Samantha Morton

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:47

My castaway this week is the actor and director Samantha Morton. She was still a teenager when her breakthrough roles in the TV dramas Cracker and Band of Gold earned her a formidable reputation. By her mid-twenties, she was a Hollywood star, working with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen and winning two Oscar nominations. Twenty years and many awards later, she's one of the most respected actors of her generation, with the quicksilver talent her Minority Report co-star Tom Cruise once described as lightning in a bottle. If her professional achievements are extraordinary in themselves, set alongside her personal story, they're nothing short of miraculous. She grew up in care, left school at 13, experienced homelessness as a young teenager, and is a survivor of childhood trauma that more recently in her career, she's returned to on screen in the BAFTA-winning films I Am Kirstie and her directorial debut, The Unloved.

Presenter1:43

She says, I'm an actor. This is what I do. I'm not a charity worker. I'm not a doctor. And this is my way of giving back. This is the best I can do to try and share with people how it feels. Samantha Morton, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Samantha Morton1:58

Uh

Presenter1:58

Hello

Samantha Morton1:59

Yeah.

Presenter1:59

Uh

Samantha Morton1:59

Thank you for having me.

Presenter2:01

Well, it's a real pleasure. Sam, we're not together today. You're recording at home. Tell me a little bit about the roles that you play. I mean, you've played historical parts, Mary Queen of Scots, Jane Eyre, Harriet Smith in Emma. Very contemporary roles as well, Teenage Prostitute in Band of Gold. When it comes to you taking on a part, you've described acting as something that comes from my spirit. How does that work in practice? How does it feel to inhabit a role?

Samantha Morton2:02

Nah.

Speaker 12:11

Are you Smith?

Samantha Morton2:27

A bit scary and a bit weird. It's almost like breathing in, and it's there.

Samantha Morton2:35

Sometimes I watch actors, I work with actors that have been trained and I get very intrigued and envious about their process because I never I wasn't really taught how to act. I think I have all always been a watcher. So as a kid I used to watch people on the bus, how they smoked the cigarettes, how they moved their head, how they listened, how they got off the bus, on the bus, walk down the street, and I'd think have they just had some news, what's their morning been like?

Samantha Morton3:06

Are they happy? Are they sad? Why have they got the hands in the pocket? Just I just constantly asking questions about people and being around growing up with so many different mums and dads or children that I live with in homes, absorbing all the different people like a sponge. And so when I started getting acting roles, I'd read the scripts and like a good book, I could literally

Samantha Morton3:32

Be them.

Presenter3:33

Your list's been very thoughtfully curated today. What part does music play in your life and your professional life too?

Samantha Morton3:41

I think in my life I couldn't live without it. But I think that there is music everywhere, from birdsong to the sounds of buses to the gentle breeze in our ears to the voice of a child or the snore of a dog or whatever we can hear. Do you know what I mean? We can hear it. But music, as in music that we know it to be, it's like breath to me. Oxygen.

Speaker 13:53

Have a week.

Presenter4:02

Well, we can hear the bird song where you are today, and it sounds rather lovely, but it's time for your first disc, Samantha Morton. What's it going to be, and why have you chosen this?

Samantha Morton4:05

It's tanky or

Samantha Morton4:10

My first one is Burden of Shame by the band GB Forty. This song is a song that I loved as a child and danced to and it reminds me of growing up in Care, really reminds me of Nottingham, running around the flats in Hyson Green, playing with my friends till

Samantha Morton4:29

It was dark. My dad would put my sandwiches, my sour cream sandwiches, in a sunblessed bag, fold them in half and say, Come back when it's dark. Me and my siblings were off we'd go and it was magical, really.

Speaker 24:43

The ramad is the greenest you can't fall.

Speaker 24:47

Bloody deeds have been done in my name

Speaker 24:51

Shaman I like Toma Faith

Speaker 24:55

And our children will shoulder the plan

Speaker 24:59

I'm a British subject, not for a bit.

Speaker 25:03

Why not carry the burden of shame?

Speaker 25:07

I'm a 3D subject, I'm proud of it.

Speaker 25:11

Like carry the burden of shame

Presenter5:17

UB Forty and Burden of Shame. Sam Morton, you described the cinema, I think, as a place of refuge for you, even as a very small child. Where was your first and what would you have been watching?

