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in conversation
flying scot
As Shirley Henderson juggles Charles II and Bridget Jones, she hardly has time to draw breath. Andy Dougan reports
There is no false modesty to Shirley Henderson. With her it’s the genuine article. The 37- year-old Scot is one of Britain’s most in-demand actresses, able to flit deftly from theatre to television to independent films to Hollywood blockbusters. Yet she always main- tains a genuine air of surprise when discussing her career.
She has just starred as Catharine of Braganza in the BBC drama Charles II – The Power and the Passion. On the big screen she can currently be seen in Intermission as well as American Cousins, and she is also starring in Wilbur (Wants To Kill Himself). In the can too are Afterlife, an ambitious digital film, the psychological thriller Frozen, and Yes for Sally Potter.
Meanwhile she is enjoying a few days off from filming Bridget Jones – On the Edge, the sequel to the highly successful Bridget Jones’s Diary in which she plays Bridget’s friend and confidante, Jude. When you take into account that the year began with her scene-stealing turn as Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it’s been quite a 12 months for the former cabaret performer.
The hardest working woman in show business? Not the way Henderson sees it.
“It’s just bits,” she says in embarrassment. “They’re not all big stuff. You don’t want to get too over-exposed but I don’t think I have because half of the films are so tiny.”
In the best showbusiness tradi- tions it has taken about 15 years for Henderson to become an overnight success. In that time she has built a substantial career on the cardinal Calvinist virtues of hard work, honesty, and perse- verance while resolutely refusing to allow her head to be turned.
When you have sung at Lochgelly Miners Welfare, the sort of cabaret gig to make even the toughest performer wilt, there’s not much that can turn your head.
“They’re great people,” she says, remembering her early
days. “If they like you, they let you know.”
Actually if they like you, they let you live and obviously they took to the teenage Henderson belting out Tony Christie stan- dards on the chicken-in-a-basket circuit. That sort of experience is bound to inform the rest of what- ever career you have.
“I am always surprised when people offer me work,” she says without a trace of self pity. “It doesn’t feel like I am owed anything so I’m always amazed to be up for any part. When you get asked to read you think ‘Oh someone must have seen something’. A lot of the stuff I do doesn’t seem to get so much exposure in terms of cinema play.
“There’s the odd thing obvi- ously like Harry Potter and Bridget Jones, but not the stuff where I’ve had big parts. I still feel I have a long way to go.”
Like everyone else in the new Bridget Jones film, Henderson is sworn to secrecy but she did reveal that she is hoping that Harry Potter and Moaning Myrtle might feature again in her career.
“Myrtle is bad,” she smiles wickedly. “Hopefully I’ll get to do the next one because she comes back in number four, I think she’s off in the huff in the third one.”
Her touching performance as Catharine in Charles II would have given her one of her biggest roles in terms of audience numbers, not that any of that matters. For Henderson the work is paramount and this was “ a very nice job” as she puts it.
Catharine was Charles II’s long-suffering wife who could not give him a child herself but had to endure his endless infidelities and his string of illegitimate children with any number of mistresses.
“She was in love, I think,” she says after a moment’s considera-
“You don’t want to get too over- exposed but I don’t think I have because half the films are so tiny.”
Photos main: Shirley Henderson; and in scenes from Wilbur (Wants To Kill Himself); American Cousins and Charles ll: The Power And The Passion
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