Michael Biehn has starred in some classic science fiction/action movies. Well, maybe not “starred” in them, but he’s had some prominent roles in memorable movies. His collaborations with James Cameron established him as a sci-fi icon even if he never became a household name. If things had gone just a little bit differently, he could have become an A-list movie star. Instead, he’s doing voice work for video games.

What the hell happened?

Come with me if you want to know.

Humble Beginnings

Michael Biehn – Logan’s Run – 1977

Biehn made his inauspicious debut on the 1977 TV show based on the 1976 sci-fi movie, Logan’s Run. The show, like the movie, was set in a dystopian future (is there any other kind?). The world has been ravaged by war. Rather than sending Michael Biehn back in time to save humanity as any sensible person would, this future society puts its citizens to death at age 30. A reasonable back-up plan, I suppose. Anyone who decides that maybe they want to live past 30 is called a “runner”. The agents who track down runners are called “sandmen” because apparently the rulers of the dystopian future have a wicked sense of satire.

Logan, our hero, is a sandman who becomes a runner in order to infiltrate their sanctuary. He is aided by a girl named Jenny and pursued by a fellow sandman who used to be his best friend. Biehn played a nameless sandman named… Sandman. I told you he was nameless. But if it makes you feel better, you can call him Kyle Reese. I’m sure he’s used to it.

Biehn’s role consisted of two lines. Actually, it was one line repeated. Biehn remembers being nervous about delivering the same line twice on TV:

I was scared. I only had two lines, and they were the same line: “Runner headed toward Quadrant Four!” I haven’t seen it in 35 years, but I remember doing it, sitting there and going over it and over it until they said, “Action!” And when they did, I said it the first time, and then my mind went blank. I was like, “Oh, my God, what’s my other line?” And then I went, “Oh, right: ‘Runner headed toward Quadrant Four!’” [Laughs.] So, yeah, I managed to get through those two lines, and that was my first time on film.

Michael Biehn – Coach – 1978

In 1978, Biehn made his big screen debut opposite Cathy Lee Crosby in the sports comedy, Coach.

Crosby played an Olympic Gold medalist hired to coach the boys basketball team. When the school’s sexist principle realizes that he has hired a woman, he tries to sabotage the team so he can fire her. Biehn played her star player. Biehn was understandably taken with the future host of That’s Incredible:

Well… You know, I was very young, I was very enamored with Cathy Lee Crosby… [Laughs.] As I think she was with me. I haven’t seen that movie in 20 or 30 years, but I think it was cute enough, I think it was fun enough, I don’t think there was anything horrifically stupid about it. It was an exploitation movie. It used sex exploitation. But I think I had a character in there who was attractive, and I had a lot of fun making it, playing basketball and hanging out with Cathy Lee Crosby. It wasn’t too bad for a 19-year-old kid from Arizona.

Later that year, Biehn played another basketball hopeful. Only, instead of making out with the blonde Wonder Woman, he got punched in the gut by John Travolta in Grease.

Would-Be Teen Heartthrob

Michael Biehn – Teen View Cover – 1978

Biehn continued the summer lovin’ with appearances in a couple of TV movies. Zuma Beach starred Suzanne Somers as a fading rock star who escapes to the beach where she gets involved with the lives of local teens played by Biehn, Rosanna Arquette, P.J. Soles, Delta Burke, Timothy Hutton and Tonya Roberts. John Carpenter, yes THE John Carpenter, was one of the writers.

He also appeared in a slightly-less-sunny TV movie called A Fire in the Sky. It was about a comet headed to earth. Basically Armageddon 1978.

Biehn bounced around paying his dues on TV movies and after school specials. In 1978, he starred opposite Mr. Brady, Robert, Reed in a TV movie called Operation: Runaway. Reed played a psychologist who tracks down runaways he can help. Biehn played one of his former runaways whom he later adopted. The movie was intended as a pilot for a TV show. The Runaways was picked up as a series in 1979. 17 episodes aired.

In 1980, Biehn starred in the biker comedy, Hog Wild. He played a boy who returns home after being expelled from military school. He discovers that a motorcycle gang has been terrorizing his high school and falls in love with the girlfriend of the gang’s leader.

Getting Serious

Michael Biehn – The Fan – 1981

As he entered the eighties, Biehn was outgrowing the teen heartthrob stage In 1981, he transitioned into more mature roles playing a fan who stalks Lauren Bacall in Robert Stigwood’s thriller, The Fan. Bacall portrayed a movie star who was preparing for her first musical. Maureen Stapleton appeared as her secretary who fails to realize that the obsessed record salesman who keeps writing letters is dangerous. James Garner played Bacall’s bodyguard.

Biehn described working on his first big-budget movie:

I was very excited, because it was Robert Stigwood, Lauren Bacall. I mean, it was huge, you know? Flying into New York and all that Stigwood press – I was more intimidated about being in such a big production than I was about working with Lauren Bacall or Garner. I had been working in television, and I thought I had the stuff, and Lauren Bacall certainly didn’t intimidate me.

The Fan didn’t find many fans. Even its star, Bacall, didn’t like it. The movie was somewhat controversial when it opened. There had been several high-profile cases of celebrity stalking in the news. Only a few months prior to the movie’s release, John Lennon had been shot by an obsessed fan.

