Lance Henriksen Enters His Fifth Decade Of Silver Screen Stardom With ‘The Unhealer’

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Lance Henriksen’s film debut, and while the film in question – It Ain’t Easy – is one that he steadfastly avoids discussing (when the A.V. Club brought it up in 2017, he snorted and said, “I never talk about that movie, I sucked in it, totally”), it’s nonetheless worth celebrating a man who’s been able to maintain steady employment as an actor for literally half a century, particularly when he’s worked with such luminaries as Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon), John Woo (Hard Target), and James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens), just to name a few. At the moment, Henriksen is dutifully doing the publicity rounds for his latest film, The Unhealer, and when Decider was provided with the opportunity to chat with him about this project as well as many others in his back catalog, we jumped at the chance.

DECIDER: First of all, it’s a pleasure to talk to you.

LANCE HENRIKSEN: Likewise. And you’re with Decider?

I am.

Are you the Decider?

Well, I’m a Decider. 

[Laughs.] That’s a great name to have in this business! “I’m a Decider!”

I’m just glad Justin [Cook, publicist extraordinaire] decided to send me the link to watch The Unhealer last night. I really enjoyed it. 

It’s a blast that comes out of this little movie. It could’ve been more so, but the Deciders cut some of it out! [Laughs.]

I don’t know what the budget of the film was, but I’m willing to bet that it was way less than it looks like it was, because for an independent film, it looks great. How did you find your way into it? Did they pitch it to you?

Yeah, they did. I got the script, and I thought it was a little bit vacant, so I talked to the director, and what we ended up doing was…a lot of blasphemous stuff. [Laughs.] I thought it needed it! That character is such a con-man. You know, he lives in a van, he scams all over the place, and then he gets a stroke of luck, but he doesn’t know how to handle it. He doesn’t know what to do. He suddenly has this power, and what is he going to do with it? What does he know how to do with it? So I thought, “Oh, man, let’s get a little blasphemous with it.” And we did. We had lots more stuff, too, but you can’t do it all. The Decider decides!

So whose decision was the wardrobe? Was that yours?

Yeah, that was mine. I mean, I wanted him in a real nice suit, but one that he hasn’t taken care of in years. He’s been living in that suit! I don’t want to put down homeless people, but this guy is a homeless con-man who lives in a van. What’s going on? What is he wig-bubbling about when he goes and digs up the grave of a shaman? He doesn’t know what’s going to happen! My favorite scene is when he gets struck by lightning and gets thrown maybe 30 feet into his van…and then he gets up and realizes that his bum leg is healed! What the hell happened? And then he goes on from there. But I really enjoy playing characters like that, only because it opens a door to how crazy we are as people. [Laughs.]

You know, the craziest part is… This is me when I was sixteen! A sixteen-year-old has impossible energy, doesn’t know what to do with it or how to deal with it. So in a way, this is a guy who’s locked in his immaturity, if anything, trying to pretend to be a Pope-ish kind of fellow.

I really did think it was an interesting premise for the film, with the kid getting these powers that backfire on any bully who tries to go after him but not knowing what exactly to do with them.

Yeah, for sure! And that uncertainty… That’s how we feel about the coronavirus! You know, we don’t know what to do. I mean, I don’t wear a mask in my house when I’m alone…and that’s the only time. [Laughs.]

Oh, I hear you. We’ve had it run through our house after my 16-year-old daughter got it. We’re all okay, but…it was something.

Oh, buddy, that’s really rough. It’s scary. It really is scary. I mean, I got all three shots. They’re gonna come out with more, because all these companies need to make money. [Laughs.] That’s what’s going on.

And to think I was going to liken your character to a guy in a traveling medicine show. Some would say that’s what the pharmaceutical companies are now.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, these guys are double-talking all over the place. They’re triple-talking! [Laughs.] And they’ll come up with another one, because I know the history of when we had the Spanish flu. Man, if they could’ve made money off of that, they would’ve. I mean, they sold more masks than anybody’s ever laid eyes on. But it was also a very bad era money-wise. People were all hungry.

