Background

Henderson was born on November 24, 1965, in Forres, Moray. She grew up in Kincardine-on-Forth, on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, in Fife.

Education

Shirley Henderson began performing young and at age 13 she was singing in a boxing ring between bouts after winning a local singing competition. She went on to sing in the local working-men's clubs on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. Henderson attended Adam Smith College at the age of 16, where she completed a one-year course resulting in a National Certificate in Theatre Arts. When she decided on an acting career, she uprooted to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1986.

Career

Shirley Henderson made her television debut in the Scottish programme Shadow of the Stone (ITV, 1987), opposite Alan Cumming. Her first big-screen appearance was a supporting role in the drama Salt On Our Skin (1992), but she first attracted serious attention with her charming performance as Isobel Sutherland, local journalist and partial love interest, in three series of Hamish Macbeth (BBC, 1995-97).

After small but pivotal roles in two of the 1990s' more famous 'Scottish' films, Rob Roy (1995) and, more authentically, Trainspotting (1996), she began a fruitful collaboration with Michael Winterbottom, who cast her as the lonely single mother Debbie in his slice-of-life London drama Wonderland (1999). The same year, she played The Mikado's Yum-Yum in Mike Leigh's Gilbert and Sullivan extravaganza Topsy Turvy (1999), as well as Leonora Braham, the insecure actress who originally created the part.

A reunion with Winterbottom in his Thomas Hardy-based western The Claim (2000) was less successful, and she was given little to do as the perpetually miserable Jude in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001). However, she was superb as David Suchet's wayward daughter in the Anthony Trollope adaptation The Way We Live Now (BBC, 2001), a moving representation of normality as Tony Wilson's wife in the otherwise frenetic 24 Hour Party People (2002), and a tongue-in-cheek 'western' heroine in Shane Meadows' Once Upon A Time In The Midlands (2002), which saw her reunited with her Hamish Macbeth co-star Robert Carlyle.

Her spectral Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) might almost have been seen as a wry nod towards her penchant for playing depressed characters, but there has been no shortage of interesting parts over the past few years. She was very funny as the miserably mustachioed Ruby in the Irish comedy-thriller Intermission (2003), striking as Spanish princess Catherine of Braganza in Charles II: The Power & The Passion (BBC, 2003) and had slightly more to do in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004).

She played 'herself' in Winterbottom's wonderful adaptation of Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story (2005), reprised Moaning Myrtle with vigour in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), and was great fun in the BBC's 're-imagining' of The Taming of the Shrew (2005), turning Katherine into an ambitious female MP. Small-screen appearances have included playing Emmeline Fox in The Crimson Petal and the White (2011); DS Angela Young in Death in Paradise (2011); and Meg Hawkins in Treasure Island (2012). She played Karen, the lead role, opposite John Simm in Channel 4's Everyday and Meme Kartosov in Anna Karenina.

Achievements

• 

  A quirky Scottish actress who has moved between small independent films and epic studio blockbusters with aplomb, Shirley Henderson's career is a lesson in maintaining both artistic integrity and a productive career. Shirley has numerous awards that have come from her acting career, proving that she is something special on the big and small screens.
  
  She was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for the Channel 4 miniseries Southcliffe (2013), for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 2017 film Never Steady, Never Still, and won the 2018 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Elizabeth in the original production of Girl from the North Country. She is the only actress to have won Best Actress at Cherbourg-Octeville twice.
  
  

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Filth

    (While working on a murder case, a scheming, manipulative ...)

    2013
  • Urban Hymn

    (A redemptive coming of age story about a wayward teen, Ja...)

    2017
  • Never Steady Never Still

    (A mother struggles to take control of her life in the fac...)

    2017
  • 24 Hour Party People

    (The hilarious true story of Tony Wilson, a UK television ...)

    2002
  • Rob Roy

    (Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange battle evil landowners amon...)

    1995
  • Villa Des Roses

    (Set against the backdrop of 1913 Paris, this passionate d...)

    2002
  • I Really Hate My Job

    (While anticipating the arrival of a famous Hollywood star...)

    2007
  • Once Upon a Time in the Midlands

    (A small-time lawbreaker returns to his home town to regai...)

    2002
  • Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story

    (Michael Winterbottom's witty take on Laurence Sterne's cl...)

    2005
  • In Secret

    (A sexually-repressed young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) embark...)

    2013
  • The Nutcracker

    (Join Mary on a magical adventure when her toy nutcracker ...)

    2010
  • Marie Antoinette

    (An electrifying yet intimate re-telling of the turbulent ...)

    2006
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

    (When Harry Potter's name emerges from the Goblet of Fire,...)

    2005
  • Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

    (In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the riveting conclus...)

    2019
  • American Cousins

    (Hiding out from Russian mobsters, American criminals Sett...)

    2003
  • Bridget Jones's Baby

    (Oscar winners Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth are joined ...)

    2016
  • Meek's Cutoff

    (In 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, a wagon t...)

    2010
  • Life During Wartime

    (Three sisters struggle with love, family, and the America...)

    2009
  • Anna Karenina

    (Keira Knightley and Jude Law dazzle in director Joe Wrigh...)

    2012
  • Stan & Ollie

    (Laurel & Hardy go on a whirlwind tour to try and reconnec...)

    2018
  • Topsy-Turvy

    (Witty and entertaining dramatization of the story of the ...)

    1999
  • T2 Trainspotting

    (After betraying them, Renton has to return to the only pl...)

    2017
  • Salt on Our Skin

    (Passionate rendezvous spanning 30 years bind forever a wo...)

    1994
  • Greed

    (Greed takes on the super-rich in this satire centered aro...)

    2019
  • Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

    (When their mother dies, Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) takes it...)

