Interview: Henry Rollins Discusses New Film, He Never Died

Henry Rollins shoulders leading man duties for his new film He Never Died, opening this weekend in Columbus. He took some time to talk with Columbus Underground about creative control, playing an immortal, and writing for Iggy Pop. (Full disclosure, Columbus Underground might have been too excited.)

Hope Madden: After 20 years of mostly supporting roles, you lead three films in a row. Is it scary to have the whole film on your shoulders?

Henry Rollins: No, only because I show up to do a small part in completely the same way I show up to do a big part. You learn the lines, you prepare, and be ready. And with He Never Died, I had a year to prepare because I said yes to the script in 2012 and we shot it in 2013. By the time we did the shooting, I was extremely dialed in. For me, it was just like doing any other film – I was just working more. I’m in pretty much every shot, but like I said, I was very well prepared. It was really fun. It didn’t seem any different, I wasn’t under any extraordinary pressure. I just knew exactly how to play this guy.

HM: There are obviously other films with damned angels or vampires or other kinds of burdened eternal beings, all of whom seem to wear their divinity on their sleeves, but Jack is entirely the opposite. Did you make an effort to disregard what had come before?

HR: Oh, hell yeah. We worked very hard to make him just as bored of everything as possible. I mean, you’ve had a boring day in your life. You’ve been around people – in-laws or some holidays – where you think, oh these people are excruciating. Imagine 1,200 years of that. I’m sure any wow factor humans had for him, he lost that at least a thousand years ago, and the rest has just been waking up every day when he really wants out.

All of the stuff that happens in the film to him is almost a distraction from 15 hours of sleep, a bit of TV, bingo, a vegetarian meal. The hum drum of his life has turned into maybe what ours would turn into if mortality was taken off the table. What urgency would you really have to do anything if you didn’t, at some point, acknowledge some kind of end date?

HM: How did you get into Jack’s very particular head space for the film?

HR: It was being in a state of slight insanity, in that it goes against every thought you have to not be reactive to people who are angry, to do these scenes with violence and be really efficient and kind of droll at the same time. You basically have to Botox your central nervous system and just add novocaine to everything you do, which is not what I’m like at all. I would literally practice in the mirror, just watching my face and trying to remember how it felt not to activate muscles, and try and be monotone, which I think makes the funny parts funny.

That’s what I worked on, so when we hit it on game day, that would be obvious.

HM: What originally attracted you to He Never Died?

HR: I thought it was funny. When I read the script, I laughed out loud. I was sitting alone in a back stage area in a freezing room in New York and I read this thing and I just thought it was really funny and smart and very different. And I met the director and the producer the next day and said, “I think this is fantastic.”

They said, “We wrote it with you in mind,” which was a little hard to entertain. That I’m just not used to at all.

When I read it, I felt – I saw myself doing a scene here, a scene there. I thought, I really hope I can do an audition for this. And when I met Jason (Krawczyk) and Zach (Hagen) – director and producer – I said, “Well, when can I do an audition.”

They said, “There’s no audition. This is made for you. We just want to get the go ahead to start using your name as being attached to this so we can start finding money.”

Go ahead. Honestly, I’m not used to taking meetings like that. The meetings I usually take, I stand in a long line, I audition, I get or I don’t get – whatever it’s going to be. I’m used to not getting a part and really wanting it. But this was somehow special. I read it and thought, I should really be doing this.

And, by golly, by November there I was in Toronto fine tuning Jack. It was kind of a new experience for me. I’m used to being in films, but much smaller parts with nothing to do with anything except that I got the part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QK2T7I5uUA

HM: Did you have some creative control with this one?

HR: Yeah, I helped cast it and I was given complete artistic control of Jack, the character. Quite often we would do a scene and Jason would say, “Do you have an idea?”

And I’d say, “Yeah, can we do one more for me?”

And he’d say, “Yeah, let’s do the Henry version.”

It would be maybe just a slightly different physicality or something weird or strange that’s not necessarily the way we just did it. And quite often, Jason would say, “OK, that’s what we need to do. Let’s get another for safety.”

If you and I sat down and watched the film, I could show you at least half a dozen examples of “that was the Henry take,” where he liked my idea. And we’re not talking about radical differences in dialog or action. It was something he wanted, and I’d try it from a different position.

