Henry Rollins: Regarding Henry

How does he feel, then, about kowtowing to the pricks in the movie industry?

Surely, for one who operates as iconoclastically as Rollins does, meeting with the typical Tinseltown suit must be considerably less enjoyable than, say, cold-cocking Germans. He points out that it is the industry's insincerity-as-a-bloodsport that bugs him the most. "I can see why actors get very bitter," he says, prowling the room. "This is a mean business. You watch how casually these people will tell you how they're into you and dying to work with you and love you. Then, the next day: Harry! It's Henry. Henry! How's the Dead Kennedys? I was in Black Flag. How's Black Flag? You guys on tour? Black Flag broke up in 1986. Now, this is the same guy who took me out to lunch the day before and said, 'I love the album. I've got the new single. I love it. I'm a Liar, right? Heeey, only kidding.' You see that this guy is filling you with bullshit, but I take that into consideration and only believe what they tell me when I'm actually on the set."

The most recent set for Rollins was Johnny Mnemonic, a project based on a story by cyberpunk novelist William Gibson and directed by visual artist Robert Longo. The film centers around the title character, played by Keanu Reeves, whose brain is embedded with a computer chip that is being aggressively sought by several cartels. Rollins portrays a doctor--albeit, one named Spider--who must download fresh instructions into Johnny's mind. Cast without an audition, Rollins arrived at the Toronto location with one requirement for himself. To dramatize this requirement for me, he gulps a weightlifter's intake of oxygen and slowly exhales, intoning, "Must. Putt. My. Weight."

"I did not want to be the drag of the production, the rock'n'roll guy who can't remember his lines," Rollins continues. "I went on the set with my shit together, and I had tons of dialogue. Paragraphs." Probably fearing that he'll come off as taking the thespian thing too seriously, Rollins nonchalantly adds, "Look, I'm not at Anthony Hopkins's level or anything, but it's not like I'm playing the doorman in Parley's II either."

Rollins has nothing positive to say about the acting of co-stars Dolph Lundgren or Keanu Reeves. When I tell him I heard he walked off the set one afternoon muttering, "Somebody should teach that fucking [Reeves] to act," he shrugs inscrutably and says only that I would be operating on assumption if I chose to use that tidbit. Rollins is willing to express his opinion of director Longo. "I love that guy." he tells me. "On his movie set he's supposed to be polite to everyone, so he can't let it rip. But pretty soon he and I were fucking with each other, anyway. He would come up to me and say, 'Are you ready to shoot some fucking film?' I'd be like, 'Fuck you.' Everybody's jaw dropped open and from there it began escalating. He and I were laughing at each other, calling one another motherfuckers. He would walk on and say, 'You mean you wanna fuck me?' I'd reply, 'I want to fuck you at lunch, punk!' By the end of the shoot we were calling each other fucko and dickface. We had a blast. After wrapping. Robert gave me a piece of art. It's a big litho of a hand holding a gun. He also gave me all of these art books and signed them. You blowhard. Fuck you. Robert Longo, He's just great."

Perhaps because an inordinate number of twenty something directors (like Adam Rifkin, who directed The Chase, in which Rollins appeared) are his fans, Rollins has become something of a hot ticket among casting agents. He takes meetings with brand-name players. "I spent a moment hanging out with Steven Seagal," he says, leading me out to a backyard that is lush with bougainvillea and giant potted plants. Squinting disdainfully into the sun, he continues, "The guy was beyond belief. I think I would rather drink latex paint than be in a movie with him. However, he does know his shit about aikido: I would not want to mess with him. He stalled asking me what I was doing in his office, why I wanted to meet with him. And that was really strange because / didn't even want to be there. He called me. I only went because my agent asked me to go. Then Seagal wanted to know how much experience I had with [real] guns. When I told him I had none, he looked at me as it I had better move out of town, That's when I walked out of there and saw all these people in his front office, nervously clutching scripts. Apparently, he was casting On Deadly Ground. That clown is a guy who definitely lives in his fucking scene. And there is danger there."

Back inside, Rollins and I sit on swiveling desk chairs in the living room/office, where one wall is dominated by shelves of cassette tapes chronicling live performances of Rollins's favorite bands--including generations of intense personalities from Miles Davis to the Sex Pistols to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The other wall is taken up by a shelving system that holds what he estimates to be 2,300 compact discs, all cataloged in the computer at the center of his desk.

All about are pieces of art from various friends, including Mark Mothersbaugh (former member of Devo), who gave Rollins a knowingly kitschy sketch of two kids playing ringtoss on a sleeping hillbilly's erect penis; D. Boon, who donated a self-portrait ("D. Boon is dead now," Rollins says of his friend who had once fronted a local punk band called the Minutemen-so named, by the way, because few of their songs exceeded 60 seconds. "So if I lost that, it would really suck"); and Raymond Pettibon, who is represented documentary film director Joe Cole. They were returning from a run to the video store, where they had picked up a Sylvester Stallone flick.

I interrupt the story I'm hearing to ask if Rollins is a Sly Stallone fan. "In the jungle I'd be wearing Stallone's finger bones in my nose and his women would be wearing my colors," he says. "In Hollywood, though, the son of a bitch will always get work."

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