the brilliantly comic ghost Moaning Myrtle<\/a>) at the turn of the millennium. Bizarrely, both roles required her to hide in the loo and sob. There\u2019s still an innocence and guilelessness to her wide, hazel eyes and thick, untamed brows set in that familiar, childlike face \u2013 as if she\u2019s somehow managed to live outside of time itself, immune to its ruthlessness and ravages. Her famously small 5ft 1in frame is today wrapped in a big black coat, her soft brown hair casually pinned back, as she chats to me over Zoom from her home in Fife.<\/p>\nIndeed, there\u2019s a gentle, otherworldly quality to Henderson that belies her incredibly wide-ranging performances over the past four decades. She\u2019s played everything from a Canadian grappling with advanced Parkinson\u2019s disease in poignant drama Never Steady, Never Still <\/em>to the scene-stealing, rip-roaring Matron in tween romcom Wild Child<\/em>, taking on characters that run the gamut from hilarious to heartbreaking. Despite a distinctive look and that voice \u2013 which can be cranked up to her signature helium-pitched squeak on demand \u2013 Henderson has somehow managed to sidestep being typecast or pigeonholed. The only thing her parts seem to have in common, in fact, is that they are all undeniably\u2026 interesting<\/em>.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s certainly true of her latest project, the dark and gripping six-part Channel 4 drama Summerwater<\/em>. The series, adapted from the Sarah Moss-authored novel of the same name, explores one day on a small holiday site in the Scottish Highlands from multiple characters\u2019 perspectives. The 24-hour period ends in tragedy, but events are shrouded in brooding mystery; the truth is oh-so-gradually spooled out via intersecting timelines across episodes.<\/p>\nHenderson plays Annie, a woman whose declining health and cognitive functioning, due to dementia, mean she\u2019s often at one remove from reality, increasingly residing in the realm of the past. For the first four episodes, Henderson barely has any dialogue, and yet there\u2019s heft to her presence \u2013 with just a flash of the eyes or a twitch of a smile, she conveys an entire internal world that the viewer isn\u2019t yet privy to. \u201cI liked the idea of a woman for whom things are changing,\u201d says Henderson thoughtfully. \u201cPart of her is leaving, and other parts of her are coming in through memories and the past. She\u2019s questioning things and haunted by things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another draw was the idea of working with fellow Scot Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2<\/em>, Desperate Housewives<\/em>), who plays her husband David, oscillating between barely contained fury and seismic grief and regret. In one of those quirks of serendipity, Henderson met Scott for the very first time the night before she was offered the part of Annie. \u201cThat was another huge appeal and a surprise \u2013 I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d she says. \u201cThe timing was very strange, as if it was meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nAs the troubled Annie in \u2018Summerwater\u2019 (Channel 4)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The scenes between them are taut and powerful, showing the wafer-thin line between love and hate that spouses dance along in a long-term marriage. \u201cI think that\u2019s life, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Henderson muses. \u201cWho said life was going to be easy? We could all just walk away, we could just say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m fed up.\u2019 But people don\u2019t \u2013 we cling on. You need the battles in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid emotionally charged scenes, Henderson and Scott would defuse the tension by sitting around drinking endless cups of tea, eating cheese toasties and having gentle conversations about books and soup. Henderson describes the process as \u201clovely\u201d: \u201cWe just hung about together, and tried to make it nice for each other, because it\u2019s a journey. When it\u2019s big, emotional stuff \u2013 for me, anyway \u2013 it\u2019s nice to not<\/em> be that off set. It\u2019s nice to just have a laugh or a giggle or just be quiet. Bring it down to ordinary, and then you can kind of cope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
I would never have expected to be in a film like \u2018Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary\u2019. It just seems such a pretty, chocolate-box type thing: beautiful colours, beautiful storylines<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Henderson has played a character grappling with dementia. Her depiction of Elizabeth Laine in the Bob Dylan jukebox musical The Girl from the North Country<\/em> earned her a best actress Olivier award in 2018. Henderson gave an astonishing performance, pendulum-ing between catatonic detachment and childlike wonder. As well as the mentally and emotionally taxing process of embodying such a character, Henderson was also contending with the physicality of singing every night \u2013 a challenge she dealt with by isolating herself.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard \u2013 the way you\u2019ve got to look after yourself, and look after your voice, while you\u2019re doing it,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t speak to anyone, really. I just did the job and then went home every night. I didn\u2019t go out socialising, I didn\u2019t do anything, because I was nervous of the singing.\u201d Despite this, she \u201cthoroughly loved it. I loved it much more than I maybe imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nHenderson\u2019s Moaning Myrtle gives Ron (Rupert Grint) a fright (Warner Bros)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Audiences who weren\u2019t previously familiar with Henderson\u2019s origin story may well have been surprised at the staggering set of pipes on her \u2013 but singing was her first love, touting her vocals in local working men\u2019s clubs around her hometown of Kincardine-on-Forth in Fife. Experience of drama was confined to local am-dram, pantomimes and school plays. Then, at the age of 16, it was time to make a call about her future career path. \u201cBy that point I was thinking I\u2019d like to be an actress,\u201d Henderson explains. \u201cI don\u2019t know quite where it came from, because I\u2019d never even seen a professional theatre show. I\u2019d never been to see a play. But you just sort of decide these things, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a comment that feels oddly indicative of Henderson; everything she does has a flavour of the unconventional, offbeat and idiosyncratic. Luckily, she was encouraged to attend the one local college that offered a drama course. From there, she learnt about drama schools and auditioned successfully for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, moving down to London at the age of 17. It\u2019s a far cry from the trajectory of many British actors, plenty of whom get a leg-up via existing theatrical connections or benefit from the buffer of wealthy parents.