List of Blade Runner (franchise) characters

This article is a list of characters in the film Blade Runner.

Rick Deckard

Main article: Rick Deckard

Rick Deckard is a "Blade Runner", a special agent in the Los Angeles police department employed to hunt down and "retire" replicants. His ID number is B-263-54, which is stated twice in both the 1992 Director's Cut & the Final (25th anniversary) cut of the film. He is the protagonist of the film and the narrator in the original cinematic release. Deckard is played by Harrison Ford.

Roy Batty

Roy Batty
Blade Runner Replicant character
Portrayed by	Rutger Hauer
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Model	NEXUS-6 N6MAA10816

Roy Batty is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants and the main antagonist of the film. He is very intelligent, fast, and skilled at combat, and yet still learning how to deal with developing emotions. With an A Physical Level (superhuman strength & endurance) and an A Mental Level (genius level intellect), he is probably the most dangerous of all the fugitive replicants. He is a combat model, used off-world for military service, and is said to have participated in every off-world battle and conflict from the fighting at the Tannhauser Gate to the Massacre on the Venezeualan Moons. He and five other replicants come to Earth, hoping to find a way to lengthen their life span. He is able to use J.F. Sebastian to get a meeting with Tyrell, the head founder of the company and his creator. Tyrell refers to him as his "prodigal son", and tells him his life can not be extended, but that he should revel in the life he has as he has done and seen things others could only dream of. As a result he kills Tyrell and Sebastian.

Deckard retires the remaining replicants and is hunted by a dying Roy. Trying to escape, Deckard ends up dangling from a building and saved from the fall by Roy. As he dies, Roy tells Deckard about the things he saw in his life and how all those memories would be gone forever. . He then smiles, saying, "Time... to die." and passes away.

Batty displays a knowledge of literature, paraphrasing William Blake's "America a Prophecy" whilst in Chew's lab. This is very similar to Frankenstein's monster as he appears in Mary Shelley's novel.

In the original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his name was spelled "Roy Baty," and was the leader of the eight androids (or "andys" as they are often referred to) who killed their human owners so that they could escape the life of slavery they lived on Mars. Roy was married to Irmgard Baty, another android. Roy's relationship with Pris (whom was his lover in the film) in the novel is only that of friendship.

In Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, Batty is one of a series of replicants based on a mercenary of the same name. The template for these replicants suffered from "neural malformation," which made him unable to experience fear. This, it is suggested, might be one of the reasons replicants of this particular series were so difficult to kill.

Played by Rutger Hauer.

Harry Bryant

Bryant is the captain of the Rep-Detect department of the Los Angeles police department. His job in the film is to deal with a group of escaped Nexus-6 replicants (whom he refers to as "skinjobs") that have landed on Earth. His top Blade Runner, Holden, was in hospital on a Medical ventilator after an encounter with a replicant. Bryant uses thinly-veiled threats against Rick Deckard — a retired blade runner- to enlist his aid.

In the original theatrical version, Deckard, during his narration, compares Bryant to the racist cops of the past. "Skinjob, that was Bryant's term for Replicants. In history books, he's the kind of cop that used to call Black men niggers."

Played by M. Emmet Walsh.

Hannibal Chew

Hannibal Chew works for the Tyrell Corporation. His job is to create the eyes for the replicants. In the film, he receives unwelcome guests while he is working in a freezer. As an eye designer for Tyrell, Chew designed the eyes of Roy and Leon. They want to find out who can get them into Tyrell's inner sanctum, who leads them to J.F. Sebastian.

Played by James Hong.

Gaff

Gaff, a mysterious character in the film, presents his compulsory invitation to Deckard in a street lingo called Cityspeak, a mixture of Hungarian, French, Chinese, German, Korean and Japanese. He is played by Edward James Olmos. As a fellow cop, he is quickly identified as being very different from Deckard through the ways he dresses and behaves. He tends to make little Origami figures. The last words heard in the film (Director's Cut & Final cut versions) are spoken by him: "It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"

Gaff walks with a cane and a noticeable limp.

The sequel by K.W. Jeter mentions that Gaff is killed in the line of duty. At the beginning of the novel, Bryant has just returned from the funeral and expresses his distaste for the Cityspeak written on Gaff's headstone.

Holden

Holden, played by Morgan Paull, is the Blade Runner testing new employees at the Tyrell Corporation on the premise that the escaped Replicants might try to infiltrate the company.

During a Voight-Kampff test, Leon shoots Holden and leaves him for dead. Later, Bryant mentions that Holden is alive but his breathing is assisted by machines.

There were two hospital scenes with Holden and Deckard that were filmed but not used in the movie. One scene is shown in the documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner. Both scenes appear in the deleted scenes section on the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD.

Leon Kowalski

Leon
Blade Runner Replicant character
Portrayed by	Brion James
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Model	NEXUS-6 N6MAC41717

Leon Kowalski, who is played by Brion James, is a replicant who came to Earth with five others looking to extend their lives. He has an A physical level, which enables him to have super-human strength and endurance (according to the Final cut he was used as a 180 kg/400 lb nuclear-head loader in the outer space colonies as well as a front-line soldier). Leon is classified mental level C. He doesn't have the speed of thought that Roy does when it comes to solving problems. Leon shoots Blade Runner Holden as he administers the Voight-Kampff test on him while he works at the Tyrell Corporation, which he has infiltrated. During the test he shoots Holden. Leon attacks Deckard after he witnesses Deckard kill Zhora, but Rachael shoots and kills him to protect Deckard.

