Lance Henriksen

Biography for Lance Henriksen

An intense, versatile actor as adept at playing clean-cut FBI agents as he is playing psychotic motorcycle-gang leaders, who can go from portraying soulless, murderous vampires to burned-out, world-weary homicide detectives, Lance Henriksen has starred in a variety of films that have allowed him to stretch his talents just about as far as an actor could possibly hope. One of his latest projects was AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. He also appeared in the TNT original movie Evel Knievel (2004) (TV), directed by John Badham and executive produced by Mel Gibson. Henriksen portrayed "Awful Knoffel" in this project based on the life of the famed daredevil, played by George Eads. Henriksen starred for three seasons (1996-1999) on "Millennium" (1996/I), Fox-TV's critically acclaimed series created by Chris Carter ("The X Files" (1993)). His performance as "Frank Black", a retired FBI agent who has the ability to get inside the minds of killers, landed him three consecutive Golden Globe nominations for "Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Drama Series" and a People's Choice Award nomination for "Favorite New TV Male Star". FOX Home Entertainment has just released the first season of "Millennium" on DVD.

Born in New York, Henriksen studied at the Actors Studio and began his career off-Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's "Three Plays of the Sea." One of his first film appearances was as an FBI agent in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975), followed by Lumet's Network (1976) and Prince of the City (1981). He then appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with Richard Dreyfuss and François Truffaut, Damien: Omen II (1978) and in Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983), in which he played Mercury astronaut Capt. Wally Schirra.

James Cameron cast Henriksen in his first directorial effort, Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), then used him in The Terminator (1984), and cast him as the android Bishop in the sci-fi classic Aliens (1986). Director Sam Raimi, who used Henriksen in his quirky western The Quick and the Dead (1995) opposite Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman, says, "Lance is a brilliant performer who goes way beyond acting. He becomes his character completely, leaving no trace of his former self and making something of every moment on screen."

Henriksen's additional feature credits include what is one of his best-known roles, that of the head of a family of murderous redneck vampires in Kathryn Bigelow's cult vampire film Near Dark (1987). He's also appeared in Jagged Edge (1985), Pumpkinhead (1989), The Horror Show (1989), Survival Quest (1989), director Walter Hill's Johnny Handsome (1989), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) (V), Bruce Robinson's Jennifer Eight (1992), Alien³ (1992), Richard Rush's Color of Night (1994), Powder (1995), Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995), Disney's animated feature Tarzan (1999) and John Woo's first American film, Hard Target (1993), for which Henriksen received a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actor.

He was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in the TNT original film The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998) (TV) and had starring roles in PBS' Emmy-winning The Dark End of the Street (1981) and HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" (1989). Henriksen also played actor Charles Bronson in the television movie Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story (1991) (TV).

In addition to his abilities as an actor, Henriksen is an accomplished painter and potter. His talent as a ceramist has enabled him to create some of the most unusual ceramic artworks available on the art market today. He resides in Southern California with his wife Jane and their five-year-old daughter Sage.

Son of Marin, Lance Henriksen spent his childhood in Borneo, Fiji Islands and Malaysia. This adventurous youth quickly makes him intolerable the constraints of a traditional education. Reduced from several high schools, he left on the roads at the age of twelve and, after a hectic adolescence, joined the actor's studio. He won his first role in the Off-Brroadway resumption of Three Plays of the Sea by Eugene O'Neill and chained in the mid-1970s two appearances under the direction of Sidney Lumet in a dog afternoon (1975) and Network (1976). A third will follow in 1981 with the Prince of New York.

CIA agent in meetings of the third type (1977), officer in curse II (1978), astronaut in the hero's etoffe (1983), police inspector in Terminator (1984) ... his burned face no longer passes unnoticed. In 1986, for Aliens the return, James Cameron entrusted him with the role of the Android Bishop, a character who will return to Alien 3 (1992) and Alien vs. Predator (2004) in a derivative form. Accustomed to the fantastic and horrifying register, he participated in the Vampires film at the borders of Aube (1987), the Horror Show (1989), Absolom 2022 (1994), Powder (1995) and Scream 3 (2000). Also comfortable in Bad Guy's performances, he attacks Mickey Rourke in Johnny Belle Gueule (1989) and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hunting Au Homme (1993) by John Woo.

