


Illiterate until then, it was around this time that he taught himself to read. His first theater work, around age 30, was as set designer, and he received his first acting role because he built the set for a production. Henriksen found work as a muralist and as a laborer on ships.


Henriksen did not actually leave home until he was 12, saying he'd "had enough" of his home life, and that he had been physically assaulted by multiple family members: "I got bludgeoned a lot. During an interview, Henriksen recounted how, at the age of seven, his mother handed him his birth certificate, said, "You'll always know who you are", then pushed him out of his home. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and his mother struggled to raise him and his brother, leading to his spending part of his childhood in foster care. His father, James Henriksen, was a Norwegian merchant sailor and boxer nicknamed "Icewater" who spent most of his life at sea, while his mother, Margueritte Werner, struggled to find work as a dance instructor, waitress and model. Henriksen was born on in Manhattan, New York.