    2002
  • Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

    (Beloved screwball Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) struggl...)

    2004
  • Bridget Jones's Diary

    (A British woman is determined to improve herself while sh...)

    2001
  • Wild Child

    (Emma Roberts stars in this hilarious comedy about an LA t...)

    2008
  • Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

    (A British nanny finds herself engaged as a social secreta...)

    2008
  • Trainspotting

    (Renton is a drug addict who tries to mend his ways by mov...)

    1996
  • The Claim

    (A prospector sells his wife and daughter to another gold ...)

    2000
  • Frozen

    (It's two years since the mysterious disappearance of Kath...)

    2005
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

    (Harry returns to Hogwarts, still famous and a hero, when ...)

    2002
  • Intermission

    (Cillian Murphy stars in this urban story about the journe...)

    2003
  • Wonderland

    (An intimate portrait of three generations of one family d...)

    1999
  • The Look of Love

    (Steve Coogan in a comedy about England's most notorious p...)

    2013
  • YES

    (She is the bored wife of British politician Anthony. At a...)

    2004
  • Tale of Tales

    (Salma Hayek and John C. Reilly are Queen and King in this...)

    2015
  • Close Your Eyes

    (Dr. Michael Strother (Goran Visnjic) is a hypnotherapist ...)

    2002

• TV series

  • Southcliffe

    (Set in a fictional English town devastated by a spate of ...)

    2013
  • Charles II - The Power And The Passion

    (Racy, visceral and violent, this opulent costume drama is...)

    2003
  • Wish Me Luck

    (A British TV series exploring the lives and the very brav...)

    1990
  • Dirty Filthy Love

    ("Dirty Filthy Love" is a dark, funny and poignant story t...)

    2994
  • Hamish Macbeth

    (Drama series starring Robert Carlyle as the eponymous her...)

    1995

Views

Quotations: "There is such pressure on kids these days to be the best at everything."

"I don't know what I'd do if I had to look pretty all the time."

"I'm not going to get an Oscar at 30 - that's done. So I'll think of something else."

"I wasn't frightened of people, but I didn't have a clue about the adult world."

"I don't have children, but we all want to protect whatever we love in life."

"You suddenly find yourself somewhere and you wonder, how did I get in this room? That happens to me all the time, every day!"

"Filming is long - you get very tired, and your skin breaks out and you get lumps and bumps. It's easier if you're allowed to have bags under your eyes."

"Children don't just play any more - they're far too busy learning to fence and taking extra French classes. In the end, you're actually doing more damage to your children by trying to hot-house them. It's far better to remain a calm parent."

"I'm always nervous taking on a period role because it's difficult to research - you can't observe it, go out and see it. But it's satisfying because eventually you think, 'I got there.'"

"Youth makes you brave, I suppose. When you're young, you make a fool of yourself all the time. Because of all the rejections and the criticism you get all the time, there has to be a drive there."

"It's such a stress always trying to get bigger houses and larger cars and better schools. Of course, parents want to give their children the best opportunities in life, but sometimes that can stifle them."

"It's odd, because I used to see pictures, on telly or wherever, of what I now know to be Shaftesbury Avenue and I used to wonder what that amazing street with all the lights was. Well, now I know. I think when you get a wee taste of something, it maybe isn't what you thought it was."

"I never get the tall, blonde, glamorous roles because I'm not tall, blonde and glamorous. I'm more the wee, disturbing characters because of the way I look or sound."

"I daydream all the time, and I like that quality."

"When I'm doing theatre, I feel like my life's on hold. Even though you might go out for a coffee, or go and see a film, your brain is still there, pulling you back to it."

"I spend plenty of time in London and it doesn't scare me, but it's a lonely place, even if you've got friends there. My job takes me all around the world, meeting lots of interesting people. But I think if I couldn't get home, if I couldn't get back to what I consider my real life I'd be frightened."

"I like doom and gloom with a sense of humour. Maybe it's a Scottish thing, we like to undercut indulgence with a laugh."

"American scripts are usually non-stop conversation. People talking over each other. I like that."

Personality

Being age 35 at the time that Shirley Henderson first played Moaning Myrtle, she is the oldest actor to play a Hogwarts student in the Harry Potter films.

She enjoys a bit of doom and gloom in life.

Physical Characteristics: Height: 1.55m (5 Feet 1 Inches)

Weight: 57kg (125lbs)

Body measurement and size: 34-24-35

Bra size: 34B

Eye color: brown

Hair color: dark brown

Interests

• Writers

  We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Connections

Shirley Henderson in a relationship with musician John Simm in 2012. She doesn’t have any children.

ex-boyfriend:

John Simm

John Ronald Simm is an English actor, director and musician. He has been nominated twice for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, and is a Laurence Olivier Award nominee for Best Actor. He is best known for playing Sam Tyler in Life on Mars, and The Master in Doctor Who.

colleague:

Emma Watson

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson is a British actress and social activist. She rose to prominence through her role as Hermione in the Harry Potter film series.

colleague:

Rupert Grint

Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint is a British actor and producer.

colleague:

Daniel Radcliffe

Daniel Radcliffe is an English actor and producer. He rose to international stardom as Harry Potter in the series of films based on the hugely popular books by J.K. Rowling.

colleague:

Tom Felton

(born 22 September 1987)

He is an English actor and musician.

colleague:

Robert Pattinson

(born 13 May 1986)

Robert Pattinson is an English actor, model, and musician.

References

• Focus On: 20 Most Popular British Shakespearean Actresses: Emma Thompson, Tilda Swinton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vivien Leigh, Anne-Marie Duff, Natascha McElhone, ... Laura Fraser, Shirley Henderson, etc.