Also a painter and potter with recognized talent, says Henriksen tries to expand his repertoire by embodying Andy Garcia's faithful friend in the thriller Jennifer 8 (1992), one of the patients of the psychiatrist Bruce Willis in the Thriller Color of Night ( 1994), an ace of the trigger in the dead or lively western (1995) and lending his voice to the character of Kerchak in the cartoon Tarzan (1999). From 1996 to 1999, he was also the star of the Millennium series, which earned him three quotes consecutive to the Golden Globes.

Lance Henriksen is an American actor born May 5, 1940 in New York, New York. He is best known for his role as Bishop in the Aliens trilogy. He has also played in many movies and television series, notably in Millennium, The X-Files, The Terminator, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Right Stuff, and The Quick and the Dead.

Photos

Filmography

Trivia

• Was illiterate until the age of thirty. Learned to read by studying movie scripts.
• Left home at the age of twelve.
• Served in the Navy.
• There was talk of having him reprise his role as Detective Vukovich in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). The idea was to have his character bound in a wheelchair (after having survived the events of the original film). That idea, however, was eventually rejected.
• Was considered for the title role in The Terminator (1984), but was ruled out when it was decided that Arnold Schwarzenegger (who was reading for the role of Kyle Reese) would be the perfect choice as the Terminator.
• Has had at least two franchise characters written for him over the years. James Cameron originally wrote The Terminator (1984) character with him in mind, as did Victor Salva with the Creeper from the Jeepers Creepers (2001) movies.
• Dropped out of school at 12.
• In addition to having faced off against lethal aliens in the "Alien" and "Predator" films, he has also appeared in a film about more benevolent aliens: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
• As a young man, he hitchhiked across the United States.
• He was James Cameron's original choice for the title role in The Terminator (1984) when the concept was for a machine that could blend into a crowd. Cameron had even made concept drawings of Henriksen as the Terminator. When the concept was changed, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast, Henriksen was re-cast as Det. Vukovich. When Cameron made Aliens (1986), he cast Henriksen as Bishop, an android.
• Lived in Borneo for three years when he was a kid.
• Enjoys pottery and has been doing it for over 40 years.
• He has filmed over 7 movies in Romania.
• He was walking through a hotel lobby in Romania (where he was wrapping up another film) when he was offered One Point 0.
• Is a big fan of Eminem's music.
• Loves to vacation in Hawaii.

Quotes

"I always wanted to be an actor, even when I was a little kid. When I used to run away from home, I'd go to movies and sit all night watching Kirk Douglas. When I was 16, I tried getting into the Actors Studio and they told me to get lost. I said 'I'll come back when I'm a man', and I came back when I was 30. I went to sea, I traveled the world ... I was waiting."

"You can't do every movie - although I do a lot of them - and the thing I'm longing to do is ... it's not that I think I'm funny ... but I long to do a situation comedy."

"The challenge for me in a part is if it's something I haven't done."

"If I'm going to have a rough time doing it, then that's what I'll do. If I'm in the comfort zone, I can't. I have to get off-balance enough to be alive."

"I'm pretty slapstick in my life but nobody sees that. You get typecast. I'm from New York and I have a shit-detector that's outspoken. I'm very streetwise and the producers detect that. So they get me on a movie and kill me. I go into their offices and I'm sure when I leave they say, 'You know, he'd be great to kill'. I've been killed every way you can imagine."

"I've always known from the beginning of my acting career that you only get an acting job if you've got something to learn about it. If you don't do it well, you'll be condemned to doing the same role over and over and over again. If you do it mediocre you'll have to do it again. Once you've done the role really well, you don't have to repeat it , you don't have to go back there."

(On what he won't do as an actor) "I won't do slasher movies, and I won't play child molesters or men who beat women. I can't rationalize Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday 13th films because they're too one-note. And besides I've been killed in so many movies in so many ways over the years that to be dealing out that kind of death would be terrible. I'll play a bad guy, but he has to be a character with a purpose."

(On his success) "I appreciate the idea that anybody would think of me as a star. But I'm really not career oriented in the sense that I want to be a star. It's not in me. It's not what I do. In fact, I'm amazed that I've even gotten this far."

(On his instincts as an actor) "When I first read the script for Hard Target, I thought, "I'm gonna glue my ears back for this role,' and I had no idea why at the time. In my mind's eye I saw the character as being linear, sleek; he looked like a Doberman. So I got my hair cut in a certain way. The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say, 'This is my need; this is what's going to get me further; this is what's going to be alive. I don't ever say, 'Do you mind if...?' I just come in and do it."

