ROSE & IVY Introducing July Starring Jessica Henwick Star of The Gray Man

Cover Image Jessica is wearing a Ndigo Studio dress; earrings by Rachel Comey; ring by Tane Mexico 1942

Hi Jessica, it’s great to meet you! Since you have started your career You have been in some iconic projects from ‘the Matrix’, and ‘Blade Runner’, to ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Game of Thrones’. What would you say has been the guiding force for you since you started?

I love what I do so it doesn't feel like work. I started acting 14 years ago and if I didn’t love what I was doing, I would stop. The day I fall out of love with it I will just retire.

Was there a key moment so far when things shifted for you?

No, I would actually say the opposite; I have always had imposter syndrome and I think, well, this is the last one (laughs). I have never really felt like, I have nailed that.

It’s so interesting, I love talking about that feeling. I find it fascinating when we hit these huge milestones or dreams, we ask ourselves, who are we to achieve something like that. How do you propel yourself forward when you do feel like that so it doesn’t stop you?

I try to go back to the child-like joy of the job. You know we aren’t curing cancer here, we are playing pretend. I think in those moments I try to gain some perspective.

Is there anything you know now that you wished you knew when you first started?

You don’t need to buy professional headshots! You just need a friend to take a good photo of you. It’s such a con in the industry and I really wish I had known that. I wasted so much money in the business surrounding that. It’s never been more accessible of an industry than it is today with technology.

Congratulations on your role as Suzanne Brewer In ‘The Gray Man’. It’s a high-stakes spy Netflix film, can you talk about the plot and how your character comes into the fray?

Suzanne is damage control; when something goes wrong with the Gray Man agent, she is sent in to clean it up and that’s where we find her. She is in a male-dominated industry, so she is a bit of a hard-ass. She is constantly undermined by her coworkers. I had the wonderful pleasure of working with Regé (Jean-Page) a lot, many of our scenes are together. I’m very curious about what fans will think of him because he is playing a different character than in Bridgerton. It was a pleasure to film, Chris (Evans) and Ryan (Gossling) were consummate professionals spearheading the film. They have vastly different styles so it was a fascinating learning experience to watch the two of them work, how they approach a character, and what they are like on set. My only regret was that we filmed it during covid, so I didn’t get to spend as much time hanging around on set. Normally, I would just stay there between scenes and watch other people work. But with this, it was deep in the middle of covid, so there was no socializing.

Did you feel at all constrained creatively because of that? then on the other hand, there was so much creativity that had to be leveraged during those times.

It’s definitely not my preferred way of working, let’s put it that way–it’s quite isolating. It makes you focus on the scene because you don’t get to shoot the shit and hang around. It was just, you came, you focused on what the scene was, and got everyone home as soon as possible.

What excited you the most when you read it?

There were so many things, I wanted to work with the Russos—I heard how collaborative they were and they totally hit the bar on that and exceeded my expectations. From a character standpoint, I loved how Suzanne didn't care what anyone thought about her–I think that’s quite refreshing. She’s not a likable character–she’s from the book series that The Gray Man is adapted from–she’s considered a uniformly hated character. It was interesting to try to honor what was in the book but also, how do we make it so, yeah you might hate her but you understand the reason why she is the way she is. She’s not reasonless, she’s very logical to a cold degree, but we can understand her even if we don’t like her.

You have played some pretty kick-ass roles. What excites you the most when you are presented with a new script or project? Do those more physical roles appeal to you?

That side of it doesn’t come into play when I am making a decision, I don’t ask, how much action will I be able to do? Part of signing onto The Gray Man was saying yes to how little action would I have to do because I didn’t want to do any. I had just come off The Matrix shoot and I had a couple of residual injuries and I thought I needed to let my body rest. Having worked with Keanu (Reeves) and seeing what happens when you give your body no time to heal between projects was a bit of a wake-up call that I am getting older (laughs) and I cannot afford to keep doing that. When I was younger, I would turn up on set, wouldn’t stretch, and would go straight into a fight scene and be totally fine. Now if I do that I’m probably going to injure myself or not be able to walk for two days afterward. So when I signed onto The Gray Man, I said I wanted to do all of my scenes sitting or standing, that was the extent of my action.

Jessica is wearing a Lafayette 148 suit, for similar; earrings by Lafayette 148.

Jessica is wearing a top and skirt by Tory Burch; belt by Ulla Johnson; cuff by Tane Mexico 1942

I’d love to talk about some of your other creative pursuits of writing and directing, can you share more?