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Henderson needed neither to jump into an eclectic range of roles. She went from playing reporter and love interest Isobel in the BBC\u2019s gentle dramedy series Hamish Macbeth<\/em> in 1995, to Spud\u2019s girlfriend Gail in cult heroin flick Trainspotting <\/em>the following year. She followed up starring in Michael Winterbottom\u2019s unsparingly realistic portrait of London, Wonderland<\/em>, with her iconic portrayal of posh singleton Jude in Bridget Jones\u2019s Diary<\/em> \u2013 which painted an altogether more aesthetically pleasing vision of the capital. \u201cI would never have expected to be in a film like that,\u201d she admits. \u201cIt just seems such a pretty, chocolate-box type thing: beautiful colours, beautiful storylines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nHenderson with her Bridget Jones \u2018family\u2019 (Universal Studio)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
What was it like, being part of Bridget\u2019s \u201curban family\u201d across the phenomenally successful four-part film franchise? \u201cOur little unit is just lovely \u2013 it\u2019s a very caring, nice family,\u201d Henderson says warmly, reminiscing about the heady early days when she and her castmates would hang out in London bars and practise pretending to chain-smoke to get into character. \u201cI love these people: James [Callis, who plays gay best friend and former Eighties popstar Tom] and Sally [Phillips, who plays foul-mouthed journalist Shazzer] and Ren\u00e9e [Zellweger, the eponymous Bridget]. That\u2019s our wee group. We sit in Sally\u2019s caravan and eat lunch together and James tells story after story. They\u2019re just so smart and so lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henderson describes every project she\u2019s ever worked on as \u201cnice\u201d, without any sense that she\u2019s being the faintest bit disingenuous. One gets the impression, rather, that here is a contented soul who appreciates everyone she meets, every opportunity she\u2019s been given, every role she gets to inhabit.<\/p>\n
In fact, the only experience that gets anything less than a glowing review was filming one scene opposite James McAvoy in 2013\u2019s black comedy crime thriller Filth<\/em> \u2013 and that\u2019s only because she got stuck inside a prosthetic chicken head. \u201cWe\u2019re meant to be having mad sex in the living room, and he sees me as a chicken,\u201d Henderson tells me gleefully. \u201cAnd I had to wear a rubber chicken head made for my face. But because we\u2019d forgotten you\u2019re meant to put powder in it, it got stuck on my face \u2013 we couldn\u2019t get it off. It was absolute agony trying to get this rubber chicken head off and half my hair went with it! I was like, \u2018Jesus Christ, I am never doing prosthetics again!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nIt is a quintessentially Henderson story \u2013 somehow inherently grounded and down to earth, despite featuring a major Hollywood star. She\u2019s so unassuming, in fact, that even her cameo in one of the biggest film franchises ever made did not, she claims, propel her into the fame stratosphere. \u201cNo, not at all,\u201d is her response when I ask about life after playing the flirtatious ghost of former Hogwarts student Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films. \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody recognised me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eternally youthful looks were instrumental in landing her the coveted role in The Chamber of Secrets <\/em>and The Goblet of Fire <\/em>\u2013 Henderson was, unbelievably, 37 years old at the time of depicting a 14-year-old schoolgirl. \u201cThe casting director said, \u2018Go for it \u2013 and don\u2019t mention your age.\u2019\u201d Henderson attended the audition, did her best impression of a hormone-fuelled adolescent ghoul, did \u201ca wee bit of moaning\u201d on request, and the rest is history. Though it perhaps wasn\u2019t as glamorous a job as people might imagine: nearly all of Henderson\u2019s scenes were shot alone on green screen. Still, it was, I am by this time unsurprised to hear, a \u201cnice job\u201d.<\/p>\nAre there any more nice jobs on the horizon? \u201cI\u2019ve done a wee film with Brian Cox, but I don\u2019t know when they\u2019re bringing that out,\u201d she reveals. \u201cHe\u2019s directed it as well, and it\u2019s a lovely piece of writing. But beyond that\u2026 I don\u2019t know what happens next. We shall just have to wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever it is, I\u2019d be willing to bet that it will be, like Henderson herself, nice. And lovely. And exceptionally interesting…<\/p>\n
\u2018Summerwater\u2019 airs at 9pm on Channel 4 on Sunday 16 November<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What was the question again? Sorry, I\u2019m dreadful\u2026\u201d It\u2019s the third time \u2013 or is it the fourth? \u2013 that Shirley Henderson has said this during our interview. Not that she has anything to apologise for; I honestly can\u2019t remember what the question was either by this point. Nor do I much care. It\u2019s hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2159834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[368890,370866,413939,413938],"class_list":["post-2159833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bridget-joness-diary","tag-dougray-scott","tag-moaning-myrtle","tag-shirley-henderson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Shirley-Henderson-\u2018The-casting-director-said-Go-for-it-\u2013.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2159835,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159833\/revisions\/2159835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2159834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}