Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner Page #5

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and then went on...

...with a couple of lines

about memories in the rain.

And then he looked at me

like a naughty little boy.

Like checking to see

if the writer's upset.

I didn't let on that I was upset,

but at the time, I was...

...and I was a little threatened by it

and all of that stuff.

Later, seeing the movie, that

was a brilliant contribution of Rutger's.

That line about the rain,

and tears in the rain and stuff.

It's absolutely beautiful, and I've...

You know, that's Rutger.

They had the good fortune

to get David Peoples, who...

I mean, I see that movie,

afterwards, and I think:

"Oh, yeah."

And I would have not done that.

You know. David knew how to do this,

and David worked well with Ridley.

Initially, he just did what Ridley asked.

Which, at that time, we really needed.

We needed

to put the damn script to bed...

...because everybody... You know, every

time something changes, you know...

...there are kind of

domino repercussions.

Ridley found that much later,

with the final Hampton script...

...after Hampton

had done everything...

...that he thought Ridley wanted...

...it still didn't have

what Ridley finally felt...

...he could only get

from David Peoples...

...which was a much harder edge,

and really the character...

...the nature of the film

which he was doing.

I was completely wrong.

Ridley totally right...

...and Peoples was definitely

totally right.

If that hadn't happened,

there would be no Blade Runner.

Deckard's character

is not described in the script.

Any actor could play it, really.

It was up to the casting

to tell about the character.

One of the more interesting ones

that Hampton...

...lobbied for was Robert Mitchum.

Robert Mitchum, of course...

...is one of the quintessential

noir actors of the '40s.

So I'm sure that Hampton

had that in mind...

...when he was actually

thinking about the person...

...who would ultimately be portraying

Deckard on the screen.

Robert Mitchum, at that time,

was still young enough...

...you know, still robust enough

to be Deckard.

And that's who I wanted,

and that's who I wrote it for.

And I wrote dialogue

based on my sense of Mitchum.

There was other... Of course, like always,

you know, a thousand suggestions...

...like Dustin Hoffman...

...and that was starting

to actually work for a minute.

But then I jumped on, you know,

whore that I am, or should've been:

"You mean we won't

have a movie if we don't..."

That's what they tell you.

Deeley was saying. "Then forget it."

Because I was like, "No way."

Seems strange now, but at the time,

it seemed a very interesting idea...

...to have this unlikely,

not really very heroic figure...

...in this rather sinister movie.

Of course, the thought was:

"Yeah, but Dustin is not exactly

physically your heroic cop.

And although he's athletic,

he's not the man."

I said. "Yeah, but he's a great actor,

and I wanna go for the character."

And I didn't know Dustin

and how he worked in those days...

...but I went to New York

and met him for hours and hours.

Dustin's interest

was in the nature of the film.

It was about whether it was

a major social document.

What did it do? How did it enlarge

the imagination or whatever, the mind?

And there was a lot of social implications

attached at that time.

We heard that, well, okay,

we're gonna get Dustin Hoffman.

This will be great. As a matter of fact,

if you look closely at the storyboards...

...Mentor Huebner was starting

to lay in images...

...that were similar-looking

to Dustin Hoffman...

...as opposed to the characters

he had drawn before.

We spent months with him. Months

in New York and around the place.

We all got to know

each other very well...

...but the longer we went on,

the further and further we got away...

...from the project which we had

and the project which we liked.

We looked at various people. One who

seemed attractive was Harrison Ford...

...because he hadn't played

this sort of person, really...

...and he'd had some very good training

under some good directors.

I liked Harrison Ford always.

I mean, The Conversation was the first

time I saw him, and something about...

And, of course,

then we saw Star Wars.

And I was really impressed

with Star Wars...

...because that's not easy to do,

what he did.

Errol Flynn didn't do it as good

as he did it, and that's hard.

That guy knew...

That guy is a super actor.

Super film actor.

It's the luck of the draw

that I happened to fall into...

...a couple of science-fiction-type films

that were successful.

I like the films I've made

that were basically science fiction.

I found them interesting.

But I don't have a particular appetite

or taste for it, I don't think.

I knew he was in London,

working in London...

...doing this thing

called Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Barbara Hershey was the one who

initially suggested to Hampton Fancher...

...that Harrison Ford

was someone to consider.

Barbara calls Spielberg, says.

"What's that like, editing that film?"

Spielberg says. "Huge star now."

The boys. Michael, Ridley,

fly to London to look at dailies.

He just looked fantastic,

and we just thought he was wonderful.

We were convinced. The only thing

that went wrong was that...

...when he came into the hotel lobby

to talk to us afterwards...

...he was wearing this hat,

which he always wore, this Indiana hat.

And Ridley was cross because

he had intended to use that hat himself.

I remember that I read the script...

...which I thought was interesting.

At the...

The first version that I read of it...

...of the film, had some issues...

I had some issues with.

There was a voice-over narration

attached to the original script.

And I said to Ridley that I played

a detective who does no detecting.

How about we take some of this

information that's in the voice-overs...

...and put it into scenes?

And so that the audience could discover

the information, discover the character...

...through seeing him

in the context of what he does...

...rather than being told about it.

And some of that survived

and some of it didn't.

We spent a couple of weeks

sitting around my kitchen table...

...trying to find ways

to accomplish that.

With meetings that followed

in Los Angeles...

...he got carried along

with the enthusiasm of:

A, doing another science fiction...

Because he's on a really good roll now,

Star Wars, Indiana Jones.

So whatever it is,

it's really exotic, okay?

And don't forget, he's had his little taste

of other things with the best:

Francis Ford Coppola

in The Conversation.

And Francis Ford Coppola

in Apocalypse Now.

Teeny things, but nevertheless,

he's been there.

He's always been

in pretty good company.

Here I am, coming in

with this kind of weird thing...

...if not a little confounding

because it's not straightforward, right?

It's very Marlowesque...

...and very dark.

Harrison has that loose, wonderful...

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