The son of a seaman father and a model mother, Henriksen was initially raised by his grandmother. His busy parents separated when their child was two and the lad began running away from home at age five. His father took Henriksen to sea and dropped him off with relatives in Borneo for three years. Father and son shipped off again, spending a year island-hopping about Fiji and Malaysia. Upon returning to New York, the young Henriksen was enrolled in a military academy but his wanderlust made him reject its strictures. By age 12, he had left both home and school and lived by his wits on the highways and byways of America, hitchhiking and hopping freight cars. The young Henriksen did many short hauls in jail for vagrancy as a teen. The 16-year-old hobo had just gotten out of the Yuma, Arizona county jail when he snared his first film job. Henriksen was paid five dollars for playing an extra in a Lee Marvin movie. He learned how to ride a horse and fly a plane from movie stunt double Rex Rossi who encouraged him to pursue a career in acting.

Henriksen again returned to New York where he began studies at the Actors Studio but soon heeded the call of the sea. He shipped out as a part of the crew of a Swedish freighter and switched to a windjammer in the Bahamas. He has referred to this as the best period in his life. A three-year stint in the Navy followed as did two years as a Merchant Marine. Henriksen returned to NYC and found work making ceramic murals. He next joined the Boston Opera Company as a mime. With a youth spent traveling and working many odd manual jobs, Henriksen had never learned how to read. He only began to acquire this skill at age 30 after winning a lead in a NYC revival of Eugene O'Neill's sea plays. More stage work followed.

Henriksen began his film career with a small role in "It Ain't Easy" (1972). After portraying an FBI agent in Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" (he had wanted the transvestite role that went to Chris Sarandon), he began to appear in at least two films a year. Often playing cops, federal agents, or hard-hearted villains, Henriksen broke the pattern with his heroic portrayal of astronaut Wally Schirra for Philip Kaufman's "The Right Stuff" (1983). Widespread notice from fans came with his striking portrayal of Bishop, a gruffly sympathetic android, in James Cameron's breathless sequel "Aliens" (1986), a part so pivotal that Henriksen divides his career into two eras--before and after this film. (He reprised the role in David Fincher's 1992 sequel "Alien3".) He next played Jesse, a Civil War-era vampire still traveling the wide open spaces, in Kathryn Bigelow's "Near Dark" (1987) wherein he memorably fills a beer mug with blood from a victim's throat.

Henriksen soon graduated to leads in modestly budgeted genre fare ("Pumpkinhead" 1988; "The Horror Show" 1989; "The Pit and the Pendulum" 1991) and supporting parts in major features. His memorable credits include playing sympathetic law men in "Jennifer 8" (1992) and "Powder" (1995); a vicious hunter of humans in John Woo's "Hard Target" (1993) and a murderous thief in Hill's "Johnny Handsome"; a quick-shooting dandy in Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" (1995); and a cannibalistic gunfighter in Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" (shown at Cannes in 1995; released in the US in 1996).

Henriksen has worked relatively infrequently in TV, making the rare guest shot and a smattering of TV-movies. His first series vehicle was the highly touted "Millennium" (Fox, 1996-99), a supernatural crime series from executive producer Chris Carter. Here Henriksen played Frank Black, a retired FBI agent recruited by a shadowy quasi-governmental organization with an uncanny knack for getting inside the minds of serial killers--a specialty in greater demand as millennial lunacy waxes. The advance buzz was wildly positive on this exceedingly dark and violent series but it struggled in the ratings in each of its three seasons.

The actor continued to work tirelessly, appearing in occasional A fare--such as "Scream 3" (2000)--but returning largely to his horror/thriller roots, as well as being cast in some respectable telepics. His profile rose again in 2004 when he sort-of reprised his "Alien" role, this time playing the human forefather of Bishop: Charles Bishop Weyland, a billionaire who leads an expedition to Antarctica and discovers a pyramid with a secret that unleashes the Aliens in a war against another movie franchise extraterrestrial in "Alien Vs. Predator."