Lance Henriksen Quotes & Sayings

I really like playing good guys, of course. Although, people make mistakes in their lives, and you could say that the mistakes make us who we are, by how we respond to them. I just don't want to play boring good guys, but I don't have that problem, anyway. — Lance Henriksen

I stay subjective because that's what I do. That's one of my abilities. I don't need to watch it because I've had the adventure. I don't do low-budget acting. I do the same acting, whether I'm in a Jim Cameron or not. I always try to do good work. There's no snobbery in there — Lance Henriksen

I'm not Tom Cruise. I don't have to look that good. I'm always going to have a problem because I'm thought of as someone edgy, but I'm not. I'm a cupcake. — Lance Henriksen

My whole childhood, that made my skin curl. I was looking for something authentic. I think that drove me into the arts, I really do. That really did it. The only other thing that made me survive, as a human being, was getting into the arts. I was surrounded by people that were very bright and they invited you in. They were gracious. So, it gave me a great education. — Lance Henriksen

I've done a lot of video games and stuff, and I'm getting better and better at it. I don't have a prejudice about it being a different medium. — Lance Henriksen

I'm a good guy. I love playing bad guys, but good guys that have a good thing going on, I like that, too. I don't like passive good guys. — Lance Henriksen

In every respect, fantasy is like doing abstract paintings. — Lance Henriksen

I attribute that to the generosity of people that are in the entertainment business because they are all struggling. All roads seem to come to acting, for certain kinds of people that have a reason for being there. They want to be seen and heard, but there's more to it than that. There's a kindred spirit of struggling to find out, "What is this thing? What are we?" It's those eternal questions. But, in the meanwhile, I've met some wonderful people doing this. — Lance Henriksen

Usually the male control and domination that tends to be in our genes gets around a powerful woman who has the ability to make choices different from guys, it throws you off and you get frustrated. — Lance Henriksen

If the crowd is too big, it's too much for me. I took my daughter down there, and all I did was spend all of my time worrying that she was going to get lost because you're caught between somebody with a sandwich in their hand and somebody in a costume. It's really crazy. — Lance Henriksen

You know something, if you're not acting, you're not an actor - you've gotta work. No way around it. — Lance Henriksen

When I was a kid, all of the parents and grandparents came out of the Depression Era. They were all freezing bread in their freezer, they were covering their sofas with plastic, and they had plastic runners on the floor. There was a great distance between them and anything authentic. — Lance Henriksen

As a kid, there was a painting of 'Appeal to the Great Spirit' that I would see when I would get oatmeal bowls out of the cupboard. This painting, it was so real to me that it frightened me. — Lance Henriksen

The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say, 'This is my need; this is what's going to get me further; this is what's going to be alive. I don't ever say, 'Do you mind if ... ?' I just come in and do it. — Lance Henriksen

There's a potter that lived back in the 1800s, in Biloxi, Mississippi, and his name was George Ohr. He was of Russian descent, but they called him the "Mad Potter of Biloxi." I'd love to do a great character study and comedy about that guy's life. That would be my dream role. I know it's an oddball thing, but it's true. He lived at the turn of the century, in the 1800s. — Lance Henriksen

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? — Lance Henriksen

I think I would co-direct because I love actors and I've got a very good eye. I'm not a second-guesser. I don't think that I would be very happy, getting inundated by financial issues. I would love to co-direct with somebody because that would be a real freedom and an adventure, and then I could leave all the pain and misery to them. I'm not glib about it. I would take the responsibility to make a really good movie. — Lance Henriksen

In a way, being born is a sort of ecological contagion. When you have longevity of family, we remember our grandfathers and maybe our great-grandfathers. We somehow don't have the capacity in modern life to remember further than that. All of the ramifications of their lives have an effect on us, and we're not aware of it. — Lance Henriksen

I have never gauged myself against anyone else. — Lance Henriksen

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. — Lance Henriksen

I've always known from the beginning of my acting career that you only get an acting job if you've got something to learn about it. If you don't do it well, you'll be condemned to doing the same role over and over and over again. If you do it mediocre, you'll have to do it again. — Lance Henriksen

I might go visit it one day, but I couldn't do any more than just visit. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's just too big. I'm going to be at a lot of other conventions this year, with the book and everything. — Lance Henriksen