Playing this guy… When you see him in scenes with the Native American guy, he’s so blasphemous about it. He’s just not a kind person, you know? And I kind of love characters like that, because you can open doors and say, “Well, wait a minute, I’m not like that.” I mean, a drunken drug addict with healing powers… I’m like other things, but I’m not like that! [Laughs.]

So when I went on social media to mention that I was going to be talking to you, I was bombarded with something like two dozen different projects to ask you about, so I’ll try to weed through them.

Sure, man. Anything you want!

Well, one thing that got more mentions that I’d expected was Hard Target.

You know, John Woo was the kindest, brightest man I’ve ever worked with. He’s the only guy I ever let set me on fire. [Laughs.] Because I trusted him so much. Again, there’s another dark character, but it’s from living in the French Foreign Legion. That’s what I gave myself: that Pik (Arnold Vosloo) and I were both in the Foreign Legion together, and we’d been through that world, and now we’re doing what the… [Hesitates before starting to chuckle.] No, no, I’m not going to go there. They’re making use of their experience, let’s put it that way! So it gave me a good, grounded core. And I liked the arrogance of that character. Pik and I, we knew so well what to do and how to do it. And we loved war, so the final scenes were all about war…and I end up with a grenade in my pants!

Not a euphemism.

No! [Laughs.] You know, the thing I was blown away about is the control that [Jean Claude] Van Damme had. I mean, he kicked me in the face at one point in a fight, and it barely touched my skin with his spinning back kick. He had a lot of control. We were all trying our best, we really were.

I just did an interview with Gina Gershon and asked her about working with John Woo on Face/Off, and she said that she told him he needs to do a musical someday, because he’s so beautiful with his fight choreography that she’d love to see how it would translate.

Oh, he choreographs every aspect beautifully. But I did get to pick my own gun. I only wanted a gun with nine rounds. Let everybody else shoot each other! [Laughs.] It was a 45-70 hand-operated pistol, but the bullets were as big as my finger! They were huge!

What do you remember about the experience of working on Dog Day Afternoon?

Well, that was my first movie, man. I had no idea what it was like on a set. I mean, I really didn’t. Not with a pro like [Sidney Lumet]. I knew one thing: you’ve got to live it. I knew that going in, because I’d already done theater. You have to live these roles. You can’t just fake ’em. You’ve got to try and form a character that’s believable, no matter what it is, no matter if you’re playing a saint or a sinner.

It’s definitely a film that’s held up over the years.

Oh, yeah. Al [Pacino] was great in that. Everybody was good in that. We had Charlie Durning and all these great actors. And we all believed what was happening!

Any anecdotes from working on The Visitor?

That it was the worst movie I ever did. [Laughs.] I was on Broadway when it came out, and I talked the whole cast into going and seeing it up on 42nd Street in this terrible theater, and it was so bad that some guy in the balcony yelled, “Oh, damn, I want my money back!” We all had a big laugh out of that. It was so bad.

I’d never seen it until recently, and I couldn’t believe who all was in it. I mean, Glenn Ford, Sam Peckinpah…

…John Huston, Shelley Winters, all these guys! And I remember John Huston said [Doing a solid Huston impression.] “Lance, I don’t want to come back, so let’s loop that scene right now that we just finished.” And he said, “Okay,” and he pointed at me…and I froze up. And he said, “No, you have the first line, Lance.” And I said, “I’m sorry, I froze up because I just got my first direction from John Huston!” [Laughs.] It was worth doing the whole movie just for that. That, and I ended up leaving Italy with something like five different colored double-breasted linen suits!

It’s so odd to see Peckinpah in an acting role. 

Yeah, I know. I mean, that’s where I drew the line. Shelley Winters was no fun, either. [Laughs.] All of them were there on a vacation, I think. One with pay!

I take it that working with Peckinpah was no bed of roses.

Uh, no, not really. I didn’t hang with him, I’ll tell you that much!

Okay, so let’s talk about Stone Cold.

