Biography

Blond, blue-eyed, tall and handsome Dutch actor Rutger Hauer enjoyed an international reputation for playing everything from romantic leads to action heroes to sinister villains. Hauer was born in Breukelen, a Dutch town and former municipality in the province of Utrecht.

He was the son of Teunke Hauer (née Mellema) and Arend Hauer, actors who operated an acting school. As his parents were often touring, he and his three sisters were raised by a nanny. A bit of a rebel during his childhood, he chafed at the rules and rigors of school and was often getting into mischief. His grandfather had been the captain of a schooner and at age fifteen, Hauer ran away to work on a freighter for a year. Like his great-grandfather, Hauer was color-blind, which prevented him from furthering his career as a sailor.

Upon his return he attended night school and started working in the construction industry. When he again bombed at school, his parents enrolled him in drama classes. An amateur poet, he spent most of his time writing poetry and hanging out in Amsterdam coffee houses instead of studying. He was expelled for poor attendance and afterward spent a brief period in the Dutch navy.

Deciding he didn't like military life, Hauer honed his acting skills trying to convince his superiors he was mentally unfit and was sent to a special home for psych patients. It was an unpleasant place, but Hauer remained there until he had convinced his ranking officers that the military really did not need him.
- IMDb mini biography by: A. Nonymous

"Good guy" or "bad guy", hero or anti hero; doesn't matter to me, what role I play, only the character have something magical.

I don't know what the appeal is. I can see I've got blue eyes and I don't look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame but I can't understand the fuss.

I have a lot of energy. I'm a lot stronger than most people.

[on what his favorite or most memorable performance is of his own]: The deepest was Blade Runner (1982), because it was the first time where I just danced with the director and, let's say, the concept and the tone: I understood, on a very strong level, what he wanted, and by instinct I gave it to him. Half the time, what the hell did I know? I was just starting out to be an actor right there. This was after an experience on Nighthawks (1981) which was pretty tough and very bureaucratic and difficult. If your creative ideas are strangled, that doesn't work for me. It doesn't mean I have to be right -- that's not the point at all. It's just there needs to be a click between the creator and you. That was Blade Runner for me. To dance along, so long and beautifully, and then for it to be reformatted so it could live another 20 years; this is something completely unique. So there's only one way to answer that question.

Film is not a medium for actors. Everyone seems to think so, since it is the actors who get promoted to stardom. Creating stars is only a marketing ploy. It's the stars that sell a movie. The same technique is used in selling music, baseball games and hamburgers. An actor does not make or break a movie. Some of them look good on screen, but they are not important. How many extremely bad movies are there with one good or very good actor, or even two or three very good actors in the credits? I like to think of myself as a good actor, and even I made quite a lot of bad movies. Why are good actors no longer good when they play in a bad movie? And how many good movies have actors that are normally mediocre at best?