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Lance Henriksen is an American actor, voice over artist, and author best known for his roles in science fiction and horror films including the Alien franchise, Near Dark, The Terminator and The Quick and The Dead , as well at the television show, Millennium .   Born in New York, Henriksen graduated from the Actors...More

Lance Henriksen is an American actor, voice over artist, and author best known for his roles in science fiction and horror films including the Alien franchise, Near Dark, The Terminator and The Quick and The Dead, as well at the television show, Millennium.

Born in New York, Henriksen graduated from the Actors Studio in his early 30s, having taught himself to read - only a few years earlier - by reading scripts. He landed his first film role in 1972's It Ain't Easy. He also appeared in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Network (1976), followed by Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Damien: Omen II (1978), and James Cameron's 1981 directorial debut, Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. Cameron originally envisioned Henriksen playing the title role in his film The Terminator. Although the part ultimately went to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Henriksen appeared as a detective in the film and was also cast in Cameron's 1986 film, Aliens, as an Android named Bishop. Henriksen would appear in two additional Aliens films, David Fincher's Aliens 3 (1992) and Alien vs. Predator (2004), making him the only actor to be killed by an Alien, a Predator, and a Terminator. Henriksen also appeared in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987) and the Sam Rami western The Quick and The Dead (1995). Henriksen starred for three seasons (1996-1999) on Millennium, a FOX television show created by Chris Carter (The X-Files), which garnered him three Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a People's Choice Award nomination for Favorite New TV Male Star. To date, Henriksen has worked on over 150 films. His latest film is Phantom (2013), starring Ed Harris and David Duchovny.

Henriksen is also an author, including a 2011 biography called Not Bad For a Human (Bloody Pulp Books), co-written by Joseph Maddrey (Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film). In 2012, Henriksen released a horror comic series, To Hell You Ride, again co-written with Joseph Maddrey and featuring art by Tom Mandrake. The first three books in the series are available now, with the final two books scheduled for release in Spring 2013.