The photographer wants to take Shirley Henderson outside - but it's raining

heavily, and there's a publicist in hot pursuit. ''Where are you taking her?'' comes the panicked cry. ''Don't get her wet!'' It seems that the actress elicits protective instincts both on and off-screen.

Her diminutive stature, wide eyes, and girlish voice all project a certain delicacy and vulnerability, qualities that have induced male journalists to dub her the new Audrey Hepburn. Yet Henderson has never styled herself as a glamour puss or sex symbol. Over a wide array of TV and film roles, she has emerged as an earthy, tenacious character actress - elfin of figure, perhaps, but game and adventurous in her work. Hard to imagine Audrey Hepburn simulating sex in the toilets of the Hacienda nightclub, or ricocheting romantically between Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans - as Henderson does in Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People and Shane Meadows's Once Upon A Time In The Midlands respectively.

''You don't really think about any of that when you're doing a part,'' Henderson muses when asked about her image. ''I don't think about my size, or my eyes or whatever.'' In the flesh, she certainly doesn't seem as if rainwater would corrode her - although she could convincingly knock a decade off her age (she's 36), if she was that kind of person (she's not).

Henderson is forthright, friendly, and self-possessed; the legacy, perhaps, of a slow-burning career that's allowed her plenty of time to reflect. Even now that she's worked with Britain's most respected directors - Mike Leigh, Danny Boyle, Michael Winterbottom, Shane Meadows - and chalked up a role in the second instalment of the box-office-busting Harry Potter franchise, Henderson remains philosophical rather than ambitious. ''I don't have a plan, really. I don't hanker after certain directors to work with. In fact, it's quite hard to get auditions with these people. Some people just walk into it, but I've had to

wait forever.''

Born in rural Fife and brought up in Dunfermline, Henderson was attracted to showbusiness as a child, but had little notion of how it operated. ''I think I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what it was. I wasn't brought

up knowing what acting was,

particularly; so what I'm doing now would not have been in my head then.''

Even after finding her voice as a singer in local working men's clubs, and honing her acting skills at the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama, movie stardom remained a distant dream. ''When you first leave college, the impetus is to get a job; and the West End seemed to be an amazing thing then, or the National Theatre. You don't ever think you'll get in a film; it just doesn't happen like that for most people.''

Henderson spent a number of years on the London stage before landing a small-screen break as Robert Carlyle's sparring partner and love interest in Hamish Macbeth. The two co-starred again in Trainspotting in 1996, a working history that lends resonance to their current pairing in Once Upon A Time In The Midlands.

''It's just easy to be with Robert,'' Henderson smiles. ''We built up a nice relationship on Hamish, and we're very comfortable working with

each other.

''He's always been further on - getting more prominent, high-pressure stuff than me - but he's still the same Robert that I worked with; he's not changed at all.'' She does acknowledge a cautionary element in her friend's experience of fame, however. ''He's had to fight for his privacy, and I imagine that's been quite a deal - going from nobody knowing you to everybody knowing you. But you just mature, I think, and you learn how to cope with it.''

Henderson herself has maintained a relatively enigmatic presence, despite the increasing visibility of her work - a blessing in a country that tends to savage the same local celebrities it

deifies. ''There's nothing they can get on me,'' she laughs, ''nothing interesting. It's just a normal life.'' Not that she expects anyone to take an interest in her private life. ''I don't think I've done anything that's so commercial that people know who I am,'' she argues. ''Even Hamish Macbeth - it was really Bobby's series.

''I wasn't in every scene, in the glamour role where you're going to lock on to me. I was in Trainspotting just a tiny little amount; and things like Wonderland and Topsy Turvy - they're not in every single cinema in the

country. I've not done anything

hugely commercial. I suppose there was Bridget Jones - but even that part was just tiny.''

Yet Henderson's great skill is to transform a ''tiny'' appearance into something disproportionately resonant. Her turn as a declining, alcoholic soprano in Mike Leigh's TopsyTurvy was the emotional high point of an otherwise tedious film; and it was a notable loss to 24 Hour Party People when her character vanished from the narrative.

Once Upon A Time In The Midlands sees her taking a more central role - here, she's a romantic lead, albeit a very down-to-earth one. Though Henderson's understated performance style and facility for improvisation would seem to make her a natural choice for the gutsy, unpretentious Meadows, she emphasises that she was cast as a largely unknown

quantity. The character's name of Shirley? Mere coincidence. ''Shane asked me if I would mind and I said not at all; it was quite nice, actually,'' Henderson recalls. It seems that most of Meadows's working practices are ''quite nice'', if not downright idyllic. Henderson warmly describes how the director accommodates his cast and crew in adjoining apartments, encourages them to eat and socialise

together, and frames filming around their personal requirements. ''Shane wants you to be happy. He says things like, 'If you wake up and you can't deal with it that day, we'll change, we'll film something different'.''

The impersonality of a mega-project like Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets must grate after such touchy-feeliness? ''It's a different set-up. You are involved, but just in your little bit - you don't know about the rest.'' Which is just as well. ''I'm not allowed to

tell you anything about it. I wish

was.'' What is known is that

Henderson will play the sorrowful teenage ghost Moaning Myrtle, who haunts the girls' toilets at Hogwarts.

Other upcoming projects include Lone Scherfig's follow-up to Italian For Beginners, Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself. Shot in Glasgow, the film is still in post-production, but early glimpses point to the most heart-warming comedy about love and suicide since - well, ever. Henderson has also completed the thriller, Doctor Sleep, co-starring Paddy Considine; American Cousins, directed by Don Coutts; and Villa Des Roses, co-starring Julie Delpy.

So, is this most unassuming of performers ready to take her place among the big-hitters? Modest to the last, Henderson demurs: ''I don't really crave that amount of pressure. It would depend if I was right for the character - and there are so many other people to choose from.''