Interview With Lance Henriksen: Part 2

Here is part two of my interview with Lance Henriksen. Part 1 can be found here and part 3 will be posted soon.

Alison: You reunited with Aliens co-stars Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein for Near Dark…

Lance: God, that was fun.

Alison: I could tell! [Both laugh] I’ve always thought it was less about vampires and more about a Romeo and Juliet family/romantic rival theme. Do you agree?

Lance: Sure I do. After that movie was done, I went to the producers and wanted to do a prequel to that movie. The critical question he asked me was, ‘Lance, why would anyone want to see these people? They’re scurrilous, horrible, nasty killers. Why would anybody want to see that movie?’ I told him it was for the same reason it worked. It shows how we care about each other. And he got it, he really understood. It just never happened. Billy had a lot of thoughts on the prequel too, we all did. We loved working with each other so much, we would have loved to continue. It would have been really something.

Alison: You starred in Stan Winston’s first feature, Pumpkinhead. What was it like working with him?

Lance: I had worked with Stan a lot. When I got the script they sent me, I opened the package and it said ‘Pumpkinhead’ on it and I went ‘What? What is that?’ I thought it was Sleepy Hollow where a guy is riding around with a pumpkin on his head. Then I started reading the script and it came to one scene where the little boy and his dad are going to the witch to try to get her to bring him back to life. The little boy sits up and says ‘Daddy what are you doing?’ When I read that, the hair on my neck stood up and thought ‘Oh my God. What a good scene that is.’ That one little scene made me want to do it. Stan was everything I liked in a director, where they like the character, they support you and they nurture the things you want to do. There was also a scene in there where I’m washing my son’s hands and I told him a story. That story was out of my life. I told Stan what I wanted to do and he said ‘Let’s shoot it,’ and it ended up in the movie. My grandmother when she was almost 80, she washed my hands. Her skin was so thin, that I could feel the bones under her skin. The skin was thin as tissue paper. I used that in the movie because the time the boy was alive was so short and I wanted to give the audience the feeling that I was nurturing him, to give him a past. It really worked. That’s the kind of guy Stan was. There were other things that I did where Stan told me ‘Absolutely not.’ At one point I wanted to say to one of the other characters, ‘Don’t piticize me.’ That word just came into my head and I have no idea why. Stan said ‘No you can’t say that because it will take three scenes to get the audience to stop turning to each other and asking what you just said.’ I surrendered immediately. Stan was very talented—all his artwork and the effects he had done in his movies. I loved Stan, I really did. It broke my heart when he passed away.

Alison: It seems rare to find people who let actors take chances.

Lance: Really when you get down to it, nobody does this alone—it’s a conspiracy. I really believe that after I’ve worked on a film a week, I know as much about that character or more than the writer because I’ve finally embodied it. So why wouldn’t they rely on me for intuitive reactions to scenes based on that character?

Alison: It seems unnatural.

Lance: Exactly. I’m very low maintenance when it comes to acting, but I’m always prepared. I’d take boots, shoes, hats, gloves, guns, horses, saddles—I don’t care. I ‘d go to any lengths for that kind of authenticity. I don’t know how anybody can do it any other way to be honest.

Alison: You were in two episodes of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt, but my favorite one is Cutting Cards.

[Both laugh]

Alison: I love your outfit.

Lance: You know what I did? I talked to the wardrobe people. I wanted to make the guy look so thin, like he’s not physical. Like he’s been gambling so much he had no shoulders. They put that piping on the black suit in such a way that made me look even skinnier. It was good. He was a schmuck that guy [laughter].

Alison: It’s good. The red line is more sinister than he is.

Lance: Yeah it’s not like he’s going to beat you up. He might just talk you to death.

Alison: What was it like working with Walter Hill again?

Lance: I loved it, man. Walter is a fabulous movie maker. I trust him completely. And it’s true that in everything I did with Walter, when I finally saw it I was really happy. He always has fine editors but he’s the man that makes the final choices. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the finest directors out there and they’re all different. They’re all special to remember, all of them.

Alison: Can you talk about your role as Cole in Dead Man?

Lance: I remember talking to Jarmusch when I went into the meeting to see if I was going to be in the movie. I said ‘Jim, I gotta be really honest with you man. I don’t want to say a line you wrote in that script.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘First of all, I see this guy as an ecological disaster who will kill or use anything. I just think we’ll come up with it another way.’ Jim was stunned and I thought uh oh, I just blew this movie. I convinced him though. When we got on the road during the movie…you know we went through five states…and we sat for almost three months. Things would happen. I remember walking into a trading post where they sell Indian buckles and all that turquoise. I always see too much turquoise and I feel like I’m toxic all of a sudden. Anyway, I walk into one of those places and there was a brick and somebody had painted it up like a car. I asked the guy in the shop, ‘What is that?’ And he told me it was a Navajo mud toy. I never forget anything and when we got to the scene where I had to shoot this black kid who is a knife expert—the other character comes over to me and says ‘He was just a kid Cole.’ I said, ‘Well he’s a Navajo mud toy now.’ That was the kind of thing where it was like channeling, constantly gathering and when something would come up it would be there for me. A lot of things happened like that during that movie. That to me is the essence of acting. If you can gather enough without making a choice—just gather everything you can about that life you’re living at the time, it’s like channeling and everything comes through.

I had all silver teeth and had toothaches all the time which made me twice as mean. I had very little tolerance. I remember that was a William Blake movie, about his poem. It was spiraling into hell, into death. Once you’re there, you’re along for the ride until the end. You can’t get off. Every movie for me is an adventure, man. I don’t know what is going to happen or what the people will be like. I’m always ready because I know we’re there for an adventure even if they don’t know it.

Alison: I love that film. It’s one of my favorites and it’s beautiful. What a great cast.

Lance: Yeah it was a good cast.

Alison: Are you a Western fan from way back? You’ve done several of them.

Lance: One just came out, Appaloosa. I’ll do a Western, man. Anybody that has a Western, I’ll do it. [laughter] I ride really well and I use guns really well. I always try to find a character because I don’t want to play acting a cowboy. I try to find somebody to live.

Lance has been a huge Western fan since he was a kid. He talked about some of his favorite Western actors.

Image: Bauer-Griffin