Samantha Morton5:30

My first cinema experience was a weirdy one. It was uh 2001, Stanley Kubrick, and it was in at the ABC Cinema in Nottingham. And me and my sister used to go off gallivanting for hours and we used to hide in the cinema and just watch film after film all day'cause you could it was safe, it was warm, and we'd just see different films, but that was my earliest memory of cinema.

Presenter5:57

Going back to the beginning of your own story then, Sam, you were first taken into care when you were a baby and then throughout your childhood you you kind of went between foster care, children's homes and and living with your dad.

Presenter6:08

And you were very keen to live with your mother, but that was never possible. Now, before we talk about being in care, tell me a little bit about your mum, Pamela. You said that she was your most powerful teacher.

Speaker 16:08

You have to

Samantha Morton6:19

Yeah.

Samantha Morton6:20

I always had this thing where people put my mum down.

Samantha Morton6:24

My dad had nothing positive to say about her. A lot of other people, the social workers, had nothing positive to say about my mother. And people criticised her choices. And I just looked at this woman, Pam, who was kind, subservient, vulnerable, funny, beautiful, and did I say vulnerable? I want to kind of really if I could write that in capital letters I would. She is a saint in a way to me.

Samantha Morton6:55

There's something fascinating in what I did get from her from not getting what I thought I wanted from her. I wouldn't be who I am today without what happened with her, obviously, but I am fuming at how society behaves around mental health issues for women.

Samantha Morton7:11

My mum had a very, very traumatic childhood and it's f fascinating now as a as a mother and as a as a woman, you know, grown up to go

Samantha Morton7:24

Wow.

Presenter7:25

And you can't connect those dots at the time. So sh you loved her, she loved you, but she wasn't able to mother you and the w the gap between those two things taught you a lot.

Samantha Morton7:35

Well, I think when I used to go and see her at the occasional weekend, I'd run away to her all the time. My clothes always smelt clean, and she'd use comfort, and she gave me bubble baths. I just saw this amazing woman. Her name is Pam, and she was a pie packer at Pork Farms, and we used to joke about that. She had many lives, did my mum. But she.

Samantha Morton7:55

was so loving and the food was always nice, pork chops and roast potatoes, and she did a great Yorkshire pudding. She was very zen. Her attitude about life or cleaning or being and certainly how she dealt with her terminal cancer was

Samantha Morton8:12

It's so inspiring, but I was not privy to seeing her when she was very poorly, when I was very small, with her mental health issues. That's what people were rude about and mean about. Women aren't allowed to be angry. If they've been raped or sexually abused, things weren't talked about. And what about your dad? Tell me about him.

Samantha Morton8:35

Ah

Samantha Morton8:36

Gosh, it's complicated because he's still alive and I have a huge amount of love for him and respect for elements of his parenting. He was a single dad with three kids in the eighties, losing his job as a miner, he was a knocker.

Presenter8:49

Daughter of a salesman.

Samantha Morton8:51

Yeah. But my dad would do anything he could to make sure we were eating properly. So he made his own bread, he grew vegetables in the garden, used to write poetry, he was a member of the Socialist Workers' Party, he played guitar, he was such a laugh, but sadly had a temper.

Samantha Morton9:09

Um maybe to some degree growing up in the seventies and the eighties kids did get a good eye-in, but I think about the levels to which we got good eye-ins and it it wasn't right and it wasn't normal and it wasn't safe. So there's these great positive memories of of as him being an incredible dad.

Samantha Morton9:34

And then these dark memories of him

Samantha Morton9:37

being again poorly and I I do see it as an illness and the illness affecting our family and destroying our family at that time.

Samantha Morton9:46

I wish him no ill, and I love him dearly, and I feel sad that by just being my dad and my story is what it is, I have to maybe talk about those things. It's extremely good.

Presenter9:57

complex and you know we're grateful to you for sharing that with us. Sam, it's time to take a break for some music. This is disc number two. What are you taking to the island next and why have you chosen this one?

Samantha Morton10:05

Yeah.

Samantha Morton10:08

Yeah, that's one.

