"I had two months before I started filming, so there was plenty of time," Henriksen says of his preparation for the film. "I used it all, believe me. If there was more to Bishop, more of a story about him, you would find out incredible things.

"My biggest problem was having to follow two exceptional performances of androids. Rutger Hauer [As Replicant Roy Batty] in Blade Runner was excellent, and I loved Ian Holm's work as Ash in ALIEN. We didn't have the same problems. Holm had to give the audience tips so that it all added up at the end. That's a terrible spot for an actor to be in."

With ALIENS, there was some question regarding how to present Bishop to the audience. "Jim [Cameron, writer/director] and I talked for a month on the phone - he was already in London - to try to figure out the best way to introduce Bishop," Henriksen explains. "We had an idea about him being alone, while everyone else was in hypersleep, tending to meters and buttons and doing a thousand, thousand push-ups. You see this lonely figure in this ship by himself. We realised that doesn't do much storywise, and then we came up with the knife.

"I practised that quite a bit. Then, when we got onto the set and finally were ready to shoot the scene, I dragged one of the other guys into it [Bill Paxton]. I said, 'Jim, this is a little bit stagy, why don't I put my hand over somebody else' hand and that involves more people. It makes it an event.'"

Henriksen, reflecting upon Bishop's position with the Colonial Marines, observes, "I see him as somebody who is basically a servant without being a servile; a companion of labour. At this time in history, it would be demoralising for a human to be around someone who is being subservient. That's why they call Bishop an Executive Officer, which is just a fancy title for planetary maneuverer. He's not a Marine, he's part of the ship, the Sulaco.

"He doesn't carry a weapon, there's no way. Because if you give an android a weapon, you're getting into another area entirely. You can make a weapon that can shoot itself, like the smartgun, but you don't give an android a weapon. There's a vast difference." However, Henriksen (previously interviewed re: ALIENS in FANGORIA #55) is quick to point out that Bishop can take charge if necessary. "But only in a life threatening situation," he cautions. "It would only be for a moment, like the scene where Ripley was going to movie Hicks and I stopped her and said, ' no, we have to get a stretcher,' Bishop finds a way to get around things. It's like saying, 'Look, there's a fly on the ceiling,' and while the guy is looking, Bishop just goes ahead and does it."

As an artist who never stops learning about his character, Henriksen was fascinated with the way Bishop, a non-organic being, saw the world. He discussed these insights with James Cameron, the writer/director of ALIENS (STARLOG #89, 110). "I told Jim, 'Anything that's really organically alive is fascinating to Bishop. There's no good or evil - Just this ultimate respect for anything living.'

"I read a couple of books," Henriksen remembers. "One was Mockingbird [by Walter Tevis]. There's a bit in it where the android knew how to play a piano, but didn't know why. He didn't know what music was, but he kept hearing it. It was part of his builder's input that hadn't been completely erased. That image stuck in my mind, and what it translated to me was that there were feelings that Bishop didn't understand, like a joke."

The actor also realised that his Android character was not without problems. "For him, the world is xenophobic. He's an alien to anything alive. He must e as careful as, say, a black man in South Africa, where you make a mistake and you're out. You're either replaced or you're destroyed."

Bishop had an innocence that intrigued Henriksen. "I felt that he was only 10 years old, mechanically, so I gave him the emotional life of a 14-year-old," Henriksen notes. "I was basically playing myself at that age. There's the knowledge that you have your whole life ahead of you to learn, yet there's always that vulnerability to the powers that be." Vulnerability is also one of the realities of an actor's life. Henriksen muses ruefully over the numerous times his part in a film has ended up on the cutting room floor.

"The lag is the problem," he says. "If you're doing a play, you get some instant gratification, or if you're winning the World Series, it's happening right at that moment. But with a movie, you do it and then you wait six months or longer to see it. When you realise you've been cut out, it's a stun.

"I worked for three months on Close Encounters (of the 3rd kind), then got cut out." The same thing happened when Henriksen portrayed Wally Schirra in The Right Stuff. "Which was," he explains, "A great movie to work on. I loved it, but the result just wasn't there."

ANDROID DREAMS
Henriksen - who discussed The Right Stuff in STARLOG #78 - received more time on screen in Nightmares, Jim Cameron's Piranha II: The Spawning and Choke Canyon, none of which were box office or critical hits. And he enjoyed his role in Terminator, Cameron's earlier hit, as Vukovich, the copy who never gets to finish telling a story. "Oh, God, that was so much fun! Paul Winfield (Lt. Traxler) and I joked that the relationship between those buys would make a great TV series." "They're going to do a second Terminator," Henriksen reveals. " You never see me die, so I was telling Jim Cameron that it could start in the hospital with me covered with scars saying, 'Look, if this guy came once, he's gonna come again….;"

With the success of ALIENS, 20th Century Fox is also eager for another sequel. The way was left open by Cameron's deft touch at the film's very end. "You can hear the facehugger scampering across the screen. Cameron did that on purpose." Henriksen says, noting that there is a possibility that Bishop could return in a sequel. "If there's a good script, I would love to do that part again. There's so much more to do.

"I would like to get into the whole concept of how and why androids are made. Bishop is not biological, he wasn't built in an organic way. If you can imagine your own nerve synapses as being silicone - more of a plasmatic gate to conduct the electrical impulses. The synthetics are very advanced, buy they aren't organic yet. Him and I were talking and we realised that although Bishop is very advanced, we don't see him as the end-all in terms of an android. Him loves the whole concept of androids. If you could ever put psychology into an old form, building a human would be it."