Michael Biehn – The Lords of Discipline – 1983

Biehn played another villain in the military drama, The Lords of Discipline.

David Keith, who had some buzz after An Officer and a Gentleman, starred as a student at the Carolina Military Institute. When he returns to the academy for his final year, he is tasked with looking after the school’s first black student. Biehn played a member of The Ten, a group of racist students who will stop at nothing to get the new student to drop out. Up and coming actors like Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton also appeared.

Biehn continued working primarily in television. In the TV movie China Rose, he played George C. Scott’s missing son who is reunited with his father with help from an American embassy worker played by Ali McGraw. Biehn also had a three-episode appearance on the hit TV show, Hill Street Blues.

That was a great character for me. I loved that character because he was just such a total asshole. He was a racist, he was a misogynist, he didn’t like women, he didn’t like anybody, he was a loudmouth, he was crude… What was cool about him was that I got to work with Betty Thomas and Ed Marinaro, and when I was standing between the two of them, I looked like a shrimp. I mean, I’m 6 feet tall, but Ed’s gotta be 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3, and Betty’s gotta be 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2, so I looked like Robert Conrad, like any minute I was gonna say, “Knock this battery off my shoulder!” I looked like the little guy, who was always feisty and yelling and stuff, and I had a great time doing that character. It’s one of my favorite characters, in fact. I loved him.

Up to this point, Biehn had a respectable if unremarkable career. Arguably he dodged a bullet when he didn’t become the next Scott Baio or Shaun Cassidy in the late seventies. In the early eighties, it seemed like Biehn might have found his niche playing baddies in movies and TV. That might have been how the rest of his career played out if not for The Terminator.

The Big Break

Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton – The Terminator – 1984

James Cameron had been working on his script for The Terminator while he was learning his craft in Roger Coreman’s B-movie factory. Originally, he had intended for the cyborg killer from the future to be played by a lean, athletic actor with a build like Biehn. Cameron had Lance Henriksen in mind for the role. He met with Arnold Schwarzenegger for the part of the hero, Kyle Reese. But the former body builder was interested in playing the villain. He convinced Cameron he was right for the part. Ultimately, Henriksen was given a smaller role in the movie and Biehn was cast as the time-traveling freedom fighter who saves the mother of humanity’s savior, played by Linda Hamilton.

Biehn’s first audition for Cameron did not go well:

“I was auditioning for Jose Quintero for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in downtown LA and I auditioned all morning for him, didn’t end up getting that role. That was a theater production. But when I went in and I read for Jim, I guess I kind of kept some of that southern accent; it stayed with me. So, Jim called my agents and said “We really like him a lot, but he’s a little too regional for us.” They were like “What are you talking about?” “Well, he’s Southern.” They were like “No, no he’s from Nebraska.” “Nebraska? He sounded Southern…” So, they brought me back to read again and I auditioned again for them and I got the role. I read with Rosanna (Arquette) once and… and I read with Linda and we got the roles.”

Expectations were low for The Terminator. The studio didn’t even want to screen it for critics. The modest science fiction movie received good reviews and was a solid hit at the box office. While it was very profitable, it was not the runaway smash most people probably imagine. According to Biehn:

I think people think about that movie as being this huge, huge hit, and it did well. It did, I think, $40 million at the box office. But to give you an idea of other movies that were out at the time, The Karate Kid made $90 million. So it wasn’t that big of a hit at the time. It did okay, but it wasn’t a juggernaut. And I wasn’t flooded with offers by any stretch. I mean, I think the next movie I did was Aliens, which was two years later, so I definitely wasn’t buried in big offers.

Continuing With Cameron…

Michael Biehn – Aliens – 1986

Biehn wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t buried in big offers. He followed up The Terminator with a TV movie of the week. Two years later, Biehn’s connection to Cameron helped him land a role in the sci-fi sequel, Aliens.

Production on The Terminator was delayed so Schwarzenegger could film the Conan sequel, Conan the Destroyer. Cameron had some down time, but not enough time to film a different movie. So he took on a writing job which lead to his script for Aliens. Twentieth Century Fox wasn’t sold on the idea of a sequel to Alien, but they were impressed with Cameron’s treatment and told him he could make his movie if The Terminator was a success.

Fox agreed to make Aliens, but they clashed with Sigourney Weaver over her salary. Cameron told the studio that he would leave the production if Weaver’s contract wasn’t signed when he returned from his honeymoon. When Fox didn’t budge, Cameron called Schwarzenegger’s agent and claimed that he was rewriting the script without Ripley so he could move forward with the project. Word got back to the studio and the matter of Weaver’s contract was quickly settled. Weaver was paid $1 million dollars which was 30 times what she received for the first film.

James Remar as Corporal Hicks in Aliens.

