His career changed course when director
Paul Verhoeven cast him as the lead in
Turkish Delight (1973) (based on the
Jan Wolkers book of the same name). 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
British film The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). Set in
South Africa and starring
Michael Caine and
Sidney Poitier, the film 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 Dutch film making for several years. In this period he made
Katie Tippel (1975), and worked again with Verhoeven on
Soldier of Orange (1979), and
Spetters (1980). Incidentally these two films also paired Hauer with fellow international Dutch actor
Jeroen Krabbé.
It was in the
Sylvester Stallone vehicle
Nighthawks (1981) that Hauer finally made his American debut. Cast as a
psychopathic, cold-blooded terrorist named "Wolfgar" (after a character in
Beowulf), he made a strong impression. This was confirmed the following year by his stand-out American movie role as the eccentric, violent, yet sensitive chief
replicant Roy Batty (pitted against
Harrison Ford) in
Ridley Scott's 1982
sci-fi thriller,
Blade Runner.
Hauer went on to be the adventurer courting
Gene Hackman's daughter (
Theresa Russell) in
Nicolas Roeg's poorly received
Eureka (1983), the investigative reporter opposite
John Hurt in
Sam Peckinpah's The Osterman Weekend (1983), the hardened
Landsknecht mercenary Martin in
Flesh & Blood (1985), and the knight paired with
Michelle Pfeiffer in the
Medieval romance
Ladyhawke (1985). He continued to make an impression on audiences, especially in
The Hitcher (1986), in which he was the mysterious Hitchhiker intent on murdering
C. Thomas Howell's lone motorist and just about anyone else who crossed his path. At the height of his fame, he was even set to be cast as
RoboCop in the film directed by old friend Verhoeven, although the role instead went to
Peter Weller. That same year, however, Hauer starred as Nick Randall in
Wanted: Dead or Alive as the descendant of the character played by
Steve McQueen in the television series of
the same name.
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.
Phillip Noyce also attempted to capitalize, with far less success, on Hauer's spiritual qualities in the
martial arts action adventure
Blind Fury (1989). 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. He and Chen would again work together in two more science fiction films:
Wedlock and
Precious Find.
By the 1990s, Hauer was as well known for his humorous appearances in
Guinness commercials as for his screen roles. 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, Omega Doom, another post-apocalyptic story in which he plays a soldier-robot, and recently
New World Disorder, opposite
Tara Fitzgerald. In between these lower budgeted films, he appeared in the music video "On a Night Like This" by
Kylie Minogue. In the late
1980s and
1990s, as well as
2000, he also appeared in several
British and
American television productions, including
Inside the Third Reich (as
Albert Speer), Escape from Sobibor,
Fatherland,
Hostile Waters,
Merlin,
The 10th Kingdom,
Smallville,
Alias and
’Salem’s Lot.