Samantha Morton10:09

Oh, it's okay, so this one is... This is a band called The Charlatans. I just love them and I love this track in particular called Flower. That's what we're going to listen to. And the lead singer is Tim Burgess. The thing about The Charlatans, at the time I couldn't articulate it, but his music used to take me on a journey. He's got this way with his voice that literally is heaven. So that's why this song is here. And this song is about little Sam running around Nottingham in her flares, having the time of her life, falling in love with my first boyfriend. Oh my gosh, he was so gorgeous. And

Samantha Morton10:47

This song makes me so happy and takes me right back.

Speaker 210:52

If I was to have bed I don't wish you to know

Speaker 211:01

It's time to find myself again.

Speaker 211:11

This cold is hills and sunny streets, this hollow for a smile.

Speaker 211:20

I know. You waste them all

Presenter11:27

The Charlatans and Flower.

Presenter11:30

So Sam Morton, by by your early teens you were permanently living in care, and you'd been made a ward of court when you were eleven, I think.

Presenter11:37

You told us a little bit about your family circumstances, and you have a very different perspective now on why that happened. But what did you know about it at the time? What did you know about why you were in care?

Samantha Morton11:48

They don't tell you why you were literally living with your little black plastic bag with your contents in just getting moved from pillar to post.

Presenter12:01

The first children's home that you were in was called Red Tiles, and you made friends there. You've said that some of the residential social workers were wonderful, but you were also abused there.

Presenter12:12

um sexually abused. You weren't safe there either.

Samantha Morton12:17

That was the first children's home I lived in and I also would be at an emer emergency home sometimes. Like if you run away and then you were got in the night by the police or whatever, you'd be sent somewhere just for the night. But Red Tyres was the first place that I

Samantha Morton12:33

Called home and yet an amazing place, a place filled with a huge amount of love and care. I'm not going to mention any names, but if any of the staff are listening, you'll know who you are. There were people that were kind and thoughtful and generous and inspiring and educating me. I mean, amazing people.

Samantha Morton12:59

But also within the system you have people that sadly.

Samantha Morton13:05

abuse their positions of power.

Presenter13:07

I mean, Sam, we know that many children in that situation who are abused.

Presenter13:12

They don't tell anyone about what they're suffering, but you actually did.

Presenter13:17

What happened? How did people react? Who did you talk to?

Samantha Morton13:20

Talking.

Samantha Morton13:22

I told my mum.

Samantha Morton13:24

Because it frightened me.

Samantha Morton13:26

I mean, I was always someone that

Samantha Morton13:28

Wasn't easily frightened.

Samantha Morton13:30

And I was over I was seeing things as well and I was seeing abuse of other kids, yeah.

Presenter13:34

Abuse of other kids, yeah.

Samantha Morton13:35

Yeah, and um so I went and told my mum and my step dad what had happened and I said, you know, I've t I've already told the staff and I told my social worker and they've not done anything. I don't wa I don't want to go back. And so we went to the police.

Samantha Morton13:51

with the hope that

Samantha Morton13:53

You know, I suppose when you're a kid, you you don't fully you just want it to stop, you don't want that to carry on anymore. And what that.

Speaker 113:58

Don't do it.

Speaker 114:00

What

Samantha Morton14:01

From my understanding, the people that did what they did were they were downgraded, and I was moved to another home, but they were allowed to stay in the job at the time.

Presenter14:12

You would take

Samantha Morton14:12

Did it feel like people being punished? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because the two individuals were you know, apart from this incident, were amazing, funny, confident, strong, clever. I thought these people were amazing people.

Presenter14:14

You have been punished.

Samantha Morton14:28

Like I absolutely adored them, and it was a big shock to me, what happened.

Samantha Morton14:33

Because I actually really genuinely cared about these individuals that that did what they did as well, and it was heartbreaking.

Presenter14:41

Yeah.

Presenter14:42

Sam, we're going to take a break for some music. Tell us about this next piece and why you've chosen it today.

Presenter14:49

That

Samantha Morton14:49

This is a song called The Town I Loved So Well by Luke Kelly from the Dubliners. Growing up I knew that my mum was Polish Irish, but I didn't f know really what that meant.

