Jessica Henwick has a problem. Upstairs from where she is sitting right now, on Zoom, surrounded by bookshelves and family photographs at her parents' home in England, is an empty suitcase. Tomorrow, she leaves for Los Angeles - where she will be very busy, and very hot - and from 'there, by the time you are reading 'this, the 29-year-old will have made her way to Sydney, where the in-demand actor is following up a turn in this month's Netflix blockbuster The Gray Man with a tightly wound Australian film called The Royal Hotel, alongside Julia Garner and Hugo Weaving.
“Right, okay. How cold is it going to be? I know it's winter, but how cold are we talking about?” Henwick asks, straight to business. “I need jackets, right?” One jacket, I suggest, and if at all possible a waterproof one. The packing qualm is clearly plaguing her. Later in the interview, Henwick brings the conversation back around to the weather. “I don't want to sound stupid. Do I need gloves?”
An actor can usually measure out their life in suitcases; Henwick definitely can. Since she was 16, when she became the first female actor of East – all seasons available now on Foxtel and Binge – took her to Belfast periodically for years; Sofia Coppola’s On The Rocks to New York and Mexico. Last year’s in which she played a blue-haired compatriot to Keanu Reeves’s Neo, sent her down the rabbithole in Berlin. After that, she went to Prague for a quippy action caper reportedly the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made; it’s certainly anchored by enough star wattage, given Henwick shares the screen with a triumvirate of internet boyfriends (Ryan Gosling, Chris s Regé-Jean Page) Ana de Armas Billy Bob Thornton. From there, it was over to Greece to make : also stuffed full of A-listers, from Daniel Craig to Kate Hudson. In each location, in every film, there’s Henwick: self-possessed, terrifically cool, indelible from the moment she crosses the screen.