James Remar was originally cast as Corporal Hicks. But Remar left during filming after “creative differences” with Cameron. Biehn was brought in as a last-minute replacement. He got the call on a Friday and flew out to London to start filming the following Monday. Remar still appears in the film as Hicks during the scene where the marines enter the alien nest. The effects shots were too expensive to reshoot, so Remar is seen in shots that do not show his face. According to Biehn:

I got called by Gale Hurd on the Friday night checking my passport was in order. I said yes, and I was shooting Monday morning. Which meant that I didn’t have to do that three weeks of rehearsal period, before the movie started, where they did the round table reading, and they would take all the soldiers out and march them over and over again, and have all the dinners. I just jumped right in, I just did it from the word go, and so that was a relief to me, because any time anyone does an army movie, they take all the actors out and get some old worn out drill sergeant to put ‘em through their paces, and I hate to do that. I really didn’t want to do that.

As a novice director, Cameron faced a lot of challenges making Aliens. He was working with a relativel;y modest budget for a sequel to a Hollywood hit because Fox didn’t have a lot of faith in the idea of an Alien franchise. Cameron had a very tight shooting schedule and found it difficult to accommodate the English crew’s daily tea breaks. The crew had no idea who Cameron was because The Terminator had not yet been released in England. Reportedly, some of them resented the idea of an inexperienced Canadian filming a sequel to Alien which had been directed by their countryman, Ridley Scott.

Test screenings could not be done because the movie was being edited right up until the time of its release. But it opened to very good reviews and was a hit at the box office. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Actress for Weaver.

Post-Aliens

Near Dark – 1987

Aliens was the third film to feature both Biehn and Bill Paxton. They had a chance to work together again immediately afterwards. Paxton signed on for Kathryn Bigelow’s cult classic vampire movie, Near Dark. Biehn was offered the role of the head vampire. But he said he turned the part down because he didn’t understand the script. His Aliens co-star and fellow Cameron regular, Lance Henriksen, took the part instead. Biehn later named Near Dark as one of the few roles he regretted turning down:

Kathryn called and offered me the role that Lance played. I read that script and I found it confusing, and I made a mistake, probably, by passing on it. I’m a very linear person – I’ve got to see beginning, middle and end, and if the scenes don’t make sense to me, it’s very hard for me to progress with them. I mean, I had real trouble with movies like Memento and Irreversible, and the flashbacks, stuff like that.

Again, it was a mistake that I made, because I would’ve loved to have worked with Kathryn, because she went on to do the movie with Patrick Swayze and Keanu, and there was a call that was made to me about the Patrick Swayze role in that, also. That was a mistake, that I didn’t do Near Dark. I look at it, and I’ve seen it recently, and it’s an interesting film from a first time filmmaker, and she’s a brilliant filmmaker.

While Near Dark didn’t make stars of any of its actors, it certainly represented a missed opportunity for Biehn. In addition to marrying James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow went on to become an Oscar-winning director in her own right. Biehn could have formed another mutually beneficial collaboration with her as he had with her future ex-husband. Instead of starring in cult classic which is still remembered by fans today, Biehn starred in William Friedkin’s thriller, Rampage..

Michael Biehn – Rampage – 1987

Biehn played a prosecutor who trying the case of a serial killer who murdered his victims on Christmas. Biehn’s character struggles to have the defendant found sane so that he can receive the death penalty.

The actor discussed what it was like working for infamous Exorcist director, William Friedkin:

He likes to challenge his actors, there’s no doubt about that. He challenges you to the extent to where he can find a weakness in you and then he will plunge a knife in there and try to gut you as a person and as an actor. I think that it keeps you on your toes. In real life, like when you are not on the set, Billy is the nicest most articulate fun loving, poker-playing guy. He can talk about history and opera and fashion and women… He is just a lovely, interesting man to be around and I love Billy Freidkin. I love him to death, but you get him on a set and he turns into the devil.

Rampage was panned by critics and flopped at the box office.

Michael Biehn and Demi Moore – The Seventh Sign – 1988

In 1988, Biehn appeared opposite Demi Moore in the apocalyptic thriller, The Seventh Sign. Moore played an expectant mother whose unborn baby may or may not signal the apocalypse. Biehn played her husband.

Later that year, he starred opposite Patrick Dempsey and Maureen Mueller in the World War II drama, In a Shallow Grave. Biehn played a badly scarred World War II vet who has returned to his home town. His disfigurement makes him shy, so he enlists help from a drifter played by Dempsey to pass along notes to his old sweetheart. Eventually, Biehn becomes suspicious of an affair between Dempsey and Mueller. In a Shallow Grave was never released theatrically in the US.

If Biehn was going to make it as a movie star, he had to capitalize on the success of the movies he made with James Cameron. But he hadn’t been able to find a hit in the two years since starring in Aliens. Fortunately, Cameron hadn’t lost his phone number.

Into the Abyss

Michael Biehn – The Abyss – 1989

After the successes of The Terminator and Aliens, Cameron finally had some clout. He used his newfound power to make the ambitious but flawed science fiction film, The Abyss. Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played an ex-couple who have to work through their complicated history during a dangerous mission that brings them face-to-face with strange extra terrestrials. Biehn played a navy SEAL who doesn’t handle the undersea pressure very well.

The Abyss is an interesting movie that lays the groundwork for Cameron’s more successful movies. The underwater action was in many ways a test run for Titanic. The CGI effects depicting rippling water that morphs into columns and faces was a precursor to Terminator 2. And the tense relationship between the two leads played by Harris and Mastrantonio was a preview of Cameron’s real-life divorce from his collaborator, producer Gale Anne Hurd. Their marriage was falling apart while they made the movie.