Oh, yeah, I loved doing that movie! I really did. Again, it’s immersing in a character and just seeing where it goes. That’s my only talent. I don’t know how I do it, but I do it. I love immersing in it, and I design everything. That’s where I met my wife, actually. She painted my motorcycle. [Laughs.] Pretty cool. That’s one side thing I got out of it!

I’m trying to remember: is that the movie where you pretty much rewrote all of your dialogue?

Yeah, we improvised it. The script was so bad, so atrociously bad… I mean, for whatever reason, the guy who wrote it decided to change it so that the outlaw biker leader – the president of the club – only spoke in Biblical terms. All of his dialogue. But then he got fired, and the new director came in. And I met him in the lobby when he was coming in from the airport, and I said, “Man, we’re in trouble.” [Laughs.] And we sat down, and he said, “Well, what are we gonna do?” I said, “Look, we’ll just start an hour or two early every morning and improvise what the scene has and what it contains.” So all the dialogue in that film was improvised.

That’s what I thought. I interviewed your co-star in that, William Forsythe, and he said something like, “I don’t know if there was a single line from the script that we actually said.” 

No, there wasn’t. [Laughs.] No. Uh-uh. We’d make up shit. We were just pulling it out of the apple tree. It’s all fun, acting. It’s not all morbid. It’s got a lot of fun in it. As opposed to… Well, you know, I did three years of Millennium on television, with Chris Carter, and a lot of good writers wrote on that. That was a whole different thing. He was introspective. A lot of dialogue I was doing was introspective, and the scripts were very dense and very well done, but they were difficult because of the amount of intelligence behind it. Not mine. [Laughs.] But somebody else’s!

So has there been any motion at all in regards to the idea of reviving Millennium?

I keep hearing rumors all over the place, but I don’t know if Chris really wants to do that. My feeling is that they ought to try by doing a film, because all of the cost of doing Millennium… Every show was almost equal to doing a low-budget film. But I don’t think low-budget necessarily means anything as long as it’s good. I’ve got some ideas about Frank Black that keep the series alive for me, because I did love playing that character.

Are there particular episodes offhand that you remember as favorites?

Oh, God, that’s really hard, because over the years they’ve all blended together for me. I remember moments more than episodes.

Out of curiosity, do you remember the sketch they did on Mad TV called “Suddenly, Millennium”?

[Bursts out laughing.]  Yeah, I saw it. Oh, it was funny as hell!

Okay, good, because I found a copy of the sketch, so I was going to include that in the piece.

[Laughs even harder.] How cool is that?

I have to ask you about your history with James Cameron. How did you guys first cross paths? 

I didn’t know him until Piranha II: The Spawning. I knew that he had worked on doing sets in L.A., but I didn’t meet him until then. And when I got to Jamaica to do the film… The guy who was the producer had also produced The Visitor, so you can only imagine what we were greeted with when we got down there. [Laughs.] There was no wardrobe!

I said, “Look, I’ve got to drive a boat through this whole movie, so you’ve got to get me down there a week early and let me learn how to do it, because I’ve never driven a boat!” And he didn’t do it. He wouldn’t do that. So the first scene I’m in the boat, I put it up on the pier. [Laughs.] It was a powerful powerboat, and it got out of my hands and just went right up on the pier. And the guy who owned the boat, a Jamaican guy, almost had a heart attack. Jim got me out of that, thankfully!

I ended up buying my wardrobe off of a waiter. Because there was no wardrobe, and the waiter had a blue stripe down his Chino pants and epaulets on his shoulder, and I’m playing a harbor cop, so… I gave him $70, and he gave me his clothes! [Laughs.] I’ve got a million of those stories, man!

Obviously, Cameron had bigger aspirations than Piranha II…

Oh, yeah!

I’ve heard that you were his original pick to play the Terminator.

Well, not really. The whole thing has gotten overblown over the years. He came over and painted me up as the Terminator in order to help him sell the movie, and he asked me to go in ahead of him to give the guys at…Hemdale, I think it was, a feel for what the character.  So, you know, I kicked in the door, scared the secretary to death, that kind of thing. [Laughs.] I’m in the movie, obviously, but I was never really going to play the Terminator. If I’d played him, I would’ve done it more like a black widow spider than a bulldozer. It would’ve been different.