ALIENS reunited Henriksen with Stan Winston, who won a special visual effects Oscar for his work on the film. Winston (FANGROIA #56-57) created both the Terminator Cyborg and the effects for Mansion of the Doomed. A film Henriksen laughingly characterises as "A movie I don't talk about." Henriksen will be starring in Pumpkinhead, a horror film co-scripted and directed by Winston. Winston's effects for the ALIEN queens' attack employed "Every technical device you could possibly use in a movie, from oldest to things never before used. I never saw so much talent being exercised on the same soundstage," Henriksen says, slightly awed by the memory.

"The last scene took almost two weeks to shoot. It was like being in the center ring at Ringling Brothers Circus. There I was, cut in half, lying on the floor, covered with milk and yoghurt, looking up at the 15-foot queen. Above me and behind me, this big dropship is smoking. The only thing missing was a guy on a trapeze swinging down!" Feeling at home with his craft, Henriksen literally metamorphosizes into his characters. "A director friend calls me 'the chameleon' because, somehow, depending on what's happening with the person I'm playing, I really change something. I do it organically. Sometimes," he muses, I see my own films and say 'God, I don't know who that guy is.' "I'm trying to keep instant recognition at a distance as long as I possibly can. I don't want the audience to be taken out of a movie because they know who I am. I would hate to become as familiar as cornflakes because it hurts your storytelling a b little bit.

"The weirdest thing is happening. Even when I have a beard, people recognize me as Bishop. So, I'm in big trouble now. I don't know who I'm going to get out of this one." Henriksen grew the beard for his lead role in Survival Quest, and independent production that he finished filming last fall. "It was an exciting piece for me because of the mountain climbing, which I was terrified to do. Fortunately, I had a really good climber training me. I had to overcome my fear. The whole film had that aspect, where everyone had to overcome something.

"Survival Quest is about people from all walks of life who go out into the wilderness for a month with a guide. They confront themselves about what the meaning of life is for them. I take a group out and the adventure begins…."

Having interacted with strong female characters in many of his films, Henriksen affirms that he likes competent woman. "I like the idea of a matriarchal system, which, by its nature, is pretty good for men. It provides a natural nurturing process, which works, especially in acting, and I think there's a lot of room for women directors in this business. My last film, Near Dark, was with a woman director, Kathryn Bigelow, who co-wrote it with Eric [The Hitcher] Red. It's produced by Steven Jaffe, who is a real gift to the industry. But Kathryn Bigelow - that's a name to remember."

MAUL IN THE FAMILY
Near Dark is a delicate mix of romance and adventure, with a touch of the supernatural carefully blended in. "It's one of the most original scripts I've ever worked on," Henriksen states. "For two hours with a film, you can create any kind of world as long as your have set the parameters for it. This movie asks the audience, not so much to keep an open mind, as to be ready for an experience."

Near Dark reunited Henriksen with his ALIENS co-stars, Jenette Goldstein, who portrayed Vasquez (STARLOG #115) and Bill Paxton (Hudson) as a band of roving immortals. "It's very rare that you go from one movie to another as a group. As a result, we were much more than an ensemble. We came in with such strength after working together in ALIENS," Henriksen observes. "It was very powerful to be part of it. "I play Jesse Hooker, the leader of the family. He's a romantic who has outlived his era. He has seen all the changes take place and his version of romance die terrible deaths." Reluctant to linger on the tragedy of immortality, Henriksen continues, "Bill plays my right hand man and Jenette is my girl friend, who was a flapper in the '20s and came with me gladly.

"The family members are nocturnal nomads - wanderers, very much like the Romany. In fact, the word I used to describe anyone who wasn't one of us was gajo [Not-Gypsy]. Their main purpose is to keep the family together.

"They have to eat, but they're like wolves who take the weakest of the herd. Many of the people we take were asking for it - begging in fact. The family performs what might be considered a service, but not for mankind," he comments wryly. "More of a cosmic service."

In order to keep recognition at bay and become the character, Henriksen usually changes his hair colour for each role. No change has been as dramatic, however, as the one he endured to portray Hooker. "My hair was almost white and I wore it in a pigtail down my back, he says. "I had fingernails that were about an inch-and-a-half long, and when I walked the streets this way, people would step back and get out of the way. It was a great look, though. Jesse was a classic."

To help get into character before filming, Henriksen rented a car and rove to the location in Arizona, picking up hitchhikers along the way. "I stayed in character and would say things like,' Roll me a cigarette,' and give him a tobacco pouch. They guy would roll one with great difficulty, and I would say, 'You call that a cigarette?' and then throw it out the window. Or, I would tell him to turn the radio on, then say, 'What kind of stupid music is that - turn it off,'

"I wanted to see how much you can subtly say to somebody before they start getting scared," He sights, "You know, after three hours, this huge guy, who could probably have crushed my head, was begging to get out of the car. I felt so guilty for what I had done that I gave him 30 bucks, all the money I had in my pocket."

Henriksen realises, in retrospect, that tormenting a hitcher might not have been a really good idea. "When I think back on it, I get a cold sweat," he confesses, "But then, we all got into the film in a very organic way."

An accomplished screenwriter, Henriksen currently has two scripts in which he plans to star: Tracer Pierce, a SF-based account/adventure story, and Rocket Man, which he wrote four years ago and is as "passionate" about today as when he first wrote it. Showing zest of the project, he says, "If there's a film where I really want to kick ass, Rocket Man is it. It's a reaction to my disappointment with what didn't happen in The Right Stuff."

Henriksen characterises Rocket Man as soft science fiction with the focus on characterisation, rather than hardware. "There's this phenomenon of people who postpone their lives, their dreams. Rocket man is about such a man who is finally pushed into completing something, and as a result, emerges as a healthy human being." Leery of self-praise, Lance Henriksen admits, "If I was ever asked if there is one thing I would love to have done, Rocket Man is it. With this one, I'll really be able to prove whether I should do this work, or be out of it - either one."