That may have contributed to what many would describe as a difficult shoot. Some members of the cast and crew described the set as unsafe. Cameron used very few stunt performers for The Abyss. Harris nearly drowned while filming an underwater scene. He ran out of air and gave the sign for more oxygen. The safety diver who was supposed to provide the oxygen got tangled in a cable and couldn’t reach him. Another crew member was able to get a regulator to Harris but mistakenly handed it to him upside down. This caused Harris to suck in water instead of air. A cameraman finally delivered Harris his oxygen correctly so he could breathe.

Harris refuses to talk about the making of the movie. Aside from speaking about The Abyss in a 1993 documentary, Harris has only said, “I’m not talking about The Abyss and I never will”. Mastrantonio echoes this sentiment saying, “The Abyss was a lot of things. Fun to make was not one of them.”

Biehn was used to Cameron’s approach and was relatively unphased by the experience:

You’ll do a take, and he’ll walk up to you and say, “Michael that’s exactly what I don’t want”, and you can either go, “Oh what a fucking bastard, oh he bruised my ego!”, or you can say, “Well what the fuck do you want, Jim? Show me! If you were an actor, you could act it, but you can’t! You have to show me what you want me to do! You wanna give me a line reading? Give me a line reading! Show me what you want, I’ll do it!” And he’s cool, y’know? He’ll do it, but he’s not real sensitive when it comes to actors and their trailers, and waiting for actors to come to the set, so he can get his shots off. I think that Jim, from what I understand, got a little bit more verbal after he was done with The Abyss, because I didn’t see anything.

Despite Cameron’s newfound power, he still had a fight with Fox over the ending of The Abyss. The studio thought the movie was too long and didn’t like Cameron’s extended ending in which aliens bring about world peace. So they forced Cameron to use a shorter ending that left the movie feeling somewhat unsatisfying. Cameron has since released the extended ending on a director’s cut of the film. It’s still not the most gratifying cinematic experience you’ll ever have. But it makes more sense than the original theatrical cut.

Despite mostly positive reviews, audiences didn’t embrace The Abyss. It failed to recoup its $70 million dollar budget in the US making it a rare financial misstep for Cameron. It has since developed a cult following on video and is considered by many to be the director’s most under-rated movie.

Interesting factoid, Biehn’s hand gets bitten in every movie he made for Cameron: In James The Terminator, he is bitten by Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), in Aliens it’s Rebecca “Newt” Jorden (Carrie Henn), and in The Abyss, Virgil “Bud” Brigman (Ed Harris) does the honors.

Going It Alone

Michael Biehn – Navy Seals – 1990

Time was running out for Biehn to prove himself as a box office draw. If he was ever going to be a movie star, he needed a hit movie that wasn’t directed by James Cameron. To that end, Biehn starred opposite Charlie Sheen in the over-the-top action movie, Navy SEALs.

Biehn and Sheen co-star as, what else, Navy SEALs. The cast included includes Dennis Haysbert, Rick Rossovich, Cyril O’Reilly, Paul Sanchez and of course Bill Paxton. Their team discovers stinger missiles in the possession of terrorists while on a rescue mission. Biehn’s character makes the decision to prioritize saving the hostages rather than destroying the missiles. So the unit must regroup to track down the missiles before they can be used against America.

What kind of movie is Navy SEALs? Charlie Sheen jumps off a bridge from a moving car to get out of attending a friend’s wedding. Biehn summed it up thusly:

I was really disappointed with that movie, because we had the Navy behind us, we had a really, really good producer, Bernie Williams, we had a great crew and a great cast. We had Charlie and Paxton and me and Joanne Whalley, Dennis Haysbert… just a great cast. We had a script that could’ve been worked on, could’ve been made a lot better, but they wanted to make this kind of silly movie about Charlie Sheen running and jumping on the back of a car, putting it in reverse, and driving it off a ramp. The director wanted to make… I don’t know what he wanted to make. A comedy or something. I guess he considered it like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. I wanted to do Top Gun, and Paxton wanted to do Top Gun. We wanted to make a really good movie, and it really turned out to be kind of a mish-mash and not a very good movie at all. So it’s really kind of… yeah, it’s probably the worst experience of my life, working on that movie.

And remember, this comes from a guy who worked on The Abyss.

Critics agreed with Biehn’s low assessment of the movie. Audiences didn’t like Navy SEALs either. It opened at #4 at the box office behind Arachnophobia. That kind of performance certainly wasn’t going to help Biehn establish himself as a leading man.

Michael Biehn – Timebomb – 1991

Next up was the sci-fi thriller Timebomb which costarred Patsy Kensit. Biehn played a mild-mannered watchmaker who starts having what seem to be hallucinations. He turns to a psychiatrist played by Kensit for help. Together, they discover a secret conspiracy. Basically it’s Total Recall meets The Manchurian Candidate except nowhere near as good as either of those films.

While Biehn liked his co-star, he questioned casting her as a psychiatrist:

So I signed on to do this movie, and I remember exactly where I was sitting when I was told that they’d cast Patsy Kensit to play opposite me, and although Patsy was like, darling, she was sexy and fun, y’know, she was supposed to be a psychiatrist, and she was twenty! And I thought, that’s strange casting!

