From Harry Potter's Moaning Myrtle to Doctor Who - Shirley Henderson reveals secrets behind her iconic roles

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

In Summerwater, adapted from Sarah Moss’s novel about the British capacity for both cruelty and compassion, Shirley Henderson plays Annie Campbell, a visitor to the lochside holiday cabins that give this tense thriller its title. Geographically, Summerwater is situated in the Highlands; psychologically, it feels a stone’s throw from The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. Henderson doesn’t want to say too much about Annie for fear of spoiling the drama, which she describes as "an investigation of relationships, of memory and of longing", but she will say that "something’s happening, something’s changing for her, and parts of her are leaving her".

Locked in a fraught marriage to Dougray Scott’s brittle Dr David Campbell, it may be Annie’s life that leaves her before the series’ end. In episode two, the pair take an ill-advised clifftop walk, during which the good doctor is clearly thinking bad thoughts, though Annie is breezily oblivious — or seems so. Like many of the characters Henderson has played, Annie has hinterland. When I first interviewed Henderson 21 years ago, she told me "it’s fun being messy or angry or disturbed," and her CV is populated with such characters. But there are plenty of others, too…

'I'd never filmed before' – Elizabeth Findlay, Shadow of the Stone - STV (1987)

Children’s TV drama about a young girl and her 17th-century alter ego, who is accused of being a witch.

"This was my first job. I got the part after Leonard White — who was a lovely man — from Scottish Television saw me in my last play at drama school. I stayed at my auntie’s, got the bus into Glasgow, walked up to the STV studios, got changed and went to work — and then did the reverse at the end of the day. It was Monday to Friday and we always finished around five o’clock. No job has ever been as civilised. I’d never done any filming before and I didn’t know any filming techniques so Leonard, who directed it, was teaching me at the same time. The script was set, too, so you could learn your lines — and I was young, so learning lines was much easier than it is now. I remember working with a wee lizard and Alan Cumming played my boyfriend."

'I was shy and didn't want to mess up' – Isobel Sutherland, Hamish Macbeth - BBC One (1995-97)

Drama starring Robert Carlyle as the eponymous crime-solving PC.

"It was idyllic filming in Plockton every summer for three years, but there wasn’t a lot to do. We loved it when the wee fish and chip shop opened. We’d treat ourselves to a fish supper and gather in a caravan to listen as Ralph Riach and Brian Pettifer [who played “TV” John and Rory] told stories. “In the first series, we were filming a long shot and just before the camera got to me, the donkey I was looking after stood on my foot. It was agony! Today, I’d say, ‘Stop! The donkey’s on my foot!’ but I was shy and I didn’t want to mess it up. “I learned so much on that job. People would say they’d seen me on Hamish Macbeth. As time passes, you get recognised but I’ve never had ‘celebrity’; I don’t know what it is."

‘I didn’t know who Harry Potter was’ – Moaning Myrtle, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) & Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

The JK Rowling juggernaut that entranced a generation and made stars of its cast.

"When I was first asked for an audition, I didn’t know who Harry Potter was. But my sister, who was staying with me, had read the books. Still, I wasn’t convinced I could play a 14-year-old girl because I was in my 30s at the time. But I spoke to the casting director Karen Lindsay-Stewart and she said, 'I haven’t told them your age'.

"So I went to the audition dressed as a schoolgirl — white shirt, black skirt, ponytail — thinking, 'This is ridiculous'. I did my wee bit for them and they thanked me. Months went by and I thought that was it, but then they phoned my agent, asked to see me again and offered me the part.

"Myrtle is an old person in a young person’s body and because she’s ghosty, there’s a kind of mistiness. You’re not looking closely at my face so we could get away with it."

‘In the end, you don’t think about acting, you let it happen’ – Marie Melmotte, The Way We Live Now – BBC One (2001)

Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s novel.

"With work like this, it’s often in language which is alien. When you first put on the costumes, which confine you, you’re like, 'I can’t do it with all this stuff on me'. But then you relax into it, your body adapts and actually releases oils that make the costume too big. So you get it taken in and think, ‘I need all this stuff’, because it’s part of the character. In the end, you don’t even think about the scene, you just do it. And then you don’t even do that, you just let the scene happen."

‘I auditioned hunched down on the floor’ – Babu Frik, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

In a galaxy far, far away, it’s Empire versus Republic round two.

"It being Star Wars, they ask you if you want to audition, but don’t tell you anything else — nothing. I was like, 'You have to give me something so I can prepare,' and eventually they said, 'Maybe very small, maybe very old, maybe from somewhere else'.

"So I went to the audition with [director] JJ Abrams, who is the sweetest man, and Nina Gold (who cast me in Topsy-Turvy), had a lovely chat and then I did my bit. I hunched down on the floor and did this voice I had come up with in a language I had made up. He said, 'You’ve got the job,' and they brought in a model of Babu Frik.

"It’s voice acting but not in the sense that you voice it later. I was there, on set, crammed into a cupboard on the floor trying to see what the puppeteers were doing with Babu’s mouth to improvise in the made-up language. An amazing job."

‘Sometimes I wonder if I dreamt it’ – Ursula Blake, Doctor Who: Love and Monsters – BBC One (2006)

Adventures in time and space.

"When I was young, I’d either go out and play when Doctor Who was on, or hide behind the sofa. As an adult, I’d been watching David Tennant and Billie Piper, so when I was offered it — I didn’t have to audition — I jumped right in. We were forever being told to behave because Peter Kay, who I’d worked with on 24 Hour Party People, was making us laugh. Marc Warren was doing magic tricks — there was one that I still can’t get my head around, involving books. Sometimes I do wonder, 'Did I dream it, or did it actually happen?'"

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Summerwater airs on Channel 4 on Saturday 16th November.

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