Bio
Lance Henriksen is an American actor best known for his award-winning role as Frank Black in the sci-fi television series Millennium, from 1996-1999.
Henriksen starred in AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. He also appeared in the TNT original movie Evel Knievel (2004) (TV), directed by John Badham and executive produced by Mel Gibson.
Henriksen portrayed "Awful Knoffel" in this project based on the life of the famed daredevil, played by George Eads.
His performance as Frank Black in Millennium landed him three consecutive Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Drama Series and a People's Choice Award nomination for Favorite New TV Male Star.
Born in New York, Henriksen studied at the Actors Studio and began his career off-Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Three Plays of the Sea.
One of his first film appearances was as an FBI agent in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975), followed by Lumet's Network (1976) and Prince of the City (1981).
He then appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with Richard Dreyfuss and Franois Truffaut, Damien: Omen II (1978) and in Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983), in which he played Mercury astronaut Lt. Col. Wally Schirra.
James Cameron cast Henriksen in his first directorial effort, Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), then used him in The Terminator (1984), and cast him as the android Bishop in the sci-fi classic Aliens (1986).
Director Sam Raimi used Henriksen in his quirky western The Quick and the Dead (1995) opposite Russell Crowe, Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman.
Henriksen's additional feature credits include what is one of his best-known roles, that of the head of a family of murderous redneck vampires in Kathryn Bigelow's cult vampire film Near Dark (1987).
He's also appeared in Jagged Edge (1985), Pumpkinhead (1989), The Horror Show (1989), Survival Quest (1989), director Walter Hill's Johnny Handsome (1989), The Pit and the Pendulum (1990), Bruce Robinson's Jennifer Eight (1992), Alien (1992), Richard Rush's Color of Night (1994), Powder (1995), Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995), Disney's animated feature Tarzan (1999) and John Woo's first American film, Hard Target (1993), for which Henriksen received a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actor.
He was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in the TNT original film The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998) (TV), and had starring roles in PBS' Emmy-winning The Dark End of the Street (1981) and HBO's Tales from the Crypt (1989).
Henriksen also played actor Charles Bronson in the television movie Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story (1991).