Douglas Henshall Quotes

With ‘Shallow Grave’ people realised that you could set a film in Scotland and it didn’t have to be about leaky boats in the Highlands. Then ‘Trainspotting’ made it fashionable.

I’m a big basketball fan. I like the NBA.

No, my ma died nearly 20 years ago. I still miss her, and I still think about her a lot but the memories I have are warm, rather than melancholic or tinged with sadness.

When you’re young, there are always going to be one or two people who take a shine to you or get you and want to help you. Thank God for them.

I’ll lie awake and think about scenes I could have done better, that I could have filmed in a different way.

The Catholic Church is wealthier than Coca-Cola, but takes from some of the poorest people in the world.

I got to be in a western, which was the best fun ever. It’s one of those boxes you tick. I’ve wanted to be in a western since I was seven and suddenly I got to go out there and be a sheriff, ride a horse and have the badge, firing a Smith & Wesson.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, my dad wouldn’t take me to Ibrox or Parkhead because of all the sectarianism.

Fatherhood, parenthood, is something that completely overwhelms you and absorbs you, and you just have to be the best dad that you can be.

I suppose if the script and storyline is good, you’ve got to take what you’re given, really.

Do you know, I didn’t play a policeman up until I was 40, and then suddenly that’s what I have been asked to play.

After my marriage ended – a hundred years ago – I had a few memorable Christmases on my own: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

The Scandis blew the crime genre out of the water and the Americans have been doing interesting things with it for years.

I live in London, where you’re assaulted, from the minute you wake up. Your head becomes like a hive of bees, with all the noises being thrown at you, all the time. And then, you go somewhere like Shetland and you start to hear birds, wind, and natural sounds.

What the Americans have done is refuse to back down. They’ve refused to make the cheapest, lowest common denominator forms of entertainment for TV and instead have championed television drama as an important part of our culture.

When you’ve got an audience, there’s a silence in there that you don’t find anywhere else. And it’s really powerful. People are there listening with you and you’re affecting them in some way.

Flying to Fair Isle from Lerwick is an experience I’ll never forget.

David Hayman gave me my Equity card and my first job out of drama school – the first person I really looked up to professionally.

Where I was brought up, if you were walking down the street and you looked at someone and they looked at you, you acknowledged them.

It’s been great being on location in Shetland and out in the fresh air.

It’s one of those weird things you start doing: you get to have on-screen teenage children and play policemen. That’s what happens to you when you hit 40.

I always think that your first test of loyalty as a young lad is your football team.

I’m sure there are people who associate Iona with what they want it to be but for me it’s just a nice place.

I do believe in my national identity. I’m very proud, of what I come from and where I come from, and there are values up there that I like and that I hold on to: loyalty I suppose, and a sense of humour, and a lack of self pity.

Ninety percent of the time when you see rape on the television it is gratuitous and there to either bolster viewing figures or as a lazy way of treating female cast.

I always feel I’d like to just play people who are a bit less complicated.

We have a rich cultural tapestry in Scotland, it’s not that there’s a lack of stories.

I wanted a jumper. After all, in Shetland you are in the land of the Fair Isle sweater. But then everyone said to avoid that – Sarah Lund has cornered the jumper market.

One of the first jobs I did out of drama school was a panto at the Magnum.

For me, the best thing is the young actors that come in to the series as to see the depth and breadth of talent coming into the business is fantastic.

I had a film career in the late 90s. And then I stopped having a film career because suddenly I didn’t do anything.

It must be terribly odd if you spend most of your time on somewhere like Shetland and come to a big city.

We were in Shetland for over a month so when we arrived back in Glasgow I felt quite disorientated. It was just everything, the noise, the people. It was weird that after just a month in Shetland I felt slightly assaulted by the city.