IT HAS recently dawned on Douglas Henshall, the magnetic 41-year-old actor from Barrhead, that he has now spent more of his life living in London than in Glasgow.
"I now feel like a hoary old Londoner," says Henshall when we meet in central London. I half-expect him to pull on a Pearly King jacket and burst into a chorus of Doing the Lambeth Walk. He came to London as a teenager to study at Mountview Theatre S
chool - and never left. "The majority of my adult life has been spent here. It took me seven years, but now I feel like I belong here. I've two sisters who still live in Scotland, and my soul is always going to be Scottish - I could envisage living in a wee house on Skye one day.
"But London can spoil you for other cities. If I'm going to live in a metropolis, there are none in the UK that supersede London. I may be shot in certain circles for saying that. In fact, I won't be able to go back to Glasgow any more now!" And with that, he tips his head back and roars with laughter.
This is a surprise, because I'd been led to believe that Henshall eats journalists for breakfast. The blond actor - who has made his name playing tortured-artist types in such earnest pieces as Psychos, Kid in the Corner, Anna Karenina, Orphans and Lawless Heart - comes with a reputation as scary as the dinosaurs he will be seen battling this weekend in ITV1's big new drama, Primeval. By his own admission, he is guarded with people he doesn't know. He has even gone so far as to describe himself as on occasions "a right moody f***er".
But the day we meet in a glitzy Soho bar - where Henshall and I appear to be only customers who don't work in advertising - he couldn't be friendlier. Sure, he is intense and passionate, but in an appealing "I love my work" rather than an alienating "I'm totally obsessive" way.
Now that he has passed 40, perhaps Henshall is finally lightening up. That is certainly supported by the evidence of his latest work. Costing a reported £6m, Primeval is a special-effects-heavy science-fiction adventure romp, whose existence no doubt owes more than a little to the success of Doctor Who.
He takes the lead as Professor Nick Cutter, an academic who is compelled to slough off his corduroy jacket and fight the hordes of dinosaurs that are pouring through a rip in time, conveniently situated in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. With little time for brooding or introspection, Cutter is pitched straight into an all-action struggle for the very future of our planet.
The drama is not without a sense of humour - as Cutter hurries to investigate a possible sighting of a dinosaur, the soundtrack reverberates with The Automatic's hit, Monster: What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Primeval is hardly Hamlet, but Henshall has had a whale of a time making it.
Recalling the scenes where he had to duel with the dinosaurs in the woods by Pinewood Studios, Henshall beams like a kid in the corner. "We had these four massive cherry-pickers with these huge lights on them, and the rays made the raindrops glimmer on all the trees. It was just stunning.
"Then there was our cameraman sitting on a quad-bike, which was doubling as a Gorgonopsid, chasing us through the woods at 30 miles an hour. That was the day when I thought, 'Here I am, in the woods, pretending to run away from a 30-foot dinosaur. This is absolutely what I signed up for!' I was really taken with the idea of running around shouting, 'It's behind you!' It was fantastic.
"I knew beforehand that there would be times where we'd have to play second fiddle to the creatures, but that's welcome because they're supposed to become characters within the drama. The audience won't take the dinosaurs seriously unless we take them seriously." Henshall (who supports St Mirren, in case you're interested) stresses that Primeval taps into something, well, primeval within us all. "As a kid, I was fascinated by dinosaurs. They're a major part of those huge 'what-if?' questions that are bred in us all as children. Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, in fact any kind of film about space travel - those unknowable elements feed the imagination in a way that nothing else does.
"That fascination stays with us. Those sorts of dramas will always be popular - look at the massive surge of interest following Jurassic Park. There were endless documentaries about 'could it really happen?' We have an enduring fascination with these subjects because we all want to know if there is something beyond our mundane, everyday reality."
Henshall made his breakthrough in 1993 as a bullying squaddie in Dennis Potter's memorable Channel 4 serial, Lipstick on Your Collar, and won a Golden Nymph as Best Actor at the 2000 Monte Carlo TV Festival for Kid in the Corner. He has also dipped his toe in movies, appearing recently opposite Sean Penn and Joaquin Phoenix in It's All About Love, and with Willem Dafoe in Ripley Under Ground.
He feels that programmes such as Doctor Who have made a comeback because "they have an honest appeal and a genuine heart. They are seeking to entertain in the purest form. "Their agenda is very upfront - they are not in the least manipulative. Primeval isn't rocket science," he continues, "but it's good old-fashioned entertainment. Viewers want proper, recognisable programmes rather than the cheap and easy option that is reality TV.
"My idea of television is writers such as Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale, people who brought millions together to be provoked and entertained. I can only imagine the difficulties they'd have selling their ideas to commissioning editors these days - 'No, we won't take your drama, because a new show about how to plaster your house has got your slot already.'
"It's difficult, because reality TV is much cheaper than drama. And why should any of us have a right to be on TV anyway? But the prevalence of reality TV does frustrate me. It makes me want to tear my hair out because there are so many better things that could on in its place."
Hitting his rhetorical stride, he underlines the significance of TV in contemporary culture: "At its best, television should be more than mere escapism. It's important because it can provoke conversation and challenge attitudes. If you can steal into the family home, you can trigger all sorts of debate."
Henshall looks back fondly on one such programme, Lipstick on Your Collar: "Initially, I worshipped Dennis Potter from afar, but one day we both happened to be sitting in the canteen on set. He called me over and started asking me about my background and being Scottish. 'You know the worst thing about the Highland Clearances?' Dennis asked, 'they didn't clear enough of the bastards!' But he said it with such a twinkle that I knew he was joking and I just burst out laughing. He was saying, 'Let's see what you're made of.' He was a unique character - there is nobody like him today. He was a singular man with a singular view of what television should be. He challenged people to think, even when they weren't ready for it."
Henshall (whose partner is the Croatian playwright, Tena Stivicic) has had equally happy experiences in the theatre lately. Last year, he starred alongside Kim Cattrall from Sex and the City in an acclaimed Donmar Theatre production of David Mamet's The Cryptogram. Before that, he spent eight months playing Biff opposite Brian Dennehy's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in the West End of London.
"It's an incredibly emotionally raw piece - Arthur Miller hits you where it hurts with that play," declares Henshall. "I've lived with it for 25 years because, like Willy Loman, my old man was a commission-only salesman. He did it for 13 years. I don't know how he did it, but I do know what it cost him.
"So I had a real emotional attachment to Death of a Salesman and had been waiting for it all my professional life. Coming from that background gave me something extra. I understood exactly where Miller was coming from and knew how f***ing hard it is to be a commission-only salesman.
"I always felt it was my play until I went along to the first day of rehearsals and discovered that everyone in the cast had a similar story. It hits anyone who has ever had a father or a mother.
"People would come round to the stage door at the end in bits. They looked like they'd been clobbered over the head for three hours." He pauses. "Still, at least that shows the play worked!" And with that he lets out another gale of laughter.
• Primeval starts on STV on Saturday (7.45pm).
The full article contains 1521 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