The studio wanted to cast Chuck Norris or Jean-Claude Van Damme in the lead. But Biehn believed in the movie so strongly that he took a pay cut to land the lead role. Unfortunately, Timebomb lived up to its name. Biehn placed the blame for on the director:

I thought it was going to be a much better movie, and that guy, I don’t think has gone on to direct very much of note. But this guy totally ruined it and he hasn’t really done anything since. Some directors, like Lewis Teague who did Navy Seals, somehow they just keep failing upwards. Like Jewel Of The Nile, which is one of the worst movies ever made, but somehow he gets work off it. It’s like, “Okay, Jewel Of The Nile. Well then, let him do Navy Seals.” They’re just kind of [examples] of people who really aren’t that good at what they do, and slowly, but surely, just disappear.

Biehn’s not wrong about that. What the Hell Happened articles are full of movies made by guys like Lewis Teague. The goal is to avoid being cast in them.

Left Behind

Michael Biehn – Terminator 2: Judgement Day 1991

As an actor and potential movie star, Micahel Biehn had two things going for him that most other actors would kill for. One, he had a successful collaboration with an A-list director who was willing to cast him in most of his movies. Two, that collaboration resulted in Biehn being cast in two highly lucrative franchises. Of the two, the Alien franchise was the more desirable. The first Terminator was an over-achieving B-movie. That was about to change with the sequel, but unfortunately Biehn wasn’t in a position to benefit from the popularity of T2 since his character died in the first movie.

He did film a cameo appearance for Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Ultimately, Biehn’s scene was cut from the theatrical release although it was later included in Cameron’s director’s cut on home video. Biehn remembered getting the news:

“Jim called me, and he explained it to me: It was too long, he had to cut a couple things out, mine was one of the last things to go. But he had two other flashbacks in the movie, and basically what I did in the movie was the same thing I did in the first movie… I got paid a very handsome price for that one day of work. And I’d do anything for Jim. If he asked me to come over and wash his car today, I’d do it. And it’s raining, too! But I’d do anything for Jim.”

Oh well. At least he could count on a steady paycheck from those Alien sequels…

While T2 made a star out of Edward Furlong, Biehn had to make settle for starring in K2 instead. Sadly, the K in K2 does not stand for The Kerminator. Because I would totally watch that.



Unfortunately, there are no cyborg frogs in the K2. Instead the movie is loosely based on the true story of two Americans who climbed the second-tallest mountain in the world which is named K2. Seriously? Second-tallest? Call me when they scale Mount Everest.

Biehn welcomed the chance to work with his Lords of Discipline director, Franc Roddam, a second time:

That was the second chance I had to work with Franc, who I liked a lot. I was always proud of the fact that I worked with directors a number of times, because they liked me, and because I brought a lot more to a picture, a lot of times, than just being an actor.I was a pretty good story editor, and would help sometimes to solve problems with scenes and so on.

K2 was panned by critics and flopped at the box office. I actually sat through it to prepare for this article. Navy SEALs too. Someone should really pay me for this.

By 1992, Biehn was back to starring in TV movies. He starred opposite Jason Bateman, E.T.‘s Henry Thomas and an unknown Renee Zellweger in the thriller, A Taste For Killing. So this is what Kyle Reese has been reduced to. Starring in a TV movie opposite Elliot and the other kid from Silver Spoons. I know, Jason Bateman went on to do Arrested Development and a few decent movies, but at this point in his career, he was best known for The Hogan Family. And that’s where Biehn’s career had landed him. Instead of making umpteen sequels to The Terminator and Aliens, he was back in cheesy TV movies.

We know why Biehn wasn’t brought back into the Terminator movies. But why didn’t he return to the Alien franchise?

Game Over, Man

Michael Biehn’s image – Alien 3 – 1992

In 1992, Biehn’s image appeared very briefly in Alien 3. His character from Aliens was killed off camera. Biehn was not happy.

I called my agent up and he called up Fox and said, “You can’t use Michael’s image.” They said, “Okay, we’ll get back to you.” I got a call from David Fincher saying “Please, can we just… We’d really like to use your character.” And first of all I was like “Fuck you for not putting me in the movie.” I was pretty pissed off and “Fuck you for even calling me, so go fuck yourself.” Now I wish I hadn’t, because now he’s… Now he’s “David Fincher,” but I was upset at the fact that I was not in the new movie. What I said was “Fuck you for having that happen to my character.” There was no way I would ever let that character have a monster come bursting out of his chest, so you can forget about that happening. Jim wasn’t happy about that either, so they dropped that idea and then they came back and they said “We want to use your picture” and I said “Okay, you can use my picture. It’s going to cost you and it’s going to cost you a lot.” So they paid me a lot of money to use my picture in that movie. It was really probably the most disappointing moment in my career when I look at like “Jeez, I could have been a part of a franchise that went like four or five deep and made a lot of money and really had been able to…”

Biehn’s anger probably stemmed at least partially from the fact that at one point, he was supposed to star in Alien 3. The original plan was to shoot the third and fourth movies in the Alien franchise back-to-back. Sigourney Weaver was angry with Fox over some of the changes the studio made to Aliens and clashed regularly with the studio over her salary. By making Biehn the lead of Alien 3, Fox stood to save a chunk of change. Weavers was supposed to have a cameo role in the third film and come back to star in the fourth film.

