List of Blade Runner characters


Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, which stars Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. Written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, the film is an adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
Its 2017 sequel, Blade Runner 2049, stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto.
Additionally, several other spinoffs have been made that introduce or explain new characters, most notably the 2017 prequel short films Blade Runner Black Out 2022, 2036: Nexus Dawn, 2048: Nowhere to Run; the 2021 television series Blade Runner: Black Lotus ; a 1997 video game; along with sequel novels written by K.W. Jeter.
This article lists notable characters from the Blade Runner franchise.

Characters in both films

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 and the 2007 Final Cut of the film.
He is the protagonist of Blade Runner, the narrator in its original theatrical release, and appears in Blade Runner 2049. He was played by Harrison Ford.
In the first film, Deckard reluctantly comes out of retirement to carry out an assignment by Captain Harry Bryant to kill four out of six replicants in a renegade group from the off-world colonies — two of whom died upon arrival: Roy Batty, Zhora, Leon, and Pris. He administers the Voight-Kampff test on Dr. Eldon Tyrell's assistant, Rachael, and concludes she is a Nexus-6 replicant since the test takes much longer than normal. Rachael denies it by showing a picture of her as a young child, but Deckard explains to her that she has been implanted with memories from Tyrell's niece. He tries apologizing to her, but Rachael leaves in tears. Later on in the film, Deckard falls in love with her, which she acquiesces to.
In both the Director's and Final Cuts of the film, Deckard daydreams about a unicorn.
He hunts down Zhora, finds her in Taffey Lewis's Snake Pit Bar, and kills her after a chase. Leon ambushes and almost kills Deckard, but is killed by Rachael, saving Deckard. He tracks down Pris to J.F. Sebastian's apartment, killing her before Roy returns. Roy chases him throughout the apartment building and up to its roof. Failing to make a full jump to another building, Deckard hangs onto a beam and is caught by Roy as his fingers slip. Before Roy dies due to his short lifespan, he tells Deckard of the things he has seen, and how they will be "lost in time, like tears in rain." Afterwards, Deckard picks up a unicorn origami Gaff has left behind and flees Los Angeles with Rachael.
In the second film, a replicant detective named KD6-3.7, or "K" for short, locates him in the ruins of Las Vegas. Deckard is informed that he is the father of the child Rachael gave birth to before dying in childbirth. A replicant enforcer named Luv kidnaps him and takes him to Niander Wallace, the CEO of the Wallace Corporation, who offers him an identical version of Rachael in trade of information on the child's whereabouts. Deckard refuses, noticing an error on the Rachael dupe. Wallace makes Luv kill the dupe and take Deckard off-world to be tortured in order to extract information. While she is transporting him, K saves Deckard and drowns her, K getting severely injured in the process. Deckard is taken by K to his daughter, Dr. Ana Stelline, at her facility, and receives the toy horse from K's childhood memories.

Gaff

Gaff is a Los Angeles police officer who escorts Deckard throughout his mission. He primarily uses "Cityspeak", a creole of Spanish, French, German, Hungarian, Chinese, Russian and Japanese, which Deckard pretends not to understand. Gaff is never shown participating in Deckard's investigation, preferring to linger in the background crafting origami figures; he appears to have an ambivalent attitude towards the replicants, observing "the other man's dead, Deckard... it's a shame she won't live".
Gaff was played by American actor/director Edward James Olmos.
The sequel novel to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 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.
In the 2017 anime short film Blade Runner Black Out 2022, Gaff reluctantly agrees to hunt down five replicants who escaped from the off-world colony Kalanthia.
In the sequel film Blade Runner 2049, Gaff is questioned by KD6-3.7 in a retirement home, asking about Deckard's whereabouts.

Rachael

Rachael, sometimes referred to as Rachael Tyrell, was the latest experiment of Eldon Tyrell, and the sole Nexus-7 replicant. He believed that since the replicants had such a limited lifespan, they had little time to develop control of their emotions, causing difficulty in managing these emotions. He believed implanting the replicants with memories would create a cushion that would allow for emotional development, and make them more controllable.
Rachael has the implanted memories of Tyrell's niece, leading her to believe that she is human. It is not revealed in the film how long she has been living, but Tyrell admits that he thinks she is beginning to suspect the truth of her nature.
Tyrell refuses to discuss the issue with Rachael. In desperation, she turns to Deckard, who has been told by Captain Bryant to retire her. Instead, Deckard falls in love with her.
At the end of the film, Rachael and Deckard board an elevator and flee Los Angeles.
In Blade Runner 2049 it is revealed Rachael, as the sole Nexus-7, was given the ability to reproduce by Tyrell. During an apparently routine investigation, Blade Runner Officer K uncovers a box containing bones and hair buried under a tree. The remains are shown to be that of a being who died after a caesarean section, and upon the discovery that the being was a replicant, K is ordered by Lt. Joshi to track down and kill the replicant's child. K later learns the pregnant replicant was Rachael. After capturing Deckard, Niander Wallace designs a physically near-identical copy of Rachael and offers her to Deckard in an attempt to persuade Deckard to reveal the location of the replicants who helped hide his and Rachael's daughter. After Deckard declines, Wallace has the copy killed.
Rachael was played by Sean Young in Blade Runner. In Blade Runner 2049, Rachael was portrayed by actress Loren Peta with Sean Young's facial features de-aged and overlaid via CGI.

Characters in ''Blade Runner''

Roy Batty

Roy Batty is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants and the main antagonist of the film. Portrayed by Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, he was activated on January 8, 2016, which makes him 3 years and 10 months old by the time of the events of the film.
He is highly intelligent, fast and skilled at combat and yet still learning how to deal with emotions. He is a combat model, used off-world for military service. He and five other replicants come to Earth hoping to find a way to lengthen their lifespan. He is able to use J. F. Sebastian to get a meeting with Tyrell, the founder of the company and his creator. Tyrell refers to him as his "prodigal son" and tells him his life cannot be extended but he should revel in the life that he has, as he has done and seen things others could only dream of. Batty kills Tyrell and Sebastian.
Deckard retires the remaining replicants and is hunted by a dying Roy. Deckard ends up dangling from a building and is saved from the fall by Roy. As he dies, Roy tells Deckard about the things he has seen and how the memories will be "lost in time, like tears in rain". He smiles, saying, "Time... to die".
In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his name was spelled "Roy Baty" and was the leader of the eight replicants who killed their human owners so that they could escape their life of slavery on Mars. Roy was married to Irmgard Baty, another replicant. In the novel, Roy's relationship with Pris, who was his lover in the film, is only one of friendship. In the sequel novel Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human, incorporating elements from the novel and the screenplay, Roy is one of a series of replicants based on a mercenary of the same name. The template suffered from "neural malformation", which made them unable to experience fear. This might be a reason why replicants of that series were so difficult to kill.

Harry Bryant

Harry 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 that have landed on Earth. His top Blade Runner, Holden, was in hospital on a medical ventilator after an encounter with the Leon replicant, earlier in the film. Bryant uses thinly veiled threats against Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner, to enlist his aid. Deckard's narration in the original theatrical version compares Bryant to the racist cops of the past.
He was played by M. Emmet Walsh.

Hannibal Chew

Hannibal Chew contracts for the Tyrell Corporation as a genetic engineer. His job is to create the eyes for the replicants, Roy's and Leon's, in this case.
In the film, the replicants visit him while he is working in a freezer. The replicants pressure him into telling them that J. F. Sebastian can get them into Tyrell's inner sanctum.
He was played by James Hong.

Dave Holden

Dave Holden 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.
He was played by Morgan Paull.