- Born
- Birth nameSamantha Jane Morton
- Height5′ 3″ (1.60 m)
- Samantha Morton has established herself as one of the finest actors of her generation, winning Oscar nominations for her turns in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and Jim Sheridan's In America (2002). She has the talent to become one of the major performers in the cinema of this young century.
Samantha Morton was born on May 13, 1977 in Nottingham, England to parents who divorced when she was three years old. Peter and Pamela Morton took other spouses and made Samantha part of a mixed family of 13; she has eight brothers and sisters. She turned to play-acting early in her life, while she was a school-girl.
At 13, she left regular school to train as an actress at the Central Junior Television Workshop, where she learned her craft for three years. It was at the end of her training then that she decided that a life as a professional actress was for her.
She honed her skills in television roles, working her way up from series television to TV-movies and prestigious mini-series, such as Emma (1996) and Jane Eyre (1997). Her first major film role, Under the Skin (1997), won her the Best Actress Award from the Boston Film Critics Society. Woody Allen cast her as Hattie, the "dumb" (unspeaking) lover of Sean Penn's caddish jazz guitarist in Sweet and Lowdown (1999), a beautiful performance in a role that could have flummoxed a less-talented performer. Penn was Oscar-nominated for his performance, but it was Morton's Hattie that was central to the success of the film, Allen's last unqualified success. She provided the moral and narrative center of the film. It was quite a remarkable performance for a 21-year old as she had to do all her acting with her face, having been shorn of her voice. The role of Hattie won Morton a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination.
Ironically, Morton had never seen a Woody Allen movie before. (She grew up watching the TV and listening to the radio.) She agreed to do the film after reading the script (as she says, well-written roles for women are hard to find), and the movie made her a hot commodity in Hollywood after she won the Oscar nomination. (She lost out to Angelina Jolie). Morton was offered many roles, but was very choosy as she was not in acting as a game with a payoff of stardom and money.
She had consolidated her reputation by following up the Allen film with work in indie features that showed that she was not only talented, but quite courageous as a performer. She played a heroin addict in the underrated Jesus' Son (1999) and gave a brilliant performance in Morvern Callar (2002), the story of a Scottish supermarket clerk coping with her boyfriend's suicide.
Steven Spielberg cast her, opposite superstar Tom Cruise, as the clairvoyant in Minority Report (2002), in which she more than held her own opposite Cruise and the special effects. (She took the role as Cruise and Steven Spielberg are favorites of hers). As good as she was, Morton was better served by Irish director Jim Sheridan, Sheridan cast her as a character modeled after his wife in an autobiographical picture more in line with persona and that made better use of her talents. Her performance as the young Irish mother coping with life in New York City in In America (2002) won her numerous critics' awards and another Oscar nod, this time as Best Actress.
At this point, one feels that the odds of her winning the Oscar are even or better. Samantha Morton continues to deliver fine work in provocative films such as Michael Winterbottom's Code 46 (2003), though she is branching out towards the mainstream, taking a role in the remake of that perennial family favorite, Lassie (2005).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood - Born in Nottingham, England and trained at the Central Junior Television Workshop, Samantha's first television work came at the age of 13. Since then, she has played many minor TV roles in such dramas as Cracker (1993), Peak Practice (1993), Boon (1986), Soldier Soldier (1991) and Medics (1990), before reaching the big time with major roles in such TV movies and mini-series as Band of Gold (1995), Emma (1996), Jane Eyre (1997) and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1997).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon Perkin < jon.perkin@icl.net>
- ChildrenTheodore HolmEdie Holm
- ParentsPamela MortonPeter Morton
- RelativesDaniel Morton(Cousin)Beothe Marcus Morton(Sibling)Penny Morton(Sibling)
- In early 2008, she revealed that she had been "close to death" after suffering a debilitating stroke due to being hit by a piece of 17th-century plaster that fell on her head (damaging her vertebral artery) when filming for Transsiberian (2008) in 2006 causing partial paralysis and loss of vision and was replaced by Emily Mortimer. She was in hospital for three weeks after the incident. She withdrew from the public spotlight and took an 18-month break from film acting to spent time in physical and speech therapy, learning how to walk and remaster her speaking skills. She went straight from therapy into filming Synecdoche, New York (2008). She reports "I still have a slight dis-fluency, sentences are spaced differently, but I was given a clean bill of health.".
- Was the original voice of Samantha in Her (2013). She was actually on set interacting with Joaquin Phoenix, not alone in a studio, but her voice was replaced during post-production with Scarlett Johansson's voice.
- At 14, she was convicted of making threats to kill and sentenced to 18 weeks at an attendance center. She was originally charged with attempted murder. The incident occurred at a children's home in Nottingham during a riot.
- Was homeless for almost a year, sleeping at friends' houses or in bus shelters between the ages 13 - 14.
- She has a reputation for being difficult on set, by her own admission: in an interview given with The Guardian Weekend magazine in 2009, she stated that it was fair enough to tell crew members to shut it if they were chatting away while she was giving it her all - she works hard and expects others to do so, too.
- My foster mother died and I did not have a relationship with my real parents. I know who they are. It's not upsetting; it's just the way it is. You cannot change things. My childhood isn't like an albatross around my neck.
- With publicity, you have to retain a level of privacy. For me, work and my life shouldn't be one and the same.
- Acting and music are self indulgent professions and they are a luxury unless you love what you do. I have a love/hate relationship with what I do. I think, 'Where's the relevance of this? I'm not a doctor, I'm not an aid worker.' But then I think you only have one life and I am a vessel for stories to be told.
- Woody Allen makes Woody Allen comedies and they are all about him. Steven Spielberg likes to tell someone else's story and it is not only about him. Fine direction such as Spielberg's is rare. You have to be very confident to direct actors. Too many directors merely know where to point the camera.
- In films, it's just that one minute you're strong, then you're told you're difficult. The minute you say, 'No, I won't take my top off' or 'No, I won't work overtime', you're bloody difficult.
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