Playing a father who loses control with his difficult son, Glaswegian actor Douglas Henshall adds another tough role to his collection………
Following his breakthrough TV role as a wife-beating corporal in Dennis Potter’s Lipstick on Your Collar, Douglas Henshall found himself bombarded with a battalion of similar bully- boy roles’
‘I got offered a lot of nutters after that,’ reveals the Glaswegian actor. ‘So I ended up turning down a lot of stuff and then you suddenly go back to where you were before.’
Henshall’s pickiness paid off, though, and in the past 12 months he’s been the lead in the British romantic comedy film This Year’s Love and Channel 4’s controversial series Psychos. But the imposing Scotsman looks set to revert to tough-guy type in Channel 4’s new three-part drama Kid in the Corner.
He plays Alex Letts, the father of a problem child, Danny (Eric Byrne) who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder. Before the condition has been diagnosed however, the family has to deal with Danny’s outbursts, and, at one point Henshall’s character loses patience and beats up the boy.
‘There was one violent bit which was horrible,’ recalls Clare Holman who co-stars as Henshall’s wife Teresa. ‘It was very heartbreaking and very uncomfortable.’
But after that particular scene, the remorseful father tries to make amends and struggles to regain his son’s trust. Off-screen though, the 32- year- old actor had no trouble building a rapport with young cast member Eric Byrne and Brooke Kinsella who plays Danny’s sister Lucy.
‘Dougie and I spent a long time looking after the kids,’says Homan who’ll also appear in the BBC adaptation of Dickens’ David Copperfield at Christmas. ‘We sang songs from musicals and they teased us because we were so out of date. It was a ball!’
Despite a failed marriage in his 20s, Henshall has no children of his own, but he hasn’t rules out the possibility.’ I’d like kids,’ he concedes. ‘but I’ll just have to see what happens’.
Judging by his recent string of starring roles, Henshall may not have time to start a family. And with a steady stream of scripts coming in from LA and New York, he’ll soon be challenging his Lipstick on Your Collar co-star, fellow Scot and pal Ewan McGregor, for the title of top Scot on the Hollywood block.
‘I’m very happy that he’s got what he’s got’, says Henshall of McGregor’s success.’ But I’m happy that I’ll get what I want eventually because I know I’m capable of it’.
TV and Satellite week 20-26 November 1999