Lance Henriksen, who starred in “Millennium,” has written his autobiography and will guest star on TNT’s “Memphis Blues” on August 16.“I’m a primitive,” Lance Henriksen explains.
The incredibly busy performer — with 10 credits so far just this year — is talking about his acting style, which is instinctual rather than intellectual, and takes him so deeply into a character it can get a little scary, on and off the screen.
Yet when Henriksen says “primitive” he could also be talking about his desperately poor, so-called childhood — a horror show that saw him in and out of abusive homes and orphanages, and sometimes living on the street.
And he could certainly be talking about his roles — which, apart from his memorably heroic android in “Aliens,” have generally been some of the creepiest killers, trailer-trash vampires and Western bad guys any fan ever saw.
But far from being a primitive in real life, Henriksen, 71, is a rather sophisticated gentleman, a self-taught painter and ceramicist with a passion for asking the big questions — and a new memoir about all of it, “Not Bad for a Human” (Bloody Pulp Books).
Q: Reading this book, I kept thinking, thank God he found acting, or acting found him. Because all the other possibilities looked pretty bleak.
A: Yeah, but growing up I think I always had a sense of art, a sense that there was poetry in the world. I didn’t know where I was going to find it. I didn’t know where I was going to fit in, that was for sure. But I kept moving forward. There wasn’t a future in anything other than movement.
Q: You've said, when you finally started acting as an adult, you still couldn't read. How did you learn your lines?
A: I’d get a friend to put the whole play on tape and I’d just listen to it over and over again. I wouldn’t just memorize my lines; I’d memorize everyone’s lines… But to this day — I’m very literate now, I love to read, I read constantly — words don’t resonate the way they do to a person with a formal education. They’re like a maze, a puzzle that has to be opened up. I don’t think in words, I think in pictures, in images.
Q: What were you thinking when you played Bishop, in "Aliens"?
A: That was me playing myself at 12, my emotional life back then. I mean, when I got the part, the first thing I did was look at actors who’d played characters like that, Rutger Hauer in “Blade Runner,” Ian Holm in the first “Alien.” They were phenomenal. I thought, how am I going to compete with that? And I finally thought: Don’t. And I just concentrated on Bishop’s appreciation of life, his urge to help and make things better. I played myself at 12, except this time I was able to help. I really lived that part and it was very healing.
Q: But it isn't always. Like "Hard Target," when you had John Woo worried you were too into the character. Or when you made "The Pit and the Pendulum," and spent the whole shoot on bread and water because that's what the character would eat.
A: Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with acting, honestly. I live it all. It’s more than just being involved in something. Like a friend of mine says, “You sit down to a plate of bacon and eggs and, you know, the chicken was involved in making that breakfast. The pig was committed.” Well, I sign on for a movie, I’m committed!
Q: How do you get out of character once the job is done?
A: I don’t. Not for awhile, anyway. Which is the bad thing about being a primitive actor. That’s why I don’t have one souvenir in my house from any movie I’ve done. Because if I held onto a jacket or a hat, and I put it on again? That minute I would be right back in that character. It’s so bizarre… But I spend a lot of time on those details. I mean, this picture “Scream of the Banshee,” I was supposed to play a professor, and there really wasn’t a lot on the page. So I asked the director about it and he says, “Well, do whatever you want.” So OK, I made up this whole story for the guy, I decided he was gay, he’d dropped out, he went overboard, I showed up with my hair all chopped up and about ten different colors of nail polish on my hands. I mean, you give me that freedom, great.
Q: I've never seen that movie…
A: Oh, don’t! (Laughs.) It’s poison!
Q: How do you keep your enthusiasm up, though, on projects like that? I mean, you did "Dog Day Afternoon" for Sidney Lumet, and "Appaloosa" with Ed Harris and "Millennium" on TV. But you're also in "Alien Vs. Predator." You've done three different Bigfoot movies. And you don't seem to take any of them any less seriously.
A: My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don’t do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking ah, no one’s ever going to see this anyway... And you know, most people don’t set out to do a bad movie. There are a few exceptions — what I call “alimony films,” where the whole point is to pay some bills — but mostly people are trying to do their best. What’s frustrating to me is when, on a low-budget movie, people don’t take chances. A big-budget movie, that script’s your bible, nobody’s going to risk going off the page. But when you’re doing a very low-budget film, why not take some chances, intellectually, artistically?
Q: Do you wish producers would take some more chances with casting? Put you in a straight drama, or a comedy?
A: I’ve been working towards that. I just shot a scene for a total, all-out comedy called “Bring Me the Head of Lance Henriksen” with Tim Thomerson, where every part he goes up for, I’ve already gotten it. The whole thing is going to be improvised and we’re going to have a bunch of people, Adrienne Barbeau and John Saxon, all these people, taking off on what bugs them about the industry, and the ageism, and the rest of it. Because, you know, as you get past 40, it’s hard out there. But what do you do?... I’ve done movies and seen them cut up, and ruined, but you don’t give up. You keep moving forward. If you’re not acting, you’re not an actor.
Lance Henriksen will be signing "Not Bad for a Human," written with Joseph Maddrey, at Monster-Mania in Cherry Hill on Aug. 19-21. For more about that convention, visit www.monstermania.net; for information on Henriksen's upcoming appearances, or to order an autographed copy, visit www.notbadforahuman.com