Leon cherishes photographs of his friends. Unlike Rachael's false photos of her childhood, these include current photos of people who mean something to him.

Taffey Lewis

Taffey Lewis is the owner of Taffey's Snake Pit Bar. The bar features music, exotic dancing, and something being smoked in pipes. He dismisses Deckard's threats with a free drink.

Played by Hy Pyke.

Pris

Pris
Blade Runner Replicant character
Portrayed by	Daryl Hannah
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Model	NEXUS-6 N6FAB21416

Pris is a "pleasure model" portrayed by Daryl Hannah (incepted on Valentine's Day). She meets with and becomes friends with J.F. Sebastian. Pris is also the girlfriend of fellow replicant Roy Batty. At an A Physical Level, she is shown to have super-human endurance (as in the scene where she grabs a boiling egg with her bare hand without harm). Her B Mental Level puts her at a lower intellectual level than Roy. She sets a trap for Deckard in the Bradbury Building, where she disguises herself as a mannequin and uses her gymnastic skills to ambush Deckard; however, she is retired by Deckard.

Her punk outfits were inspired by a new wave calendar.

It is suggested in Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human that Pris was in fact an insane human who believed that she was a replicant.

Rachael

Rachael
Blade Runner Replicant character
Portrayed by	Sean Young
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Model	NEXUS-6

Rachael is the latest experiment of Eldon Tyrell. Tyrell believes that as the replicants have such a limited lifespan, they have little time to develop control of their emotions, causing difficulty managing them. He believes implanting them with memories would create a cushion which would allow for emotional development, and make them more controllable.

Rachael has the implanted memories of Tyrell's niece, and she is led to believe that she is human. It is not revealed in the film know how long she has been living, but Tyrell admits that he thinks she is beginning to suspect the truth of her existence.

When Rachael learns the truth, she is ignored by Tyrell. In desperation, she turns to Deckard, who has been told by Captain Bryant to retire her. He eventually falls in love with her.

Both of them are allowed to live: Roy saves Deckard from falling off a building, and Gaff does not kill Rachael. Gaff leaves his calling card, an origami model (this time, shaped like a foil unicorn), at Deckard's apartment to show he's been there. At the end of the film she and Deckard flee his apartment to go into hiding.

J.F. Sebastian

J. F. Sebastian is a genetic designer working for Tyrell. He is not allowed to emigrate off-world because he has Methuselah Syndrome. Because of this, he has "accelerated decrepitude" in common with the Nexus 6 Replicants. With the Bradbury Building all to himself, he makes the most of his talents, even making his own Toy-friends.

He is easy prey to Pris; sexual tensions arise when Roy encounters her. Although J.F. is excited to discover that his new friends are Nexus 6 generation, he finds his life rapidly going downhill shortly after he meets them. He is manipulated into helping Roy Batty get to Tyrell. A police radio message heard by Deckard after Tyrell is killed suggest the replicants then killed Sebastian as well.

The makeup for J.F. was a "stretch and stipple" technique with no prosthetics.

Played by William Sanderson.

Dr. Eldon Tyrell

Dr. Eldon Tyrell is the genius who has built up the large Tyrell Corporation. His creations are Replicants, some of which have been given away as an incentive for people to emigrate to the Off-World colonies. Others are used in combat to protect those settlers. Roy Batty, along with J.F. Sebastian, finds Tyrell, and asks him to extend his life beyond the four-year limit built into Nexus Six replicants. However, this request was impossible to satisfy. Upon hearing this, Batty kisses Tyrell before crushing his head with his bare hands.

Played by Joe Turkel.

Zhora

Zhora
Blade Runner Replicant character
Portrayed by	Joanna Cassidy
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Model	NEXUS-6 N6FAB61216

Zhora, a replicant, has an A Physical Level (Super-human endurance) & a B Mental Level (Intelligence equal to that of Pris). She managed to get a job as an exotic dancer at Taffey's Bar (using her own pet snake). Tracked down by Deckard from a snake scale, she soon realises that he is dangerous. Zhora has been used in murder squads. However, he escapes death by the slightest of margins as people walk in just before Zhora delivers a killing blow. She tries to escape from Deckard by running into a busy street. However, she is eventually shot in the back several times and killed by him.

Unnamed Replicant(s)

According to dialogue spoken by Bryant in the Final cut of the film, two other unnamed replicants (only one in earlier versions) were killed while attempting to enter the Tyrell Corporation. The term used by him when describing their deaths ("Two of them got fried running through an electrical field") suggests they were stopped by an electrical barrier or security device of some sort.

Earlier drafts of the script name these replicants as Hodge and Mary. In Hampton Fancher's early drafts of the script, Mary lives while Hodge is the only replicant fried in the electrical field. Mary was intended to reflect the novel's character of Irmgard Baty, and was meant to be a "mother figure" model of replicant, performing housework and childcare duties, and she was supposed to be reminiscent of the stereotypical housewife of the 1950's. Her incept date is given as November 1, 2017. Mary was to be played by Stacy Nelkin, who had originally tried out for the role of Pris, but Mary's scenes were cut before filming.