‘Bring it down to ordinary, then you can kind of cope’

Mesmerising actor Shirley Henderson talks to Helen Coffey about the latest instalment in what has been an incredibly wide-ranging list of performances over the past four decades

- Helen Coffey

“What was the question again? Sorry, I’m dreadful...” It’s the third time – or is it the fourth? – that Shirley Henderson has said this during our interview. Not that she has anything to apologise for; I honestly can’t remember what the question was either by this point. Nor do I much care. It's hard not to feel hypnotised, in fact, as the actor drifts away on a meandering, mesmeric tide of anecdotes, reflections and tangents in her soporific, Scottish lilt.

Appearing far younger than her soon-to-be 60 years, Henderson is instantly recognisable, having barely changed since her star-making turns in Bridget Jones's Diary (as high-flying "am I codependent?" financier Jude) and Harry Potter(as the brilliantly comic ghost Moaning Myrtle) at the turn of the millennium. Bizarrely, both roles required her to hide in the loo and sob. There's still an innocence and guilelessness to her wide, hazel eyes and thick, untamed brows set in that familiar, childlike face - as if she's 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.

Indeed, there's a gentle, otherworldly quality to Henderson that belies her incredibly wide-ranging performances over the past four decades. She's played everything from a Canadian grappling with advanced Parkinson's disease in poignant drama Never Steady, Never Still to the scene-stealing, rip-roaring Matron in tween romcom Wild Child, taking on characters that run the gamut from hilarious to heartbreaking. Despite a distinctive look and that voice - which can be cranked up to her signature helium-pitched squeak on demand - 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... interesting.