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SAMANTHA MORTON: THE MISFITSathnam Sanghera / The Times / March 8, 2008
The actress refuses to play Hollywood’s game. And why should she? She’s feisty, focused – and fearsomely talented. Lunch with a leading British actress in one of London’s finest restaurants would normally be a treat, but the thrill of meeting Samantha Morton at St John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields is tempered by the fact that: (a) she is, according to reports, a tetchy interviewee; (b) Mister Lonely, her new film and the reason for our meeting, is not particularly good; (c) I’m recovering from a vomiting bug and am concerned that pig’s spleen – St John specialises in offal – might not be a sensible way of returning to solids. Issue (b) is a particular pain because it could otherwise provide a solution to (a). The standard approach to “difficult” interviewees is to witter inanely about a project at hand before venturing, gently, into more controversial areas, which in Morton’s case include her father’s marriage to her babysitter, her time spent in care and with a series of foster parents, and her tempestuous relationship with the tabloids. Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, which recounts the story of a Michael Jackson impersonator who falls in love with a Marilyn Monroe double (played by Morton) and then follows her to a commune of impersonators in Scotland, offers no such opportunity for bland banter. The surreal art-house movie, which has a subplot involving a bunch of flying nuns, is beautifully filmed and forces you to think, but many of the questions it raises are drowned out – in the experience of this viewer – by irritation at its pretentiousness. I spend my journey to East London, where Morton lives with her fiancé, Harry Holm, the director son of actor Sir Ian, and two daughters, aged eight and just six weeks old, fretting about how to broach the subject. Samantha, I thought you were the best thing in the film (true and often the case in Morton’s movies). Harmony Korine films are like Marmite: you either love them or hate them (definitely the case with Gummo and julien donkey-boy). In the end, as Morton takes a seat, professing exhaustion but looking 70 times better than I feel, I go for the decidedly timid: “I think I may have missed the point.” The 30-year-old actress glares back with an intensity that makes it immediately clear why she was picked to join the Central Television workshop for young people at the age of 12, and why she has since been sought out by directors ranging from Woody Allen to Steven Spielberg. “How many times have you seen it?” “Er…” The idea of watching it again gives me an instant headache. “Once… I mean, you were great as the Marilyn lookalike. I was just wondering whether you could…” I’m stammering now, “…explain it.” She takes off her large black overcoat, places a napkin across her lap and puts her small hands on the edge of the table. “Those kinds of questions, with respect, are for the film-maker.” She still hasn’t blinked. Her intensely blue eyes are by far the brightest thing in the spartan dining room. “Personally, I found the film incredibly moving, but, equally, I walked away thinking, what did that mean? But I like that.” She orders a decaf Americano from the waitress hovering over us. “I’ve known Harmony since I was 18, and he’s someone I really admire because he constantly challenges the form in a way I find at times offensive, at times beautiful, but always intriguing. I hope the right people will go and see it.” And that’s it. I’ve made my point (weakly). She has disagreed and responded (forcefully). And, when she begins examining the menu, it’s clear that, as far as she’s concerned, the discussion is over. This is what she’s like. Essentially, she doesn’t especially care what people think about her work. And while some may interpret this as aggression, I think it’s just incredible self-confidence. Tellingly, the woman who once turned up at a Buckingham Palace garden party in flip-flops, and famously asked Woody Allen to see the script when he wanted to cast her as a mute in Sweet and Lowdown, goes on to remark that the only errors she has made with roles have occurred when she has been bullied by others. “Mistakes have happened when I haven’t followed my gut instinct.” The self-assurance extends to her choice of restaurant. I glance at the menu and feel a wave of nausea. Jellied pig’s head. Confit duck gizzard. Devilled kidneys. The room has the air of a butchery, and even some of the puddings – blood-orange jelly – sound like they’ve been made from ingredients gathered from an abattoir floor. Perhaps sensing my squeamishness, Morton interjects. “They do great fish and salads here, too. I’m actually vegetarian, but, you know, if I did eat meat I would eat it in its entirety.” Of course she would. She orders a salad for herself, recommends I try the Arbroath smokie, frisée and horseradish, and I ask whether there’s anything other than gut instinct that dictates which roles she chooses to play. “Yeah, money.” She giggles. “When you’ve got children and you live in the capital city, you can’t say, right, I’m doing a play now. I’d like to do more theatre. I’ve only ever done two plays in London.” She adds that a diversity of roles is also important, and is pleased that, in recent months, she has been seen playing everyone from Myra Hindley (Longford) to Mary Queen of Scots (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Deborah Curtis (Control). “I try not to repeat myself.” I suggest that, despite the range of performances, something seems to link the roles: not only does she invariably play them all brilliantly, but they’re the kind of characters you wouldn’t see Keira Knightley playing. The remark goes down as badly as my last few attempts at meals. “I think people need to stop being rude about her, I really do.” She picks up her coffee. “Hold on, weren’t you horrible about her recently?” (Actually, she wasn’t.) She puts the cup back down without having taken a sip. “I’m never horrible about women in the industry.” “You were horrible about Liz Hurley.” “I wasn’t.” “You said, ‘She’s not an actress. I wouldn’t think she’d do street theatre in Poland, would you? Do you really think she loves her craft? No.’” “I was misquoted. I like Liz Hurley. I’d like to see a little more camaraderie in the film industry actually, especially in Britain.” The claim clashes so violently with quotations ascribed to her in newspaper cuttings that there’s a lengthy pause before I work out what to say. “What about Tim Robbins? You had a right