Jessica Henwick

Step into the dojo with Iron Fist’s mistress of the martial arts

- Nick Setchfield

Please pretend I’m not in pyjamas at my parents’ house,” laughs Jessica Henwick, on the line to SFX, not in her pyjamas and most assuredly not at her parents’ house, no sir. The rising Brit star is back from New York, relishing some hard-won sofa time after slicing a mean katana as the lethal Colleen Wing in Iron Fist, Marvel’s latest collaboration with Netflix. It’s another fan-friendly franchise to follow her turns as Nymeria Sand in Game Of Thrones and crack X-Wing pilot Jess Pava in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A mainstay of the Marvel comic books, Colleen enters the orbit of billionaire martial arts master Danny Rand [Finn Jones] aka Iron Fist himself. “She has a lot of secrets,” says Henwick, who’ll reprise the role later this year in The Defenders. “She’s quite private, so she’s got these walls up. Danny’s just there, constantly knocking on the wall, and that’s aggravating to her. It’s an interesting dynamic!”

Colleen’s been in the comics for over 40 years now. Did it help to have all that back story as research?