SAMANTHA MORTON

Keep on, Morvern…

TEENAGE PRODIGY

“I like being on the outskirts,” says Samantha Morton, whose filmography testifies to her singular approach to a career in acting. Raised in foster care and children’s homes, the Nottingham-born actor left school at 13, studied at the Central Junior Television Workshop and brought crackling conviction to teen roles in Band Of Gold and Cracker. Her portrait of an out-of-control teen in Carine Adler’s Under The Skin proved her searing talent.

INDIE SPIRIT

Despite putting in time on the requisite period projects (Emma, Jane Eyre), Morton has excelled in daring indie projects. She praised director Lynne Ramsay as a “genius” for Morvern Callar, in which Morton gave an inscrutable portrait of psychological drift. Elsewhere, her off-mainstream sensibilities seemed right at home in Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, Ian Curtis biopic Control and Cosmopolis, where she nailed a magnetic monologue for director David Cronenberg.

STANDALONE STAR

Morton’s American choices showcase her instinctive approach. She banked Oscar noms for deeply affecting turns in Woody Allen’s Sweet And Lowdown and Jim Sheridan’s immigrant story In America, and brought a damaged and eerie intensity to Spielberg’s Minority Report. While she skirted certain careerist choices (“I turned down X-Men,” she says) and refused to “play the game”, later bit-parts in John Carter and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them prove Hollywood lost out.

NO-FEAR FACTOR

As a young actor, Morton recalls her determination to call out “grotty behaviour” on set. On screen, she channels a refusal to compromise into complex performances that aim to “raise issues we’re afraid to look at”, from The Messenger to Myra Hindley film Longford. “I’m constantly asking questions about people,” she says, exhibiting a streak of empathy that extended to her dreamy yet tough directorial debut, The Unloved.

ALPHA RADICAL

Morton has thrived on her own terms in TV. She brought a hushed, complex authority to The Walking Dead’s Alpha and characteristic layers of empathy to Catherine de Medici in The Serpent Queen, a strong twist on costume dramas. Meanwhile, film work including The Whale and She Said suggests closely guarded integrity can pay off. As Morton says, “I’m a working actor and I’m not owned by anybody.”