Bankrate: Which of course first teamed you with director Paul Verhoeven.

Rutger Hauer: Yeah, we were all sort of making baby steps. It was Paul's first outing and my first moment in front of the camera. It had never been done (in Holland) anyway. It was a big adventure.

Bankrate: It was somewhat ironic that your big-screen breakthrough came playing a war hero in "Soldier of Orange," when you had recently opted out of military service yourself.

Rutger Hauer: Of course. That's the funny side of my profession; we can play all kinds of roles that have nothing to do with reality. It's all movie magic and the imagination, just playing your part.

Bankrate: You first came to New York to work on "Nighthawks," an action film vehicle for Sylvester Stallone. Did that seem like your big break?

Rutger Hauer: I didn't think in terms of breaks, I just thought OK, I'm going to do one movie in America, that's pretty amazing. I had to play this terrorist based on a real guy, so I had to find whatever there was to find on this guy. He had been in a terrorist thing at the Olympic Games in Germany and he had written a small book that was kind of scary. You know how they say that when Bill Clinton enters a room, the room changes? When I read the book, I understood that when he would walk into a room, the room changes but it was not as nice and warm and positive. He was a major threat. I just made a recipe for the part. But it turned out that the movie was indirectly directed by Stallone, and I had a hard time making him understand what an amazing character I was playing and how scary this guy could be. Stallone was big at the time and he was young. I don't think anybody is ready for that kind of success.

Bankrate: That was probably the largest paycheck you had gotten to date.

Rutger Hauer: The funny thing was that the moment I got an agent in New York after I had promoted "Soldier of Orange," because that was the film that got me over here, two weeks later I had been offered a movie in Florida about some guy who had invented a way to create lightning. Then two weeks later, they said they were not going to go, and my lawyer said fine but let's just make a deal here, and I remember suddenly having $50,000 in my pocket, which was more money than I had made altogether during my career as an actor.

Bankrate: How did you celebrate?

Rutger Hauer: Basically, I was stunned. I think I took myself out for dinner. My wife was in Holland. I was very lucky. So I thought I would invest the money to work with a dialogue coach. It took me a while to find that guy and he was in L.A. and I had a session with him and he said, "You can do this well if you work with me." I worked with him over a period of 10 years. I didn't move to L.A. until 1988.