But, y’know, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t crumble if I don’t get the role I wanted. It’s okay. I’ve been around awhile already, and I don’t stumble and fall with every heartbeat of the industry. I’m living life.

Have you enjoyed the opportunity to play multiple incarnations of Bishop over the years?

Oh, is that how they saw it? [Laughs.] That’s weird. Well, yeah, they kept bringing me back, anyway. I remember Walter Hill saying to me – I think it was the third [Alien movie] – “Come on, Lance, go to London, have tea and a biscuit, and then come home. That’s how nice it’ll be!” So I did. And I went home. And then they called me and said, “You have to come back.” So I did that. And I went home again. And they called me again. So I made three round trips in a month. I thought, “I’m gonna lose my marbles, man!” Those are long flights from L.A.! But anyway, I’m always on the side of anyone attempting a movie like that. I mean, if they want me in it, I’ll go try it. That’s our life. And if movies were only in L.A., we’d all be here in little tents and we’re be doing movies like back in the old days, 10 movies a week!

I’ve heard that, as far as Alien 3 goes, you were certainly not the only person who had a hard time on that one.

It was…different. [Laughs.] You know, it’s okay. And I can handle a hard time.

So how many times have you been asked to reproduce Bishop’s knife trip over the years?

Oh, God, so many times. In restaurants. And after I shot Sal [in Dog Day Afternoon], people were pointing their finger at me and shooting me from across the room. [Laughs.] But Bishop… Yeah, they say, “Do the knife trick!” A guy walked up with a stainless steel knife once, one with seriously sharp edges, and said, “Do the knife trick!” I said, “Sorry, I can’t risk it!”

I’ve heard that when you did The Pit and the Pendulum, you actually disconcerted Stuart Gordon with your intensity.

Yeah. [Hesitates.] I have to say it: I was kind of pissed off at that character, because Torquemada had written three hundred books on how to torture. And this guy came on the set – he was a Dominican monk – and I said, “Why didn’t you guys just excommunicate him?” And the guy looked at me with a stone cold face and said, “Well, he was a very important theologian.” And I wanted to kick him in the ass. I’m sorry, but I did! I wanted to! He made me so mad with how glib he was. And he didn’t realize… I mean, I don’t think he really knew who Torquemada was! He was selling Christian identity to anybody who was Jewish. When you really open it up, you go, “Oh, my God, this guy’s a monster!” But don’t get me started on politics…

I know you did some episodic TV work early in your career. Do you have any particular memories of working on, say, The A-Team? Or maybe Cagney and Lacey?

Oh, God, yeah. [Laughs.] The A-Team, they gave me the biggest pistol that man has ever laid eyes on, because they thought it would make me look like a good hitman. But the gun weighed more than I did back in those days! You know, I’m whipping it around, trying to look tough. I just look like a jerk. But on Cagney and Lacey, I actually played a guy who was pretty hip to what was going on, and he was verbal about it, so it was good. You know, those are the training days, really, that era. It just exposes you to a lot of aspects of acting. Plus, Cagney and Lacey was just cool people. So I was happy to be there and do my best. And I’ve been developing ever since. I’m not static, you know? I’m not doing the same old stuff.

Lastly, what can you tell me about the experience of doing Super Mario Brothers?

You know, actually, when I was in the throne, I asked for Rice Krispies, so I could cough them up. Because, you know, I drop down as a glob, and I figured my lungs would be full of Rice Krispies. [Laughs.] Anyway, I coughed, and I spit them out like I was congested. But I look across this whole studio, and there was this woman with her back to me, wearing a summer dress, and she had the most beautiful dancers legs. I mean, beautiful. Strong like a Russian peasant. Really beautiful. And I took her out to dinner that night. And then I married her. Because she was the same woman who’d painted my motorcycle.

Not a bad deal.

No, it was a good thing! [Laughs.]

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)