The original script was written by sci-fi author, William Gibson. The studio liked some aspects of Gibson’s script. But they asked for a rewrite. Renny Harlin was brought on to direct. Gibson sensed the movie wasn’t going anywhere and declined to rewrite his script. So Eric Red was brought on to write a new script. Red’s Alien 3 script included a passing reference to Ripley, but other than that it featured a completely new cast of characters. It ended with a space station turning into a large, alien creature. Okay. That sounds really bad. Even Renny Harlin didn’t like it. He quit the project to make Die Hard 2 instead. Red himself disowned the script claiming, “it was not ‘my script’. It was the rushed product of too many story conferences and interference with no time to write, and turned out utter crap.”

The idea of filming back-to-back sequels was abandoned. The script went through several more revisions and screenwriters before it became the movie that was released in 1992. When a draft by David Twohy was delivered to Fox president Joe Roth, he did not like the idea of Ripley being removed. He declared that “Sigourney Weaver is the centerpiece of the series” and Ripley was “really the only female warrior we have in our movie mythology.” Weaver negotiated a $5 million salary plus a share of the box office receipts to return to the series.

This is obviously a massive missed opportunity for Biehn. Maybe for the franchise as well. We’ll never know how an Alien 3 featuring Corporal Hicks as its protagonist would have turned out. Perhaps Biehn would have starred in multiple Alien pictures. Instead, the series left Biehn behind.

Opportunity Stopped Knocking

Michael Biehn – Strapped – 1993

In 1993, Biehn appeared in Forest Whitaker’s directorial debut, a made-for-HBO crime drama called Strapped. Strapped is perhaps best known for being Bokeem Woodbine’s film debut.

Michael Biehn and Nicolas Cage – Deadfall – 1993

In 1993, Biehn starred opposite Nicolas Cage in the bizarre crime drama, Deadfall. Deadfall was directed by Cage’s brother, Christopher Coppola. So it’s every bit as unhinged as you would expect.

Biehn commented on Cage’s off-the-wall performance:

Nic at that point was just breaking. He was just leaving the set to go do Saturday Night Live because he had just won the Oscar. That was Nic Cage undirected, because his brother directed him and I think he just said “Nic, do whatever you want.” I think Nic is best probably when he’s got somebody that just holds him back a little bit.

Biehn’s memory appears to be fuzzy. Deadfall came out in 1993 and Cage wouldn’t win the Oscar until Leaving Las Vegas in 1995.

Like Aliens, Biehn took the part at the last-minute when another actor left the project. Originally, the movie was supposed to star Val Kilmer and his then-wife, Joanne Whalley.

I got a call because Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer just fell out and they needed a replacement within like a week. So that was another one of those things where I got a call and flew into LA. Val saw the writing on the wall. It was a good script, too. It was written by Nick Vallelonga, who’s a good friend of mine and has gone on to direct me in two or three movies. It was a good script, it was jut bizarre.

It’s funny, because usually when people… When I try to think of the name of that movie, if you hadn’t just said “Deadfall” or had you said, “What’s the movie you did with Nic Cage and Charlie Sheen?” I always have this mental Freudian block and I can never remember the name of it. To be perfectly honest with you, I kind of have a bottom five of movies that I was in. That was one of them.”

Deadfall wasn’t taken seriously by anyone including its biggest star. The few critics who saw it trashed it. It grossed less than $20K on a $10 million dollar budget.

Michael Biehn – Tombstone – 1993

Biehn ended the year on a high note playing the man who shot Val Kilmer in the Wyatt Earp movie, Tombstone.

Kurt Russell played Wyatt Earp and Kilmer played Doc Holiday in this retelling of the shoot-out at the OK Corral. Biehn’s frequent co-star Bill Paxton, played Morgan Earp and Sam Elliot played Virgil Earp. Biehn played the villain, Johnny Ringo, who may or may not have played drums. I don’t think the movie ever really addresses that issue. The cast also included Powers Boothe, Charlton Heston, Jason Priestley, Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church and as the token female, Dana Delany.

I could tell the story of how Kevin Costner tried to kill Tombstone so he could make his own competing Wyatt Earp movie. Or of how Russell ended up ghost-directing Tombstone after the original director was fired (with a kick out the door from Kilmer). But those stories are already well documented here at le Blog. Just follow the links for all involved if you haven’t already read them.



Biehn described his working relationship with Kilmer who has a reputation for being difficult:

“Val’s great. Val’s somehow gotten a reputation for being difficult. I don’t know why, actually, except for that he works very hard. To give you an example, Val and I went out the day before we shot that scene, and we choreographed that scene together. It was Val and I who decided that we weren’t going to be walking 10 paces, turning, and shooting, like they’ve done in a million other movies. We thought, “Well, wouldn’t it be fun if we did it kind of close, where we’re just, like, 2 or 3 feet apart from each other?” And we went out and rehearsed that, and we spent six or eight hours rehearsing it, kind of doing that thing where we’d walk around each other, sizing each other up, and then how I got shot and how I still continued to pull the trigger even though I had a bullet through the brain. All of that stuff, Val and I rehearsed the day before we shot, and that’s the kind of actor that I know Val Kilmer is. I mean, he is passionate and he wants to get it right, and he is like me and like Jim Cameron and like a lot of people who are like, “I’m making a movie here. I’m going to do the best I can, and if you’re not with me, then get out of the way.