I'm pretty slapstick in my life but nobody sees that. You get typecast. I'm from New York and I have a sh*t-detector that's outspoken. I'm very streetwise and the producers detect that. So they get me on a movie and kill me. I go into their offices and I'm sure when I leave they say, 'You know, he'd be great to kill'. I've been killed every way you can imagine. — Lance Henriksen

There's nothing more terrifying than an actor who comes with an idea. — Lance Henriksen

When I do a horror or a fantasy film it all boils down to something in the script that surprises me. It could be a big thing or a small moment. If it's there I'll do it. — Lance Henriksen

In the late 1960s, I ended up in Telluride, Colorado. It wasn't like the country club that it is now. It was very raw. Skiing was there, but snowboarders have now entirely overrun it. — Lance Henriksen

I have a lot of stories. I had done a thing called Nightmare in Red White and Blue, which was an anthology of horror films. I narrated it with a man named Joe Maddrey, who's a writer. He came to my house and said, "Lance would you consider doing this?," and I like Joe so much that I completely relaxed. — Lance Henriksen

I ride really well and I shoot a gun really well. I love the genre. Once I did Westerns, I was hooked. I love them, but there's been very few of them made. I never wanted to play a guy who was acting like a cowboy. I wanted to play someone who had a real life, but was also trapped into situations. — Lance Henriksen

Charles Bean is a brilliant director. I come in with an idea and try to do it, but I fall on my face. And then, he says, 'Wait a minute, there was a little moment in there. Let's try that moment and expand in that direction.' — Lance Henriksen

Because I've done a lot of theater, I know what power is and how megalomaniacs are, since I've certainly played some. — Lance Henriksen

I don't think in words; I think in pictures, in images. — Lance Henriksen

The only one that I think I could beat, if my life depended on it, would be the Predator. If it was in my territory, in my domain, with the guns that I've got, I think I could hurt him pretty bad. That's the only one, though. When you get into metaphysical creatures, they don't play fair. — Lance Henriksen

If you're not acting, you're not an actor. — Lance Henriksen

I learned a lot. I really did. Millennium is a state of mind. I always thought of Frank Black as the greatest chess player that could take random pieces of information and string them together into a scenario that was accurate. I never thought of him as a psychic at all. We need people like that. — Lance Henriksen

The only one that's appeared in my dreams is the one from Aliens. H.R. Giger's version of that Necronom was almost like a tic. It's reptilian. That creature is like a baby and tic combined. It's very frightening. It scared the hell out of me, it really did. — Lance Henriksen

When I'm making a movie, I never watch the dailies. I see the movie once and that's it. It's really not about that for me. It's not about the externals. When I'm on a set, I don't want to see it. I want to be subjective in it. That's my habit now. — Lance Henriksen

I always wanted to be an actor, even when I was a little kid. When I used to run away from home, I'd go to movies and sit all night watching Kirk Douglas. When I was 16, I tried getting into the Actors Studio, and they told me to get lost. I said 'I'll come back when I'm a man,' and I came back when I was 30. — Lance Henriksen

I liked 'Scream of the Banshee' because it was a real challenge. I thought, 'How am I going to pull off this character?' But, I also thought, 'Oh, man, I'm going to go for it.' He's got all the defects of character that an actor loves to play. So, I had a really great time. — Lance Henriksen

To me rites of passage through life, that's a wonderful, beautiful thing. — Lance Henriksen

You do your work as fully as you can, and the ones who hear the sound join in. — Lance Henriksen

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. — Lance Henriksen

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.' — Lance Henriksen

We are all guilty in someone's eyes. More so our own. — Lance Henriksen

You can't do every movie - although I do a lot of them - and the thing I'm longing to do is ... it's not that I think I'm funny ... but I long to do a situation comedy. — Lance Henriksen

I appreciate the idea that anybody would think of me as a star. But I'm really not career oriented in the sense that I want to be a star. It's not in me. It's not what I do. In fact, I'm amazed that I've even gotten this far. — Lance Henriksen

Although, people make mistakes in their lives, and you could say that the mistakes make us who we are, by how we respond to them. I just don't want to play boring good guys. — Lance Henriksen

One of my favorites of all time was with Jim Jarmusch, called 'Dead Man.' I was in that with Johnny Depp. I ride really well, and I shoot a gun really well. I love the genre. Once I did Westerns, I was hooked. — Lance Henriksen

Corporate nationalism to me is a little bit like what would have happened if Hitler had won. It's scary stuff. It's totalitarianism in a different from, under a different flavour. — Lance Henriksen

I've always liked SyFy. — Lance Henriksen