Blade Runner – Starring Divine and Grace Jones, 1982

” All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.”

– Deckard, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner,1982

 

 

In another world, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) was made with co-stars Grace Jones and Divine. Jones was dating Jean-Paul Goude – the photographer with whom she broke the internet – when she was asked to audition for the movie. Jones explained why she turned it down in her autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs:

Jean-Paul wanted me only to work with him. Especially if I was going to do a film. He wanted me to do a film only with him, before anyone else. I knew he would be adamant that it was a bad move to appear in Blade Runner. I immediately said no, before I had even read the script and before I had even asked him. When he heard about the film, he said what I thought he would say – it would be too commercial, and I would become too Hollywood. I would be a sellout.

I still had the script, though, and the night after I had passed on the part, I was flying to Paris. I decided to read it on the plane. I absolutely loved it. It was set in a universe I visited a lot in my work and play. As soon as I landed I decided I would call them back and reverse my decision. I was too late. Overnight they had cast someone else. I should have made that decision myself, rather than being caught up in Jean-Paul’s rivalry with Ridley Scott in the world of commercials… If I had seen the film Ridley had made a couple of years before, The Duellists, which was fabulous, I wouldn’t have thought for a moment about accepting. I said no without reading the script, which was very stupid of me…

As for Scott inviting Divine to audition for the Bernard Jay tells us more in Not Simply Divine:

I was discussing with an important casting agency the possibility of Divine playing a role in an upcoming movie, Blade Runner, to be directed by Ridley Scott, one of Hollywood’s new ‘darlings’ since his success with Alien. Divi was invited to give a private reading for the director at his Hollywood office. We flew to the West Coast – at Divine’s expense – and worked solidly together for many hours on the brief pages of filmscript provided. Divi was terrified. It was the first time he had ever had to audition and, although it had been arranged in privacy and with great courtesy by Ridley Scott’s office, he was a nervous wreck.

He spent the best part of an hour alone with the director. I waited outside and became as nervous as my client. Divi wasn’t offered the role, but told me Ridley Scott had spent most of their time together talking of the John Waters movies and how great a fan of Divine’s he was. He also asked him to read from a completely different filmscript than the one we had prepared from. Divine was immensely flattered to have been approached and humbled by this experience. Once again, I was impressed and proud of the way he had dealt with it—and delighted to note that he was beginning to be taken seriously within in his own industry.

Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Edward James Olmos, Blade Runner is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Would Jones have made it better? Would Divine have?

As Paul Gallagher notes, casting the movie was not straightforward. According to production notes, screenwriter Hampton Fancher thought Robert Mitchum suited to the lead role of Rick Deckard and wrote for the actor’s voice. Scott wanted Dustin Hoffman. He turned it down. And Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tommy Lee Jones all passed through casting before Harrison Ford got the part.