Rutger Hauer has been a Sea Shepherd supporter for many years and has joined the Sea Shepherd Board of Advisors. In May 1997, he personally visited Captain Paul Watson while he was being held as a prisoner at Lelystad prison in the Netherlands.
It’s difficult to sum up Rutger’s talents and skills in few lines, but once he stated, “I am an Aquarius, which means you carry the water from one person to the next, that’s a spiritual thing and that’s exactly what I do. You know, there are many different levels to the spirit. Films always tell one story, but below that story there is another story and I’m really into that and I try and work on a few different levels. The hardest thing is to get the level you don’t see, that it’s not on the surface. I hate acting when I see it. I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to see it, I want to be taken away with the story. I don’t want the actor’s ego in front of me. That’s why I try to live when I do the work. The tongue-in-cheek stuff is sort of my favourite but it doesn’t come along that much. I didn’t do a lot of comedy, and I think I could handle the romantic side, it’s underdeveloped still.
And it’s also drama that I’m interested in, it’s the craft that I’m interested in. What draws me basically is the story and the people who do it. When you’re an actor, you’re like a string and the music gets played on you. I have a gift that allows me to make people understand what I am feeling even if they can’t put it in words. I have a very strange power within me, I can feel it. The rest I guess is luck and talent, and it’s all in the hands of what’s-its-name, I call it fate. It’s not just work. It’s the urge to, let’s say, fulfill a certain black hole in you and you just have to follow up on it if you want to get it done. I think the only form of happiness is fulfillment – it’s what everybody wants but people translate it in different ways. And there is a cosmic tide that we do not know how to handle. And there is also a psychic understanding that we don’t know how to handle. Those are very strong and very present elements in the way we work. Whatever you do, there’s always an element of projected fate. You know, it’s like you’re doing it and you are following it at the same time. I’m not going to travel if I don’t feel I’m being pulled…”.