Tombstone received mostly positive reviews and was a hit at the box office. It has endured as a favorite among fans of the genre and even a few people who don’t much care for Westerns. Meanwhile, Costner’s Wyatt Earp movie turned out to be an expensive flop.

Michael Biehn – Deep Red – 1994

The following year, Biehn was back to making TV movies. In 1994, he starred in Deep Red for the Sci-Fi Channel.

Michael Biehn – Jade – 1995

In 1995, Biehn reunited with his Rampage director, William Friedkin, for the erotic thriller, Jade.

NYPD Blue‘s David Caruso starred as the Assistant District Attorney investigating the murder of a governor. The governor had been involved with prostitutes one of whom may have been a woman played by Linda Fiorentino. Fiorentino’s husband is a lawyer played by Chaz Palminteri. All the characters find themselves caught in a web of black mail, murder and secret sex tapes. In other words, it was written by Joe Eszterhas.

According to Biehn:

I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t think anybody had any idea what they were doing. It was a Joe Eszterhas script. To me, none of it ever really made any sense. I didn’t realize until the read-through that I was the bad guy in it. It was like a jumbled mess. And the movie came out a mess, too.

Reviews were largely negative and Jade bombed at the box office.

The Usual Suspects – 1995

According to internet legend, Biehn turned down a chance to star in Bryan Singer’s 1995 hit, The Usual Suspects. According to Biehn, he was sent a copy of the script, but he was never offered a role.

I read his script twenty years ago or whatever, I didn’t understand it, I was confused by it – it’s kind of a confusing story if you’re not paying attention, and I’d probably had a few drinks, and thought, “I don’t get this, man, I don’t get it”, and threw it to the side. It was a huge mistake. It would’ve given me a chance to meet Bryan Singer, and I still haven’t met Bryan Singer, and I’m sorry that I haven’t, and I’m sorry that I didn’t understand it. It didn’t make any sense to me. Even when I watch the movie now you really have to stay on top of it to know what’s going on. But they never offered me the role, they said would you like to come in and either audition, or read, or maybe just meet Bryan, and I said, “No man, I don’t understand it,” and of course, I didn’t know Bryan Singer was going to be Bryan Singer. I thought it was just a guy with a confusing script!

Michael Biehn – The Rock – 1996

By 1996, Biehn was stuck doing TV movies. But he did nab a supporting role in Michael Bay’s summer action movie, The Rock.

Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery starred as a chemist and an ex-con respectively. Together, they must lead a counter-strike against a rogue group of Navy SEALs who have taken over Alcatraz. Biehn played one of the soldiers led by his former The Abyss co-star, Ed Harris.

Biehn recalls a nightmare scenario while filming The Rock:

I had this big speech to give that I’d been working on in my head for, like, the last two weeks. So Sean Connery’s standing there, there’s Nic Cage, who’s just been nominated for an Academy Award for Drunk In Las Vegas or whatever it was. [Laughs.] And I come up to give this big speech, and… I just went blank. I’m standing there and I’m not saying anything, and suddenly Michael Bay starts screaming the dialogue to me from off-camera. So he screamed it to me, I’d say it, he’d scream more, I’d say it, he’d scream more… We finally finished it, and we only did one take, because it would’ve taken too long to set up again, but I just felt like a complete idiot. I mean, I froze, and I did it in front of everybody.

The Rock received mostly positive reviews and was a huge hit at the box office. But Biehn’s role was very small.

Michael Biehn – The Magnificent Seven – 1998-2000

After The Rock, Biehn’s movie career really slowed down. He showed up in TV movies like Asteroid and low-budget action movies like Dead Men Don’t Cance. From 1999-2000, Biehn starred on a TV series based on the movie, The Magnificent Seven.

The show ran on CBS for one season. Biehn remebers the experience fondly:

“That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that. I had a line producer on that television series, John Watson, who used to listen to me. The scripts would come out, I’d look at them, and I’d say, “Well, this doesn’t make sense and that doesn’t make sense,” and he would actually get the writers to change things. John was kind of like a father figure to me on that show, because it’s hard when writers write stuff that doesn’t make sense, or things are being shot that don’t make sense. And I could always run to John, and he would back me up, which was great.”

Is it just me or has it become a running theme that Biehn has a hard time understanding scripts?

Michael Biehn – The Art of War – 2000

In 2000, Biehn appeared in The Art of War which was produced by and starred Wesley Snipes.

Snipes played a superspy who gets caught up in an international conspiracy involving a trade agreement with China. Anne Archer played his boss, Biehn played his partner and Donald Sutherland played the UN Secretary General. When terrorists frame Snipes, he has to run from his former allies in order to prevent World War III.

The Art of War received terrible reviews and flopped at the box office. It opened in second place behind Bring It On and ended up grossing about half of its $60 million dollar budget in the US. And yet there were two direct-to-video sequels released in 2008 and 2009.

