Giancarlo Giannini

In 2002, he starred in the horror film Darkness.. He married his second wife, Ineke, in 1985, and they have a daughter. Giannini's best-known starring roles have been in films directed by Lina Wertmuller: in addition to Swept Away and Seven Beauties, he also appeared in The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, A Night Full of Rain, and Francesca e Nunziata. Outside of acting as an environmentalist, he fought for the release of Greenpeace's co-founder, Paul Watson, who was convicted in 1994 for sinking an illegal Norwegian whaling vessel, and has set up an AIDS research foundation called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Foundation. His fluency in English has brought him a number of featured roles in Hollywood productions, most notably as inspector Pazzi in Hannibal. He has recently been on the comeback trail as small parts in big films, with Confessions of Dangerous Mind (2003) and the upcoming Batman Begins. He dubbed Jack Nicholson's voice in the Italian release of The Shining, for which Nicholson sent him congratulations. In between these lower budgeted films, he appeared in the music video "On a Night Like This" by Kylie Minogue.

In 1976, he starred in Seven Beauties, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, which is unusual in that his performance was given entirely in Italian. It seemed that he had increasingly become involved in lower budget films, including Split Second, which was set in a flooded London after global warming, and recently New World Disorder, opposite Tara Fitzgerald. He appeared in supporting roles in Anzio and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, and starred in the original version of Swept Away. By the 1990s, Hauer was as well known for his humorous appearances in Guinness commercials as for his screen roles. Born in La Spezia, Italy, Giannini studied at the Academia Nazionale in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropolis in 1965. He and Chen would again work together in two more science fictions films -- Wedlock and Precious Find. Giancarlo Giannini (born August 1, 1942) is an Italian actor. He returned to science fiction opposite Joan Chen with Salute of the Jugger (1990), in which he played a former champion in a post-apocalyptic world.

Philip Noyce too attempted to capitalize, with far less success, on Hauer's spiritual qualities in the martial arts action adventure Blind Fury (1989). Italian director Ermanno Olmi mined the gentler, more mystic and soulful side of Hauer's personality in The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1989), the story of a lost soul who dies of drink in Paris while attempting to pay a debt of honour in a church. At the height of his fame he was even set to be cast as Robocop in the film of the same name by old friend Verhoeven. Thomas Howell's lone motorist and anyone who crossed his path en route.

He continued to make an impression on audiences, especially in the The Hitcher (1986), in which he was the mysterious Hitchhiker intent on murdering C. He went on to be the adventurer courting Gene Hackman's daughter (Theresa Russell) in Nicholas Roeg's poorly received Eureka (1983), the investigative reporter opposite John Hurt in Sam Peckinpah's The Osterman Weekend (1983) and the knight paired with Michelle Pfeiffer in the medieval romance Ladyhawke (1985). Cast as a psychotically cold-blooded terrorist named Wulfgar, he made a strong impression, which was confirmed by a major role the following year as the chief android Roy Batty (pitted against Harrison Ford) in Ridley Scott's science fiction film Blade Runner (1982). It was in the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Nighthawks (1981) that he finally made his proper American debut.

Incidentally these two films also paired Hauer with fellow international Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé. In this period he made Keetje Tippel (1975), and worked again with Verhoeven on Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange) (1979), and Spetters (1980). This film was set in South Africa and starred Michael Caine and Sidney Poitier, it was an action melodrama with a focus on apartheid.Hauer's supporting role, however, was hardly enough to establish him in Hollywood's eyes, and he returned to European film making for several years. The movie found box-office favour abroad as well as at home and within two years, its star was invited to make his English language debut in The Wilby Conspiracy (1975).

His career changed course when director Paul Verhoeven gave him the lead in Turkish Delight (1973) (based on the Jan Wolkers book of the same name). He went on to join an experimental acting troupe, which he stayed with for five years before getting the lead role as a swashbuckler in the 1969 television series Floris, a Dutch Ivanhoe-like medieval action show. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a carpenter for three years while attending drama classes at night school. The son of drama teachers Arend and Teunke, he grew up in Amsterdam but at age 15 ran away to the sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter.

Rutger Hauer (born January 23, 1944, Breukelen, the Netherlands) is an international movie star. 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 don't know what the appeal is. "'Good guy' or 'bad guy', hero or anti hero; doesn't matter to me, what role I play, only the character have something magical.".

The subject is the future, which is fun to think about, but it doesn't really attract me.". "I am not really into science fiction at all because I tend to think that it's just another sort of game with the brain. Batman Begins (2005). Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002).

Precious Find (1996). Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). Split Second (1990). Salute of the Jugger (1990).

Blind Fury (1989). The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1989). The Hitcher (1986). Flesh & Blood (1985).

Ladyhawke (1985). The Osterman Weekend (1983). Blade Runner (1982). Nighthawks (1981).

Spetters (1980). Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange) (1979). The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Turkish Delight (1973).