanley Kowalski from Street Car, there’s Willie Loman and there’s El Pachuco from Zoot Suit. That’s where I came from. I’d done 18 years of theatre by the time I got to Ridley. I’d done one movie before I did Ridley’s and that was Wolfen with Albert Finney.


Gaynor Flynn: Daryl how about you, what was your life like 25 years ago?

Daryl Hannah: I was a teenager I was going to college and I’d just moved out to LA to continue working in movies.


Gaynor Flynn: Moved from where?

Daryl Hannah: Moved from Chicago. I was going to USC. I was lying to my teachers that I was sick because I thought I’d get in trouble if I told them I was in a movie so I dropped out for the semester while I made the movie and I like had to repeat the semester like three times cause I kept having to drop out to do other movies. I was living in a one room flat with Rachel Ward who tested for the part of Rachael actually, so we were both screen testing for the same movie together. I was really excited about being in movies because I just wanted to live in an imaginary world all the time and that be my job.


Gaynor Flynn: Were you a fan of science fiction?

Daryl Hannah: I liked anything based in imagination and that’s a world that’s definitely based in imagination. Anything that was fabricated and away from reality.


Gaynor Flynn: Why did you want to escape?

Daryl Hannah: Just because I was a kid who lived in my imagination anyway so I just wanted to have the sets and costumes to do it rather than just do it in my head. And Blade Runner was exactly that. I’d look around me and there were these massive sets and every prop was like a museum piece. Every corner, everywhere you looked, the detail, things you never even saw on screen that were just so unbelievable, it was great I didn’t have to work at all I was in another world. And that’s what I thought it was going to be like and that’s when people ask me what’s my favourite movie its Blade Runner because it’s the most of what I wanted movie making to be like.