Shirley Henderson says she was told not to reveal her age during an audition for a 14-year-old role in Harry Potter.
The rule was set by producers when she was 37 when she auditioned for the role of teenage ghost Moaning Myrtle.
“The casting director said, ‘Go ahead and don’t mention your age,'” said Henderson, now 60. The Independent in a recent interview.
Henderson admits she didn’t know much Harry Potter at the time. “I wasn’t convinced I could play a 14-year-old girl because I was in my 30s,” she added, but her sister encouraged her to try.
The 1.70m actress arrived at her audition as a schoolgirl wearing a white shirt, black skirt and ponytail, thinking it was “ridiculous”.
She delivered her scene, thanked the casting team and assumed it was over.
A few months later, she was called back and eventually offered the role. “Myrtle is an old person in a young person’s body, and because she’s ghostly, there’s a kind of fog…you don’t look at my face closely, so we can get away with it,” she explained.
Unlike her child co-stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, Henderson was not widely recognized following the film’s release. Playing a spectral teenager kept her out of the spotlight.
THE Harry Potter The universe has since expanded into seven books, eight films and a play. Warner Bros. Discovery is currently developing a new television series that will adapt each Harry Potter book in its own season.