Or he’d say he was kind of neutral on a scene and ask if I had anything, and I’d say, “Yeah, absolutely, I have a way I want to do this.” He’d say, “Well, let’s see your idea and we’ll go from there.”

There’s a scene where I kick someone out of my apartment. There’s this really weird standoff and I said, “I have an idea for this. It’s insanely screwed up. Don’t tell Jordan (Todosey, co-star). It won’t affect her action. I’m going to come at her and she’s probably not ready for it.”

The version you saw is what that idea was, and the upset and confusion on her face was real. In the scene you see her run out of the apartment. After the take was over, she had run and nearly left the building. When she came back, I told her what I was trying to do. She said, “That worked. That was really upsetting.”

There are a lot of moments like that where we collaborated. Or in pre-production, Jason and I would sit down and he’d say, “How do you think Jack would handle this?” And I’d pull out my script, which was covered in notes. I’d say, “Here’s why I think he’s going to do it this way.” I would kind of plead my case, and Jason would go, “I agree. Let’s make a note of that.”

I’ve never worked in an atmosphere of such collaboration. Usually I show up, I do what I’m told, I’m a get along guy and I do what’s on the script, right down to the semi colon. I don’t take liberties and rarely offer liberties, so I kind of go along with exactly what’s there, figuring that’s what the requirement was.

HM: Are you spoiled now?

HR: No. The next part I would probably get will be back to the usual: “You’re going to be a guy, you yell, and then you probably get killed. Thank you.”

Or I’ll get eaten by a bug or a monster. I die in almost every single thing I’ve done because I play some ne’er do well or some minor character. I have an odd lack of ambition with all of this. I’m very utilitarian. If I can do the part, I’m there to help the production. I don’t need to be top of the bill, I don’t need to be the lead. I just want to be the right tool for the job. I come in with no ego whatsoever.

I’ve worked with actors who have a lot of ego, or they’re going through something and they take it out on everyone on set. And I think, OK, that’s not the most fun day. And I’ve worked with people for weeks on end who were not cool, and I just get along. I’m never spoiled. I’m too busy being grateful.

HM: Have you thought about writing a screenplay?

HR: I did it! I did it, and the film is done. That might be the next round of phone press, but I was asked to write a screenplay a few years ago. A Swedish director (Bjorn Tagemose) came to me and said, “I have this idea. Here’s a storyboard. Can you write the screenplay? I want you to be in it and I want you to write it.”

I said, “I’ve never written a screenplay.”

He said, “Why don’t you give it a shot?”

I wrote some scenes and thought, this is really fun. The film is done. It’s called Gutterdammerung.

HM: (Losing cool completely) I know that one! It’s with Iggy Pop and Grace Jones and Lemmy and you! Oh my God!

HR: I wrote all that. And I also play characters in it. Bjorn wrote a thing here and a thing there, but largely it’s me. So while I was shooting He Never Died Monday through Friday, Saturdays and Sundays I’d work on Gutterdammerung.

We rolled out the trailer. And Jesse Hughes (of Eagles of Death Metal, who were performing at Paris’s Bataclan theater when it was attacked November 13th) in is in it, and it was the last thing he did before he left for Paris. He was one of the last people I talked to before I left the building. I said, “I’ll see you man,” and then the next day was Paris.

So, that’s the other big project I’ve been working on, endlessly on and off. The stuff with Iggy, his was the first scene I wrote, actually. I wrote his scene, then I wrote Grace Jones’s stuff, an eventually I wrote all my stuff. It was a lot of fun. I’d love to do that again.

HM: Any other writing projects in the future? What’s next for you?

HR: Well, He Never Died, they want to make it into a TV series and Jason asked me if I would co-write the episodes with him. I said, “You don’t need my help.” He said, “I’d really love it if you were writing with me.” I said, “Well, book it, man. Let’s do it.”

So, I’m kind of one of those guys. I’m just a work nut. I’m just doing anything that’s not nothing.

He Never Died opens Friday at Gateway Film Center. Look for a review of the film in this week’s New in Theaters feature.

Read more from Hope at MADDWOLF and listen to her weekly horror movie podcast, FRIGHT CLUB.