Michael Biehn – Adventure Inc. – 2002-2003

He appeared in the 2002 kid’s movie, Clockstoppers. And from 2002-2003, he starred on the syndictaed TV show, Adventure Inc (pictured).

Like every TV show Biehn was ever involved in, Adventure Inc only lasted one season.

Michael Biehn – Hawaii – 2004

In 2004, Biehn moved on to another TV show. Hawaii was NBC’s take on Hawaii 5-O minus the 5 and the O. Only 8 episodes were made and only 7 aired. Biehn later admitted, “I never could get a television series over the top.”

Michael Biehn – Law & Order: Criminal Intent – 2006

Biehn continued working steadily in movies and TV shows you probably have never heard of. In 2006, he had a guest appearance on the hit show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Michael Biehn – Grindhouse – 2007

In 2007, Biehn had a supporting role in the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature, Grindhouse.

Grindhouse was conceived as an ode to the seventies exploitation movies Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up on. Each director made their own feature in the 70’s style. Biehn played a cop in Rodriquez’s half, Planet Terror.

Biehn described working with Rodriguez:

I said, “Why’d you cast me?” He said, “I wanted to cast you because there’s a certain moment in that movie where all hell is breaking loose, and I wanted to see you coming through these hospital doors, to see you bang through these double doors, and I want the audience to stand up and cheer.” This is while we’re shooting. I’m like, “Oh, yeah? Really? Okay, we’ll see about that. Whatever.” Didn’t give it a second thought.

Anyway, we’re at the big screen downtown, a thousand people, and the movie starts, blah blah blah happens, Josh Brolin’s doing his thing. All of a sudden, I come crashing through the front door with a shotgun in my hand… and fucking everybody goes crazy. Everybody stands up and cheers. Here comes the fucking cavalry, which I guess I represented. Which I guess he knew I represented. That’s Robert. He knew that moment was going to happen if he cast me in that role, as opposed to somebody else, I think, because of all the stuff that I had done back in the ’80s I guess was kind of heroic.

Avatar – 2009

Biehn was considered for a role in Cameron’s 2009 smash, Avatar.

I went in and I met Jim for that and I talked to him about it. He gave me the script, I came back in with my take on it, he got excited about me and took me down to show me what he had shown Fox to get the movie made. I could tell I really excited him, but he didn’t cast me right away and he’s kind of hard to get a hold of because he’s so busy and so we would check in with Jon Landau kind of week by week and month by month as it progress and Jon Landau, the producer, would always say “Yeah, he’s really interested.” Once he cast Sigourney, then he felt… I ended up hearing this though my son, because my son went to school with Jon Landau’s son, he felt that there’s too much of that Aliens connection and he didn’t want the Hicks-Ripley thing to be a part of that movie, so once he signed on Sigourney then he went with Stephen Lang. I like Stephen a lot and I really think that he’s been around for a long time and I was really happy that he got he role if I didn’t get it.

Oh well. There’s always those Avatar sequels, right?

Michael Biehn – The Victim – 2011

Robert Rodriguez suggested that Biehn should make his own Grindhouse movie one day. Biehn reluctantly agreed to do so. In 2011, he fulfilled that promise by writing, directing and starring in the low-budget thriller, The Victim.

Biehn’s real-life wife, Jennifer Blanc co-starred as a woman on the run after witnessing the rape and murder of her best friend. She stumbles across a remote cabin in the woods where Biehn’s character lives. Biehn played a loner who gets caught up in the intrigue.

Biehn described The Victim thusly: “It’s kind of a kitschy movie, you know. We pushed the performances and the whole piece to that level where you are almost over the top and it’s a lot of fun. It’s just fun and it was really never meant to be taken real seriously and I think audiences are kind of getting that. If you don’t like fuckin’ and you don’t like fightin’, then you might as well leave.”

So, what the hell happened?

Currently, Biehn is still working steadily. He appears in another TV show called 24-Hour Rental which is in post-production. He could always pop up in those Avatar sequels. He’s also rumored to appear in a future installment of The Expendables franchise. But despite his action icon status, Biehn never made it to A-list stardom.

Even though Biehn and Cameron remain on good terms, the uber-successful director hasn’t cast Biehn in anything since 1989. Without Cameron, there wasn’t much to prop up Biehn’s career.



Being passed over for Alien 3 was a huge missed opportunity. There’s no telling how the proposed sequel would have turned out. But it almost certainly would have extended Biehn’s career and raised his profile.

Although Biehn had roles in memorable movies like The Terminator and Aliens, he was rarely ever the most memorable thing about them. The Terminator belonged to Schwarzenegger. Aliens belonged to Weaver. Biehn was upstaged by his old friend Bill Paxton in that movie.

It didn’t help that Biehn missed a couple of opportunities because he found the scripts difficult to read. The Usual Suspects, had he been offered a part, would have helped revive his career. And although Near Dark wasn’t a huge hit, it could have led to future work with Bigelow such as Point Break.

On one hand, Biehn failed to capitalize on the opportunities The Terminator and Aliens gave him. On the other, he’s managed to work steadily for several decades on the backs of those two movies.

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