At last, we can finally put all debate about Blade Runner to rest.
In a new video interview with Esquire, the magazine asked Harrison Ford about many facets of his career, including his recent jump to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: New World Order.
Towards the end of the six-minute video, Esquire asks why Ford has gone on record and even argued with Ridley Scott over the true nature of Rick Deckard, his character from Scott’s 1982 classic Blade Runner. Ford briefly explained that he actually believed Deckard was a “replicant” (a lifelike android capable of thoughts and feelings) all along.
“I always knew that I was a replicant,” Ford said, “I just wanted to push back against it, though. I think a replicant would want to believe they’re human. At least this one did.”
Ford didn’t elaborate, but his statement counters the prevailing narrative regarding Blade Runner’s biggest mystery. While the answer to the question “Is Deckard human or a replicant?” varies based on which version of Blade Runner you watch, it’s also public knowledge that Ford and Scott clashed over it during production.
While Scott insisted on making Deckard a replicant, Ford believed Deckard had to be human to truly connect to viewers. He told Vanity Fair in 2017, “I felt that the audience needed to have someone on-screen that they could emotionally relate to as though they were a human being.”
According to Paul M. Sammon, a journalist who’d been on set, Scott tried to have things his way by inserting abstract clues that suggest Deckard is a replicant. When Ford began to notice, he allegedly told Scott, “Goddammit, I thought we said I wasn’t a replicant!”
The 2007 cut of the movie, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, includes all of Scott’s visual clues suggesting that Deckard is a replicant. That reading is generally considered the most compelling and artistically rich version, as it makes Blade Runner a story about identity, memory, and purpose, and how all those forces can collide within an individual. If Deckard is human, all Blade Runner becomes is a movie about a guy with weird dreams and a crush on a robot.
On the other hand, no one in their right mind should tell Harrison Ford he’s wrong to his face, so it’s nice to hear that he finally changed his mind.
