Action Movie Icon Lance Henriksen On His Conflicted, Angry Legends of Tomorrow Character

11/10/2016 06:47 pm EST

Lance Henriksen, an actor who has appeared in dozens of films including the Alien, Predator, and Terminator franchises, comes to DC's Legends of Tomorrow tonight to play the 1980s version of Todd Rice -- the former Justice Society of America member known as Obsidian.

Henriksen told ComicBook.com that even though he had to squeeze the role in between bigger projects, he was glad he did it after the cast welcomed him with open arms and the production both impressed him -- and left him with a surprisingly warm sense of deja vu.

"The whole shoot was really fun, it really was," said Henriksen. "[The story] went from the 40s to the 80s to now. Being the son of the Green Lantern and having redeemed himself -- by the end of this show you realize that a lot of healing has gone on....The story is so well-grounded and well-done that I had a really good time."

Henriksen shot the episode between two films -- a comedy called After the Sun Fell, which began its life as a Broadway play, and Gone Are the Days, a Western in which he plays the lead. And while the genre star has never been a live-action superhero before now (and it seemed like an unlikelihood given his age and the way superhero movies and TV skew young), he is familiar to the tropes of the superhero genre.

"When I was a kid, I had comic books rather than watching television. I loved comic books. So here I am, I get an offer like that, and I said 'You bet I'll do it!...I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know what the script is, but I'm going to do it,'" he laughed. "And then I got the script and I was really excited to do it."

One of the exciting things about the role, Henriksen told us, was that audiences had already briefly met Obsidian in the season's second episode, "Justice Society of America," in which he was played by Watchmen's Dan Payne. He had at least an implied history, and there was no need (or really any logical plot reason) to spend much of Henriksen's guest appearance delving into elaborate backstory that would eat up screen time he could otherwise use to flesh out Todd Rice.

"I personalize everything, or I try to. There is an element of anger and confusion in this character because things have happened over the years that were completely misunderstood, being not a time traveler, and then it all became revealed to me and it's a very kind of humbling experience."

And while he didn't work directly with Payne, he said that having some elements of the character already established helped him even beyond just the saved screen time.

"That was very, very helpful," Henriksen told us. "There was a lot of subtext available to me in that role -- and also this guy has an edge as well. They just let me do my work, which is great, and it's not wasted on establishing something we already know."

Ironically, this time around the Legends of Tomorrow will time travel to a time and place where Henriksen has already been in his real life: in 1983, when he appeared in the film The Right Stuff, Henriksen and other members of the cast were invited to the Reagan White House.

"We go to the White House during the Reagan era. They dragged me along, and it's like 'Wow, that's unexpected that I would have any feeling about that,'" Henriksen said. "I've actually been to the White House -- when we did The Right Stuff, we got invited to the White House and so I had that feeling when I walked on set. 'Wait a minute: this is the White House. I've been here!'"

More than that, though, it was having a solid script and an arc that made Henriksen glad to team up with the crew of the Waverider this go-'round.

"The character has an axe to grind at first and then he starts through the course of the show to hear about certain things he was wrong about -- and some things he was right about. So it has a very act-able quality about it. It's not just flash. It was a perfect role for me in a way. It felt good."

DC's Legends of Tomorrow airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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