I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be an actor. I think that is a genetic thing. My dad is a writer and actually, about ten years ago, he discovered that his mom when she was alive, had also written a book and he posthumously published it for her. It’s definitely something I inherited from them. When the acting took off, I put it on the side and said, okay, I guess I won’t be a writer, and then the more I read, the more I thought, why aren’t there any roles for women over the age of 40, ethnic minorities, and why is there no diversity in the scripts I was reading? This is specifically aimed at England, my home marketplace, it was just sad how much the industry wanted to regurgitate the same thing over and over again without opening up and trying something different. I love British television, don’t get me wrong, it’s some of the best in the world but it’s hard to see ethnic minorities, especially women of color or of a certain age in those films.

I was reading that you are the first actress of East Asian descent to play a lead role in a British television series, and that really boggled my mind.

It was pretty depressing, it was amazing for me, but also depressing; there had been one TV show before me with David Yip playing a Chinese detective, so he was the first actor and I was the first actress. Between the two of us that was 20 years and then it was another ten years before someone followed me. It’s just too far and few between and acting actually brought me back to writing. I could keep complaining or do something and start being the change I wanted to see in things. Things have changed a lot, it is incredible, and I’m so grateful that I’m an actor now because I wouldn’t have a career if I had been born twenty years earlier, honestly. There is still a long way to go, I hope that I can continue to change things.

When did you become confident enough in yourself that you were able to tell and create stories that are important to you?

It’s kind of like the acting, I never feel confident; I am more of, is this good or is this bad? If anything, I am only worse when I am acting because when I write a script and send it off I think, do they actually like it or are they just saying that because they want to work with me as an actor? It’s a never-ending spiral.

That’s very relatable, sometimes it can even stop you from starting and creating.

For a long time, I just put off writing saying, I am not ready, and the truth is you will never be ready, you just have to do it.

Jessica is wearing a top and skirt by Tory Burch; earrings by Rachel Comey; shoes by Lafayette 148

Talk to me about Bus Girl and Sandwich Man, which you wrote, directed, and acted in–it’s a film about food, you are a girl after my own heart. I’m impressed with the fact you shot this on a camera phone! Can you share more details?

Bus Girl is doing the festival circuit right now and the hope is to put it online so that it’s available. Sandwich Man deconstructs Bus Girl it’s about the writer of Bus Girl.

Do you just love to eat delicious food, cook, or both?

I like to cook, but I don’t do it as much as I could. I love to eat though.

What is your creative process like?

I take notes every day, and it could be based on a conversation I had or based on a dream and I accumulate tiny notes. An idea will just come to me and all of those notes that I had previously gathered will find a way into that project.

We also can look forward to ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’. Can you share any details?

We filmed in Serbia and Greece. One month in each, it was absolutely crazy, time flew by, it’s a stellar cast, I feel so lucky I was able to go there and be a sponge. That’s really why I took the job, I wanted to learn from Rian (Johnson). The funny thing was I had studied Rian’s first film when I was in film class–we deconstructed the film and wrote essays about it. I found his email online and I wrote him a fan letter. It was the first and only fan letter I have ever written and he never replied. Then the crazy thing was I was in Star Wars 7 and I was supposed to come back in Star Wars 8 and Rian was directing that one. I thought, finally, I can tell him this story. Lo and behold the production schedule changed and I couldn’t work it out, so I wasn’t in 8. So when I finally got sent The Glass Onion script, my agent was like, do you think you will want to do this, since I had just finished a film and would be jumping on with one day to spare. That’s what happened, I literally wrapped The Gray Man in France, and boom, the next day I flew to Greece. I said to my agent, I don’t care, just get me the Zoom with Rian (laughs), I want to talk to him because I have a bone to pick with him. I was like, do you have a problem with me? Do you not remember me (laughs)? It was hilarious. The way I found out he offered me the role was he wrote me an email, as if he was responding to my fan mail saying, sorry it has been ten years; it was very funny, but it all worked out.

I love full-circle moments like that especially when you continue to reach for the stars. Before I let you go, I’d love to know how you cultivate balance and joy in your life, since a lot has been going on?

When I am not filming, I go straight to my home to stay with my parents, that’s a very grounding experience. Then I have my hobbies, I go free-diving, which is the closest thing I get to meditation; I go hiking. It is an incredibly stressful time, especially if you are a woman in America. I don’t know if the answer is to go ground yourself and calm down, because I think it’s okay to be mad–I think it’s what we need for change.

Jessica is wearing a Ong-Oaj Pairam dress; earrings by Rachel Comey.

follow jessica henwick on instagram

Stream ‘the gray man’ on netflix

A special thank you to ImPrint PR, Netflix, and L’Ermitage Beverly Hills

Introducing July Starring Jessica Henwick