Stories are why actors got into acting, but backstories are the reason why they stayed.Lance Henriksenis an American actor with endearing and horrifying performances. Before he was known for his science fiction, horror, and action roles, Henriksen had a rough go of life from an early age. At two-years-old, his parents divorced. Familial abuse and neglect forced him into foster care. He was constantly in trouble in school and did not have a formal education to pass the first grade. He left home at the age of twelve and served in the United States Navy for three years as Petty Officer Third Class, starting at age fifteen. Up until the age of thirty, Henriksen was illiterate.
Henriksen is a remarkable actor and human being. His first acting role was for a production he designed the set for as a muralist at Manhattan’s Actors Studio in New York City. The autodidact learned to read for his part and everyone else’s via a friend’s tape recording of the script. Henriksen would go on to star in many experimental and oddball films. From classics to cult classics, Henriksen has delivered a body of work that reflects a hard-luck world and a hard-luck life.
8The Right Stuff (1983)
NASA’s ownMagnificent Seven, the Mercury Seven were a group of seven astronauts selected in 1959 for Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight program in the United States. Henriksen portrays Walter “Wally” Schirra, a meticulous team-player responsible for the life-support systems and pressurized flight suits. Henriksen does well to embody the individual effort to overcome the high stakes and harassing pressures of nosey neighbors and the press to get everything right. The historical accuracy of the film took some creative liberties, but the tension and teamwork, with Henrikson’s background in the Navy, stays true to the right stuff.
7Survival Quest (1989)
Hank Chambers has the mountain-high know-how of Bear Grylls and the hungry heart of Steve Irwin. He is the humane survivalist and leader of Survival Quest, a group of campers on California’s Sierra Madre Mountain. Instead of a therapeutic nature retreat, they are threatened by the trigger-happy campers of Blue Legion. The movie’s box office earnings got lost in the woods, but Henriksen brings an idyllic charm and cool-headed performance as the nature man.
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6The Visitor (1979)
IfSpace Jammade a deal with the devil, you would getThe Visitor. Henriksen plays Raymond Armstead, the owner of a basketball team and a Satanist. He is the harbinger of the Lord of Darkness and uses his girlfriend to bear a child to embody the ruler of Hell. The Italian-made science fiction horror film takes on a supernatural and surreal atmosphere. Henriksen is right at home as adevilish devotee.
5Stone Cold (1991)
Chains Cooper is a fast and loosehuman terminator. He is the leader of a white supremacist biker gang, The Brotherhood in Mississippi. They plot an attack on the Supreme Court to kill District Attorney Brent “The Whip” Whipperton and free their fellow gang member on trial. The movie suffered at the box office due to changes in directors and a script laden with religious dialogue for Henriksen’s character. He improvised the script which improved the ragtag, anarchist tone the cult action film deserved.
Special effects artist Stan Winston in his directorial debut, created the creature andlegend of Pumpkinhead. Henriksen plays Ed Harley, who witnessed the monster as a young boy from inside his family’s cabin. As a widowed father and countryside store owner, he has his own son, named Billy, who suffers a mortal injury in a freak accident. He seeks revenge and the dark arts of a local witch who tells him to rob the grave of a corpse for her blood ritual to save his son, unknowingly summoning Pumpkinhead. A creepy entry for Henriksen.
3Near Dark (1987)
Jesse Hooker is the ancient leader of a vampire gang of drifters forced to roam the Earth and feed on human blood. Their existence is miserable as they grow indifferent to killing for the sake of surviving. The neo-Western horror broke away fromcommon vampire tropeslike garlic and sleeping in native soil, but ultimately gained a cult following.
2Falling (2020)
Henriksen plays Willis, a homophobic father with onset dementia. He is forced to sell his homestead and farm life to live with his gay son, John (Viggo Mortensen) and his husband. His senile stubbornness and one-track mindset has left him at odds with his family. Henriksen becomes anentirely lost individualwho retains his anger and pain, which corrupts him and is capitalized on by his mental decline. Here he shows how inhumane humans can be.
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1Aliens (1986)
At the other end of the spectrum is Bishop, an android who prefers the term “artificial person.” A robot that can show the better side of humanity is a sobering objectivity missing in a cold, dark world, filled with Xenomorphs, no less. Henriksen convinces everyone he is more than half alive or completely sentient through machine learning. Henriksen effortlessly embodies a walking, talking computer with an endless interest in human welfare (except when he plays the knife game) who replicates human ingenuity so foreign yet so close to what we ought to be.