Samantha Morton15:01

And I didn't fully understand the history of our family. So, when I, luckily for me, got this job, Mary McGuokian gave me a job in my first, I'd say, proper film called This Is the Sea, and I went to Ireland for the first time. My stepdad had been in the military and had served in Northern Ireland. He was from Glasgow, from the Gorbals, and I loved him enormously and worshipped the ground he walked on. And he'd had a really tough time in Northern Ireland. And I didn't understand the politics of Northern Ireland, and I was very naive.

Samantha Morton15:37

And I started to educate myself. And, you know, hearing these, they call them rebel songs, people telling stories through song about oppression and having grown up in care, having been oppressed, having been, you know, my voice wasn't worthy of anything, my opinions didn't matter, I didn't have a voice, I didn't belong anywhere. And so this song appealed to me on so many levels. I get emotional thinking about it. And I just I suppose this song makes me feel

Samantha Morton16:10

that I can identify slightly with the feelings of that, and that through song and art and music and we can tell our stories, and then through telling our stories maybe times will change.

Samantha Morton16:28

Running off the dark lane.

Samantha Morton16:33

That's the game.

Speaker 216:34

Yeah.

Samantha Morton16:36

And down behind the fountain.

Samantha Morton16:42

Uh

Speaker 216:42

Those were happy days in so many.

Speaker 216:49

Many ways.

Speaker 216:52

In the town I

Presenter16:55

I love sword well.

Presenter16:59

Luke Kelly and The Town I Loved So Well.

Presenter17:03

So, Sam Morton, you were in and out of care in your teens. You did go to school, West Bridgeford Comprehensive, but you left when you were just thirteen and You were swept up in the rave scene around that time. Is that is that what you were doing instead of school, going off to rave?

Samantha Morton17:16

Doon instead

Samantha Morton17:19

A bit of acting as well. I was in Soldier Soldier.

Samantha Morton17:22

And I think it initially started me not going to school because I couldn't get to school. I'd had nice foster parents in Ruddington and West Bridgeford, and then I'd gone off to Red Tiles and I'd had a foster placement before that breakdown. And I just it was two buses and I had a voluntary driver who I used to fight with because she said kids were asking for it when they were abused and she had a smelly dog in the car and I was not having it. So I didn't go to school. But to be fair to the school, they tried really hard to help me. I mean, they really did. They must have been able to see your potential.

Presenter17:53

Yeah.

Presenter17:57

You must have been breathed.

Samantha Morton17:57

I think so. They tried. I kept getting expelled though, which is weird because you meant to only get expelled once, but I think I got expelled three times. But I could never get the money to go to a rave, do you know what I mean? And started shoplifting to get food because I was running away all the time. And I'd shoplift and then I'd shoplift for orders. So if somebody wanted some clothes, I'd go and get what they wanted, or body shop, lip balm, or makeup or whatever, and then just get the money. So get myself some food. And then I was saving up and I was like, I'm going to go to one of these raves. So I did. I went to a rave and it changed my life.

Samantha Morton18:36

Oh my gosh, it was this feeling of love and community and I loved music obviously even then and it felt like a revolution. I was very young, I was too young to be doing what I was doing, obviously. But

Samantha Morton18:51

when I was at one of these raves. Everybody's friends, isn't it? I didn't see any aggression, no violence, and the music was phenomenal. And also it was a family for me. I didn't have a family because I was always in and out of all these different places. There was no consistency.

Presenter19:05

So, alongside that, you had this sense of family, obviously, also pretty out there in terms of drugs and overdoing that side of it.

Samantha Morton19:11

Might fit.

Presenter19:12

Alongside that, how did your connection with the central television workshop start? It was Ian Smith, I think, who was your mentor.

Samantha Morton19:18

I think who was

Samantha Morton19:19

Yeah. I think if I could just go back to a drug thing that I didn't do

Samantha Morton19:23

a lot of drugs, but I did try drugs and I didn't fully understand what I was involved in. It's really bad, but I never saw it as taking drugs, of being a druggist. I actually hated the idea of drugs'cause my idea of drugs was Zamo off Grange Old with heroin.

Samantha Morton19:40

Because there wasn't that much education about ecstasy when I was a kid. It was a new drug.

Samantha Morton19:44

I think that the drugs I some of the drugs I took then healed a huge amount of trauma.

Samantha Morton19:51

And I think in future generations they will be using some of those drugs in very special ways to help people.

