MORFYDD CLARK

The star of Saint Maud has risen... and risen

For Morfydd Clark, things started to go a little crazy after the 2019 London Film Festival. Before that, she’d been a jobbing actor — bit-parts here and there, but nothing huge. That LFF, however, saw a seismic change. “It was so weird,” she recalls. “The only other time I’d done a red carpet [before that], I turned up and everyone thought I was someone called Charlotte.”

At the festival, there was no such confusion. She was the breakout star of the event, with four roles in three films: Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History Of David Copperfield (where she played the title character’s love interest and his mother); Craig Roberts’ Eternal Beauty (playing a younger version of Sally Hawkins’ character Jane); and Rose Glass’ debut horror Saint Maud (as a God-fearing nurse with an increasingly violent faith).

What followed was a blaze of attention and high-profile casting, but the Swedish-born Welsh actor has managed to stay level-headed. “lt all escalated in such a weird time,” she says. “I’m quite glad that I didn’t get a big part when I was younger — I now realise I was totally unequipped for it.”

The “big part” she’s alluding to is in Amazon’s billion-dollar Lord Of The Rings TV show, for which the actor has spent the past two years filming in New Zealand. Instructed by the Amazon elders to keep it secret, keep it safe, Clark cannot even confirm who she’s playing, though it’s been widely reported to be a young Galadriel.

“I’ve always found a huge amount of comfort in fantasy,” she says. “I love watching gritty or realistic things — but sometimes I just want to watch something with dragons.” And having moved to New Zealand for early prep in 2019, Clark has fallen in love with the country, which sometimes reminds her of home. “It’s kind of Welsh,” she says. “It’s just phenomenally beautiful. I think [the Peter Jackson films] meant, to me, that New Zealand became this place where beautiful, amazing things are made.”

Global recognition beckons. But Clark hopes her future is on home turf as much as Middle-earth (“I’d love to do a play in Cardiff”) — plus, with luck, re-teaming with Glass again. “I’d love to,” she says. “I feel so lucky to have met her. Me and Rose felt kind of like babes in the storm together.” That storm around her keeps growing. Just don’t call it Hurricane Charlotte.

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