Henry Rollins On ‘He Never Died,’ Playing A Cannibal [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

Henry Rollins stars as a violent and immortal social outcast named Jack in Jason Krawczyk‘s dark comedy horror film He Never Died.

Henry Rollins On ‘He Never Died’

At the outset of He Never Died, Jack has settled into an isolated and routined existence. Having saved up money from earlier days in which he worked as a day trader, he passes his days watching bad television and loitering at a local diner. He now satisfies his taste for human blood in a less violent way than he did in years past, paying off hospital interns to deal him bags of blood. However, when he learns he has a long lost daughter, it throws a wrench in his ascetic lifestyle.

“All of a sudden, this inhuman guy must have been human enough to create life,” Rollins told uInterview exclusively at SXSW. “And then he meets up with the daughter and analogue things ensue, in that people are after him, they’re using the daughter as leverage. There’s a woman at the diner who starts to have a bit of interest in him, a mild curiosity, because he comes in everyday. So all of a sudden humanity comes rushing in – a daughter who has daughter-dad issues, a woman who has quasi-romantic issues. And then there are other things that factor in, and now Jack has to deal with people who he kind of loathes. He doesn’t hate people; he’s just not good with them. He’s good at killing them. He’s good at eating them. But he’s not good at eating dinner with them.”

Throughout the film, Rollins had to film a number of gory scenes due to his character’s thirst for blood. One of Rollins’ favorite bloody scenes to shoot involved a complicated stunt that he only had one chance to get right due to budget constraints. The scene, not for the queasy, involved Rollins’ character ripping a man’s throat out, and required the special effects pro to create something that looked like a larynx.

Rollins recalled, “He said, ‘but we only have one, so if you get through part of the shot and it’s not feeling right stop, we’ll reset, because you know I’m off the side of the stage with a blood pump. Everything has to be right, it’s freezing cold out, so you’re going like grab it, find the little tear away spot and pull forcefully. If you can’t get it, stop.'”

“We do the scene, I’ve got the throat, it’s not coming. I’m like, ‘Oh no! I either go for it and semi break it or I mangle it and don’t get the shot,'” Rollins continued. “I just triple-downed. And the blood came at the right time, but we got the shot and it looks magnificent. We didn’t have the budget to do that thing again.”

Surprisingly, Rollins’ favorite part of filming He Never Died didn’t occur on set; it occurred while he was running lines with himself while running on a treadmill in a hotel gym. As it so happened, the scene Rollins was practicing involved him shouting, “I’m going to eat you. I’m literally going to tear you apart and eat you.” Not surprisingly, a fellow hotel gym patron grew concerned.

“I have the script I’m rehearsing. At one point, I’m doing that scene and I feel a hand on my shoulder. I fall off the treadmill. Some wonderful person in the gym saw me and thought I was having some kind of meltdown,” Rollins told uInterview. “And I fell off and I pick myself up and I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ Completely startled, she goes, ‘Oh, I’m sorry are you okay?” I said, ‘I was. I’m in a film.’ She’s like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I just thought you were having a bad time.’ I’m like, ‘Thank you so much for caring.’ And I had to go back to, in a sweat suit, doing lines.”

He Never Died is currently in limited release.