Does Edward James Olmos play the only Blade Runner in Blade Runner?
Olmos made an interesting case for that notion during a recent career retrospective Q&A at the Santa Fe International Film Festival, where he was honored with a lifetime achievement award.
The iconic actor, whose beloved films beside 1982’s Blade Runner include 1988’s Stand and Deliver and 1992’s American Me, explained that he only takes roles in which he’s able to play a large part in shaping his characters. He used Blade Runner as an example of how he contributes to a character’s development.
In the film, Olmos played Gaff, a mysterious, blue-eyed, bow-tied LAPD investigator who steers Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard, in his mission to eliminate replicants — genetically enhanced workers created by the Tyrell Corporation who appear so human that they sometimes believe themselves to be human.
In the film, those charged with hunting replicants — derisively called “skin jobs” — are known as Blade Runners.
Edward James Olmos on Gaff
Gaff sometimes speaks a complex language called “Cityspeak” that combines 10 languages, including French, Hungarian and German. Olmos said he took Berlitz language classes to assemble his Cityspeak lines.
Gaff also has a habit of doing origami — he uses different figures, such as a chicken and a stickman, to reflect Deckard’s inner thoughts at different points in the film.
Blade Runner has famously gone through various edits and releases that change some viewers’ interpretations of the film. Studio executives and Scott debated several elements that the studio felt would make the film more coherent, including a voiceover by Deckard.
But to Blade Runner director Ridley Scott — and Olmos — one detail is crucial and consistent.
Near the end of the movie, Gaff leaves an origami unicorn in Deckard’s home. To many — including Scott and Olmos — this unicorn proves that Deckard is a replicant.
Under one interpretation, it’s possible that the unicorn represents Deckard’s desire for freedom — which Gaff understands because he knows Deckard is a replicant.
Scott underlined this interpretation in a 1992’s “Director’s Cut” re-release of the film that added a sequence, about 42 minutes into the story, in which Deckard dreams of a unicorn. This addition adds to the theory that Deckard is a replicant, because Gaff leaving an origami unicorn in Deckard’s home suggests that he is aware of Deckard’s dreams, which would make more sense if those dreams have been implanted by humans.
For years, Ford and Scott argued over whether Deckard was a replicant, though Ford finally conceded in a 2013 Esquire interview: “I always knew that I was a replicant. 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.”
Olmos referenced the unicorn in his Santa Fe Q&A, noting: “That’s how we found out that Decker was a damn replicant — and I’m the only Blade Runner in the movie!”
By Olmos’ logic, a replicant hunting other replicants can not be a true Blade Runner — only a human can be a Blade Runner. And since Gaff is (by all evidence) a human, that makes him the only Blade Runner in Blade Runner.
Olmos also said he made another key contribution to the film: the scene when Gaff turns and acknowledges to Deckard that his replicant lover, Sean Young’s Rachael, is not long for their world.
“I created my own dialogue,” said Olmos. “You know that line, ‘Too bad she won’t live, but then again who does?’ At the very end?”
He said he hoped at the time that Scott wouldn’t cut the line — “and he used it.”
It’s unclear who is most responsible for the line, and whether it was a complete ad-lib by Olmos, or a reinterpretation of the script. In the July 24, 1980 draft of the script by Fancher, Gaff doesn’t say the line.
But in the February 23, 1981 draft, for which David Peoples did a rewrite, Gaff delivers the line, “It’s too bad, she don’t last, eh! … But who does.”
In Future Noir, actor M. Emmet Walsh says the dialogue “got changed during production.”
May we editorialize? However the final line came about, Olmos’ final version on-screen is an improvement.
The Return of Gaff
Olmos also recalled in Santa Fe his delight at returning to the franchise in the 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049.
In a key scene, he appears with Ryan Gosling’s character, K, in an elder care facility, and presents him with an origami sheep.
“They used me perfectly in that movie,” Olmos said. “I’m a nurse. I take care of the elderly, and I make these little organic pieces. You don’t see it until the very end. And it’s a little sheep lamb being led to the slaughter. And they put it up there because he’s looking for his father.”
How Blade Runner Got Its Name
If you’ve gotten this far wondering how the film got its very cool but very strange name, please read on.
In the book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, author Paul M. Sammon explains that Blade Runner director Ridley Scott didn’t want Deckard to be called simply a “detective” and asked screenwriter Hampton Fancher, “couldn’t we come up with a different name for his line of work?”
Fancher then went through his home library and found a little-known book by author Williams Burroughs titled Blade Runner: (a movie).
They purchased the title from Burroughs, though his book was not, of course, the basis of the 1982 Blade Runner. The film is loosely based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Which gives added resonance to the origami sheep in 2049.
Main image: Edward James Olmos as Gaff. Warner Bros.