go at him.” “I would never have a go at Tim Robbins.” “But you did.” “Where?” “You were in that Michael Winterbottom film together. Code 46.” “That’s right. Is this something he said, that I had a go at him?” “No, you were quoted saying…” “Quoted saying what?” “Something along the lines of him not putting enough into his part.” The actual reported remark was: “My relationship with Tim was pretty bad. I don’t think he’d done his research into how Michael shoots and so he was unhappy creatively.” “That’s completely untrue.” Morton looks taken back and there’s an awkward silence as the food arrives. I scan my list of questions in the hope of finding something less contentious to discuss. But every question is potentially difficult, not least the question of her being difficult. As she skewers a salad leaf, I blurt it out and hope for the best. “Does it bother you that you’re regarded as hard to work with?” She stops nibbling. “When I was younger, I was difficult – a real perfectionist.” The table squeaks against the floor tiles. “I’d get involved in everything, you know, including props – I was a method actor, without realising it. And if people didn’t put 150 per cent into filming, I’d be very vocal about it. And when you’re 17 and you’re on a film set and the boom operator is talking and has ruined your best take and you turn around and say, ‘Excuse me, that’s incredibly rude’, they’re going to think, you know, ‘Who does she think she is?’” “Have you changed?” “I think I’ve mellowed massively, yeah. I’ve realised there are ways to communicate without telling colleagues what they’re doing is wrong. But you have to remember I started my first acting job when I was 11. I’m now 30, so I’ve been working most of my life in front of a camera and with crews, and I think when you grow up in that world, you’re bound to have a period when you’re an adolescent.” Another way in which Morton, who shot to fame as a teenage prostitute in the ITV drama Band of Gold, has grown up is in her attitude to the media. When she was still a teenager, she gave an interview to The Guardian, in which she talked frankly about her tumultuous family background, her parents’ messy divorce, her experience of poverty and alcoholism, and bullying while in care. The piece resulted in tabloid reporters harassing her family, caused havoc in her private life and, ever since, the British press seems determined to cast her as a “troubled” eccentric. She has successfully sued newspapers on several occasions. Understandably, the experience has made her wary of questions about her private life. Does she speak to her parents now? “Nobody’s business.” Is she close to her eight brothers and sisters? “That’s private.” But a few details do seep through. She says that the brother who was once in the armed forces now works as a private security guard in Iraq. (“Compared to the Army, you’re pretty well protected in the private sector.”) She says that she met her husband on the set of a music video for a band called the Vitamins. She doesn’t, she says, allow her eight-year-old daughter, whose father is the actor Charlie Creed-Miles, to watch any TV except for The Simpsons. As the waitress appears to ask us if we’re enjoying our food – my smokie has gone down surprisingly well, but I fear I have put Morton off her food – we drift on to the topic of education and I ask whether her incomplete schooling ever causes difficulties. “Well, I’m always doing that Brain Trainer thing on the Nintendo DS.” I think she’s being sarcastic, but I’m not sure. “But now your daughter is presumably having a very fancy education, do you ever want to fill the gaps?” “I’m not illiterate!” “I know that. I’m just thinking about my own background – my parents don’t speak English, my father can’t read, and the gap is an issue.” She attempts a salad leaf before responding. “I did leave school young and didn’t finish my education, but, with acting, you learn from your peers. Also, I’m quite capable. I can sit and watch QI with the best of them and last night I even got a question right on University Challenge.” She wipes the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “I’ve always read a lot – in many ways, I’m self-taught.” She smiles. Morton smiles a lot, actually. Indeed, despite her wariness and feistiness, I get the distinct sense that she is content. She explodes with delight when talking about being a mum for the second time (“It’s brilliant, brilliant… it really is the best, best, best thing”) and says she’d like a large family. “I have this vision of being a granny and having loads of kids around me, like in The Godfather.” When asked if she has any regrets about how things have turned out, she can think of only two: intriguingly, in her personal life, she says she wishes she had not, once, “said yes to a guy with black hair”, and, professionally, she wishes she’d made a film of her own. “I always thought I’d have directed my first film by the age of 30.” The twice Oscar-nominated and one-time Golden Globe winner adds that she has a production company, As Big As This, with her husband and aims to fulfil the ambition soon. She also plans to write. “Writing is a huge passion of mine.” “Are we going to see a memoir one day?” “Maybe.” “Publishers will be all over you – a celebrity with a rags-to-riches tale…” “I’m not a celebrity. No one ever recognises me.” “Really?” “Only occasionally. And I’ve not had any publishing offers.” “You will now.” “I think I’ll wait. I don’t think I’ve earned my stripes yet.” I disagree. The Samantha Morton story would be something worth writing and reading. I ask if the gap between her difficult Nottingham past and her glittering Hollywood present ever feels unreal or takes her by surprise. “There was never an option that I wasn’t going to be OK,” she replies with characteristic self-assurance. “I always knew I would be.” “You always knew you were going to make it?” “‘Making it’ is a funny phrase, because I’d still be ‘making it’ if I had two kids and lived in a council house. It wasn’t about growing up and being successful. It was about growing up of sound mind: not being an alcoholic or a drug addict or a victim of domestic violence.” She gives up on her salad. “Delicious, but huge. I’m just proud of how well things have turned out. I’m proud that I’m still here, I’m proud that I’m here talking to you today, in a fancy restaurant in East London.” She gazes across the room. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” I glance at Morton’s baby-toothed smile, at my empty plate and find myself saying, “It is, actually.” 
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