Samantha Morton19:57

And they're already starting to. I'm not advocating everybody go out and take some pills, but I think that certainly in an accidental way it was a positive force, not a negative force. But obviously, drugs can lead into other things, and for some people, addiction is an absolute horrific life damaging for families, everybody, as is alcohol. I'm waffling now, Lauren. We've got that. Don't worry.

Speaker 120:09

But obviously.

Presenter20:20

No, we've got it. We've got that. Don't worry. So, alongside all that, you've got that side.

Samantha Morton20:23

Beside all that, you've got that side of life going and then you've got the central television workshop run by Ian Smith. What happened was I was at junior school in West Bridgeford and this teacher turned up, Mr Thompson, and he was amazing and he did drama and I didn't really know what drama was and he just said I was good. He said listen, he wrote down on a piece of paper, Central Junior TV Workshop and I should go and look into it because I might get in, I'd be good.

Presenter20:27

Yeah.

Samantha Morton20:48

Because you couldn't just go into the group, the actual audition, it was really hard to get in.

Samantha Morton20:51

And then at Red Tiles, one of the staff members took me along and I got into the workshop.

Samantha Morton20:57

And what Ian did, or what the workshop did, they put on their own plays, they had an edit suite with camera equipment.

Samantha Morton21:05

Ian was just doing the maddest improvisations and putting on plays and and then we'd get cast as extras in shows that Central T V were doing. So it was just different and seemed to suit me. Sam, let's take some more music.

Presenter21:19

This is your fourth disc today. Why have you chosen it?

Samantha Morton21:22

Oh my gosh. Okay.

Samantha Morton21:24

It's called This Must Be the Place: Naive Melody by Talking Heads. I'm now nineteen.

Samantha Morton21:29

I'd moved to New York and this song encapsulates meeting my baby's father, Charlie, Esme's dad, meeting Shifra, my best friend, working in New York. And there's a place called the Cherry Tavern, and I was living in the East Village and going to this little pub and they had this jukebox. And it was the first time I ever heard this song in this place. And oh my, it just blew my mind. And this idea that sing into my mouth, that line.

Samantha Morton22:00

And I had this really amazing childhood friend, and he was a guy called Darren, Darren Smart, and he moved in with me when I kind of moved back to London, and it became our song. And Darren sadly passed away a few years ago, so I read the words to this song at his funeral. So this song means so much to me to do with Darren living in New York. Just hope, yeah, optimism.

Speaker 222:26

I can't tell what

Speaker 222:30

Than you are used by me.

Speaker 222:34

There was a time

Speaker 222:36

Oh, we were

Speaker 222:39

Someone else, this is where I'll be, where I'll be, well.

Presenter22:59

Talking heads and this must be the place, naive melody. Sam Morton, you've said that you want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University, you don't have to have gone to Rada, you don't have to have parents who'll support you to succeed. When your career started, you were still in care. You were homeless for a while, you were in trouble with the police, there was an incident where you were convicted of threatening someone with a knife. Incredibly traumatic things happened to you as a young person.

Presenter23:29

How did you come to turn that around? And was there a moment when you thought, I think I might have made it out of this?

Samantha Morton23:36

Yeah.

Samantha Morton23:39

Yeah, I was living at an independence unit, which is just a stupid term for homeless hostel. For young people, you can be there for years. It's when you're there's nowhere for you.

Samantha Morton23:50

Um and I got the part in peak practice.

Samantha Morton23:54

And that was Ian giving me the train fare to go to London,'cause he'd heard about this audition, and he'd thought I'd be really good playing a runaway.

Samantha Morton24:01

I said, I think I could do that for them in if they'll give me the part. And off I went and I got the part. So I was still in the system, if you like, when I started the bigger roles. But going back to the knife crime.

Speaker 124:08

When I start

Samantha Morton24:12

I was involved in a situation in the particular home I was at where one girl was bullying other kids and I was fed up at being beaten up. And I had taken, sadly, some drugs and I'd been away to some rave somewhere. And I got back and there was a little boy that had been pimped and he was nine years old and I snapped.

Samantha Morton24:39

And I thought this girl had been doing it and I s I snapped and I said I was going to kill her.

