HEART to heart

It’s cool to see you on the big screen again in a biblical epic like Samson.

It’s such a complex story, where people betray each other, greed gets in and the divine hand has some [importance].

Next year will mark 50 years of you being a working actor in Hollywood. How do you keep challenging yourself?

Mostly I take on things where I think, What can I give to it that no one else can?

Why do you think you’ve lasted in the biz?

I think my secret, if anything, is that I have a talent that’s quite wild, but a sense of reality. I don’t want people to feel that I’m acting, so I make it as smooth as I can. I’ll tell you the secret: People can read what I’m thinking or feeling without [my] saying it.

You’ve done well over 150 films and TV shows, including the recent Syfy series Channel Zero. What’s your favorite?

Blade Runner has always been my favorite, and always will be. It’s given me wings. That film started aboveground, then went underground, then came back again and again. It’s amazing. I don’t think that’s happened to any actor before.

Any thoughts on last year’s sequel?

It’s a completely different film. The director is great, but I couldn’t get into the story.

Do you prefer bad guy roles or heroes?

I don’t have a preference. If I play a bad guy, I try to make him as bad as I can, but they die anyway. Now the real bad guys are all around us!

What was Sidney Poitier like when you made

1975’s The Wilby Conspiracy with him?

He was so nice to any kid who came up to him. I thought, If you get known, this is the way you should behave to people.

And you gave back when you founded the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association for HIV/AIDS awareness in 2000.

I was doing a film on [one of the Turks and Caicos islands] and there was so much AIDS. I thought, I’m going to do something.

Did anyone inspire you as an actor?

My mom and dad were stage actors who were stopped in their prime because the Germans were in Holland, so they couldn’t do anything there.

Did you follow right in their footsteps?

I was 14 and wasn’t that good at school, so I asked if I could go out as a sailor on a cargo ship around the world. My first trip I went from Amsterdam to Chicago, then to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, all the way to Saigon. I was out a year, I’d say. It was amazing to come from a small country and see all these people, the smells, everything.

What an adventure!

When I came back, I went to night school and learned languages — that’s sort of how I got into acting. I got really lucky, really quickly, did four years of theater and then got discovered on television.

“Be honest about your talent and use it in the best way.”

— Rutger

You’re a dad to a daughter, Ayesha, a granddad to her son, Leandro Maeder, and now a great-grandpa! What did fatherhood teach you?

I didn’t raise her, so I can’t say I learned much. Her mother left when she was 2 months old. She now lives in LA, where I helped her try to become an actress for at least 10 years. She had a grandson, and I’m talking to him now, seeing how he’s doing. He’s the guy I’m trying to help now as a great-grandfather. He’s proud of me.

What’s the secret to your long marriage?

Love. I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve. We just really enjoy each other’s company.

Looking back, do you have any regrets?

If I did, I wouldn’t tell you! But no, I don’t. [Laughs] You should be so lucky, honestly.

— Reporting by Diana Cooper