Ridley Scott gave a retrospective video interview with GQ magazine and revealed that “Blade Runner” financiers originally questioned his decision to cast Harrison Ford in the lead role. Ford had already played Han Solo in Star Wars at that point in his career, in addition to being chosen by Steven Spielberg as the title character for Raiders of the Lost Ark. The financiers didn’t seem to care.
“Harrison Ford was not a star. He had just finished flying the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars,” Scott said. “I remember my financiers saying, ‘Who is Harrison Ford?’ I said, ‘You’ll find out.’” Harry became my leading man. ”
Spielberg was in post-production on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and praised Ford when Scott asked him if he should have cast the actor in “Blade Runner.” Ford was interested in working with Scott on the film because he represents a more dramatic character compared to Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The dramatic depths of “Blade Runner” are also what attracted Scott.
“With Blade Runner, I was inventing a whole new world,” the director said. “I spent five months with a very good writer, Hampton Fancher, who had actually written a play based on Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep? I read the book and felt like there were 90 stories in the first 20 pages and it was very complex. Hampton wrote this beautiful story that revolves around In an apartment I loved the dialogue, but I wanted to see what would happen when he walked out the door.”
It’s well known that “Blade Runner” didn’t start out as a critical or box office darling. It took time. Scott still remembers the article he received from Pauline Kael in The New Yorker. She wrote that the film had “nothing to offer the audience” and “if anyone came up with a test to detect humanoids, Ridley Scott and company might have to hide.”
“Dude, four pages of devastation,” Scott said of the review. “She destroyed me. I’ve never met her! … She’s rude. On my level, it’s rude.”
Watch the full GQ video interview with Scott below.