Samantha Morton24:43

I didn't harm her, I didn't touch her, but I said those words, and I regret it, and I am sorry, and I was sorry to her when I was in the cells for three days, solitary confinement as a child, in adult cells, and I was mortified.

Samantha Morton24:58

And I am sorry to her. We were all abused.

Samantha Morton25:02

She was a child herself.

Samantha Morton25:04

Nobody looked after us properly.

Samantha Morton25:06

We were rioting in that home because they were locking the fridges at night. The telly we were not safe. You had two members of staff on duty with 14, 15 kids, and then the staff members nineteen years old. I am incredibly sorry, but it wasn't just like self-defence. I was angry at the system. I've rambled. I wanted to kind of put the records straight a little bit, I think.

Presenter25:27

I've rambled.

Samantha Morton25:30

Yeah.

Presenter25:30

I do, we understand, absolutely, there's a context around that which is really important.

Presenter25:36

So you said that despite everything that you went through, you always knew you were going to be okay. How was that? How can that be?

Samantha Morton25:48

Faith and God and love.

Samantha Morton25:54

And when I was little, I did get very confused with my relationship with faith.

Samantha Morton25:59

But I always felt loved. And in the same way as I look at my children and I know I love them and it's so enormous and it's so overwhelming and it's so huge, that's the love I feel from God.

Samantha Morton26:15

And so when you're small, or if you're in pain, or in a very, very

Samantha Morton26:20

tough situation by accepting that love and allowing that love, the most amazing transformative things can happen to you.

Samantha Morton26:31

So that's how I think that I was able to

Samantha Morton26:35

To survive, I suppose?

Presenter26:37

I think on that note, we'd better hear some more music, Sam. What's it gonna be?

Samantha Morton26:43

Oh now

Samantha Morton26:47

That really weirdly ties in with this one. So, this is Ladies and Gentlemen: We Are Floating in Space by spiritualized Jason Pierce. I first bought the CD spin about probably 18, and years later, I'm introduced to and I make friends with Jason and his partner Juliet. I love them incredibly just so much. And I got very sick, I had a stroke, and I went to see him play live after I got better. And this song.

Samantha Morton27:23

just makes me think of that time and the love of friendship and his lyrics and and watching him perform is a is very euphoric and and beautiful and very deep and so that's why this song

Speaker 227:39

is here.

Speaker 227:40

Ladies and gentlemen, we're floating in space.

Samantha Morton27:49

Getting strong today A giant step each day On a little bit of life to take

Speaker 228:01

The pan

Speaker 228:03

Uh

Samantha Morton28:04

Getting strong today

Samantha Morton28:07

Child sleep each day

Speaker 228:12

I like Why does it stay?

Presenter28:18

Spiritualized, ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.

Presenter28:22

So Sam Morton, that track helped you through a very difficult time during your rehabilitation after you had a stroke and you'd been hit on the head, I think, by a piece of falling plaster from a ceiling.

Samantha Morton28:33

Uh

Presenter28:33

Yeah.

Samantha Morton28:33

Oh, it's so silly. So I was born on Friday the thirteenth, Lauren, and I've had some really funny accidents. Not funny, like they are funny to me, but when I tell them to people they're like, Flipping.

Samantha Morton28:45

You know yes, I was living I'd bought this dream house and when I first moved to London, the amazing actress Kate Hardie took me to Spitalfields Market. And I remember walking down these streets going,

Samantha Morton28:57

I must have been about sixteen and I remember thinking, oh

Samantha Morton29:01

One day I'm going to live there in one of those houses. And I did. I managed to buy my dream home. And

Samantha Morton29:11

Yeah, so the house was old and there wasn't enough hair in the plaster. And I'd had a party the night before, as I often did, and everyone had left, and in the morning I was standing at the bottom of the stairs and all the kids were were going to get pancakes and

Samantha Morton29:29

I was like, come on, we're gonna go and

Samantha Morton29:33

and I saw the little children's faces at the top of the stairs.

Samantha Morton29:37

And then we heard this noise, and then the entire ceiling just fell on me.

Samantha Morton29:42

And yeah, it had uh cut a vertebral uh artery, my neck.

Samantha Morton29:48

Yeah.

Samantha Morton29:49

I was very poorly.