(On working so much) "You know something, if you're not acting, you're not an actor - you've gotta work. No way around it. I remember Andy Garcia - we had done Jennifer 8 together. And Andy, I think was probably making a couple of million for that movie, and he looked at me one day and he goes, 'Hey Lan, you work too much, you shouldn't work so much.' And I said, 'Alright Andy, if I was making a couple million a movie, I wouldn't work too much. I wouldn't need to work 'too much'!' Everybody has their own life to live, and I love doing the work, so what I am I gonna do? He hasn't done the same kind of roles I have. But it's lucky for me, because I'm really having a good time."

"Acting is still tough for me on a certain level. Every role for me is like going back to zero. I have to decide what I'm going to do or if I can even act anymore. It's rough when you're constantly challenging yourself to do better and better work, rather than merely going through the motions."

"I've broken bones doing stunts, I've always been one to have a go. But after a while I realized that there are some things not worth doing. Stunt men pay a price, some of them can hardly walk when they're older. John Woo set me on fire twice for Hard Target. It burnt my ears! But I would've done anything for John Woo."

"When I start working I go back to zero again literally. It's the only way, because if I approach a film without being at zero I'm not having the experience. I'm just bringing my tricks - and I'm not gonna do that. It's risky because you end up on an adventure that you weren't expecting, and I like it. That's why I do acting. I am still enthusiastic about acting. I'm not bored. I'm not doing a George Sanders: poor guy killed himself. His note was 'I'm bored'. Poor guy. But no I love it."

"When you do a low budget film, you gotta let your intuition fly."

"I never understand with movie companies, why they don't think of where to spend money. A lot of the time they throw money at things that don't work. They just keep throwing money at it. 'Well this movie, if it didn't work with that much money, this will make it work!' But they don't know that if they paid actors for a couple of weeks to rehearse, they would save hundreds of thousands of dollars on the set."

(On leaving his role as Frank Black behind) "Man, it took me a year to get out of that. With effort. The first thing I did was go to Hawaii and get two tattoos. One is a shark, the other dolphins. I felt attacked, and I felt like a beast. It was dark stuff. I think if we had gone on another year, it really would have taken hold."

(On playing real characters) "The hardest part about playing a real person in a movie is that it makes you very self-conscious. But once you start working then you're ok, you get into it and don't think about it. It's different if you meet them beforehand, it would make it easier. But I've only ever played guys I've never met. It would be better to meet them beforehand."

(On how he got started in the business) "I started in theatre, my first job was designing sets. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had a talent for making dramatic sets; I had been a painter for years. The first play I did, I got the job because I had built the set! And I didn't even know I got the lead part. The key thing to remember in this business is that they don't invite you in, but once you're in they won't kick you out. So start small and it will grow."

(On inspirational actors) "Certain actors performance even in bad films can be incredible, and inspiring. Some of my favorite actors weren't very well noticed in their careers: John Malone was a great actor, he came from the Peking Theatre. And Chow Yun Fat, John Woo is a great guy and an inspiring person. Along the way there are moments from all kinds of movies, if I find 5 minutes in any film worth watching it is worth watching the film. I love finding that gem of a performance. There are so many actors who are so talented. The one best thing on Millennium was meeting new actors every week. I always tried to make them feel welcome."

(On creating characters) "There's a way that the Actors Studio works, they want you to create character based on some experience from your own life so you personalize it. If you put that in your role your gonna do it: once you commit and make it personal, it's like a thread. That thread, once its pulled - channeled - you don't know where it's coming from. You start this 'channeling'. And it starts coming at such a speed."

I just feel lucky to get as many shots as I get at good roles. Really lucky, indeed. I always loved movies as an escape. I just wanted to be an artist, because I don't just want to come and go and have no one know I ever lived. I wanted to make a record of my existence. For some people it doesn't happen, even if they're wonderful talents. Knock on wood, it has happened to me, but I know many talented people who aren't working.

I had no idea I would make my career in film, but I always knew from my theater work that I would be an actor. To be honest there are hard parts to being an actor. I'm still coming to terms with being away from home, being in a hotel for months on end, losing girl friends and wives because I'm not there to maintain such relationships.

It does seem like some of my films have become cult movies and have done very well in the long run. In several cases, they have proven themselves without any help at all.

Family

• Spouse : Jane Pollack (22 April 1995 - present) 1 child, Mary Jane Evans (10 February 1985 - 1988) (divorced) 1 child
• Daughters: Sage Ariel (12 October 1999), Alcamy (b. 1987).
• His father was a Merchant Marine nicknamed 'Icewater'.
• Parents divorced when he was two.

Author of the card

• Creation date: 24/12/2007 by abdest