Flying The Flag for homegrown talent!
" I got sick of the idea that films made in Scotland were for the tourist industry"
Douglas Henshall is wearing a kilt today, flying the flag for the Scottish nation. The flamed-haired Scot- who anyone familiar with recent billboard ads will recognise instantly as the star of Channel 4's Psychos- admits he normally doesn't sport such attire-but for publicity purposes he'll make an exception.
We meet in Soho to discuss the the latest of the Brit flicks he is lending his emerging talent to. Written and directed by first-timer Stewart Sugg, Fast Food, is as Henshall calls it, " an urban fairy tale", that pairs him up with Velvet Goldmine's Emily Woof. A surreal but deliriously romantic film, it differs vastly from Henshall's previous big-screen outing, the dark, Camden -set comedy This Year's Love ( which Henshall notes was a film about " the baggage you take from relationship to relationship").
" I play a guy called Benny who comes back from having a difficult realtionship and comes back to the old stamping ground from his youth. He meets up with his mates who are still doing exactly the same thing. By accident, he meets up with his childhood sweetheart, whose now blind and lives on the top floor of the tower-block, and he tries to go about rescuing her...it's about friendship and support."
Shot for under £50,000, the 33 year-old Henshall himself was involved in the project around two years ago, the film having languished in distribution limbo for a surprising period. Nevertheless, it's a film he holds affection for, and a genre that he is begining to specialise in . Despite making early brief appearances alongside Liam Neeson in The Big Man and Patsy Kensit in Angels and Insects, Henshall scored his first major-lead in last year's If only , with Penelope Cruz, in which he is granted the the chance to relive a moment of his life to save a crumbling relationship.
His next appearance was for old freind Peter Mullan , in his directorial debut Orphans, this year's deliciously disturbing tale of grief which Henshall recall as a difficult shoot. " Aye it was nae fun", he grimaces. " It was fun artistically, I suppose, because I was working with people I respected. But as far as what you put yourself through it was torture. Psichologically it took quite a lot out of me . It was a crazy part to put yourself in."
Henshall had met Mullan back in his home town of Glasgow, a place he left for London only to find himself back there six month's later, having suffered a string of casting rejections. Back in Glasgow, he joined a theatre company, eventually to lead to screen opportunities, the most notable being of course Kull the Conqueror. Hiding his blushes, he guffaws at the memory. " I read it as a spoof of the Conan The Barbarian films. I arrived in Bratislava to find to my horror that they were taking it seriously."
Seemingly unconcerned with forging a career ( " I don't have any expectations-see how it goes"). Henshall remains a champion of his own country's film-making-hence the apparel.
" I got sick of the idea that films made in Scotland were made for the tourist industry. I thought it was so patronising. Braveheart's just as bad because politically and historically it's b******s. It makes the English so bad and the Scots so good, it completely takes away any argument we could have had by making it so simplistic. The truth was actually good enough if you'd told it.Thankfully, it's about time that people are making films in Scotland that are far more interesting."
Interview by James Mottram-Film review magazine February 2000