Samantha Morton29:50

But I always think that I'm glad it was me because it could have been all those kids. It's a miracle it was me. Thank God it was me.

Samantha Morton29:57

You know?

Samantha Morton29:58

How long did it take to get better?

Samantha Morton30:01

Three three months but longer. And I it's hard with stroke because you you feel the effects forever really in a way. Any kind of head injury can cause uh anger, confusion, disfluency, how you process information. I play piano and uh my left hand is not what it was.

Presenter30:03

Bed.

Presenter30:10

Hmm.

Samantha Morton30:23

Yeah.

Presenter30:23

Sam, as soon as your career took off, it really took flight. When you got your first Oscar nomination, you were just twenty-one.

Presenter30:32

What did you think about being recognised in that way and s being so successful at s such a young age? Did you reflect on it at the time or

Samantha Morton30:40

Will you just in the moment?

Samantha Morton30:41

Didn't mean anything to me then.

Samantha Morton30:44

Means more to me now.

Samantha Morton30:46

I was just happy for Nikki, my agent, because I love her and she's amazing. And I just wanted to make her proud. And so she was very excited about the Oscars. And we took Esme, who's a baby. Charlie and I took Esme to the Oscars. And it was just like a bit of a laugh, really, staying in a fancy hotel. But I didn't.

Samantha Morton31:07

It's become all of the awards things have become so branded now that it almost takes it a little bit away from the individual.

Samantha Morton31:16

I've been on juries, so I understand how these manipulations work.

Samantha Morton31:20

And how the politics and how much money it takes to get a nomination. I did nothing to get a nomination. I did a couple of press interviews, that was it. I didn't campaign.

Samantha Morton31:28

Now you categorically cannot get an Oscar.

Samantha Morton31:31

Without a campaign. Back then it was a little bit more you were based on merit, I suppose, and if people thought you were really good.

Samantha Morton31:39

And did you fail?

Presenter31:39

Uh

Samantha Morton31:40

Like people thought you were

Presenter31:40

were really good? Were you sitting there and at the Oscars thinking, do you know what?

Presenter31:45

Five years ago I was in a homeless hostel.

Samantha Morton31:48

No, I didn't think that at all then. I was just breastfeeding and my my boobs were in pain. I was leaking all over my dress and my my suit,'cause I wore a Paul Smith suit actually. Sex Pistols T shirt. It was a great look.

Presenter31:57

Brittle's t-shirt. It was a great look.

Samantha Morton32:00

Thank you. My makeup went a bit wrong though. I hate I hate makeup.

Samantha Morton32:04

But um

Samantha Morton32:06

I didn't feel that way, Lauren, because I was just so happy to be a mum. As me was, I think, eight weeks old.

Samantha Morton32:12

I felt good because my mates told me I was good, not because the Academy told me I was good. You know, if I and Smith said I was good, I was good.

Samantha Morton32:20

But I'd now realize in hindsight

Samantha Morton32:23

But it means a huge amount, and I'm privileged and fortunate enough because it it opens doors.

Presenter32:28

Sam, it's time for your next disc. Tell us about this one.

Samantha Morton32:30

Oh, yeah.

Samantha Morton32:32

Oh, this one is uh

Samantha Morton32:34

This is what I'm gonna say.

Samantha Morton32:37

Say the name of the band wrong. Uh, it's Eistrezender Naubauten, I think that's how you say it. The song is called Blume, and this is the French version of the song. My husband, who I love very, very much, Harry, he started dating me and and he took me to one of their gigs and I met

Samantha Morton32:55

His stepmum, Sophie De Stemple, who is incredible, was incredible to me in kind. And she introduced me to Blixa Bargeld, who is in this band. And so this song, this band,

Samantha Morton33:07

encapsulates a time in my life of of just you know, I was I was in my late twenties, so I didn't know that I could experience love again like that, and I didn't know that I could experience

Samantha Morton33:18

Having a family, another family on top of the family I already have, my little Mianesme that was just so tight, and then I was able to.

Samantha Morton33:27

Have what I didn't have as a kid. I don't even know what they're singing about, Lauren, because it's all foreign to me. But.

Samantha Morton33:34

But I really like the song.

Speaker 233:37

Chasantimum ert.

Samantha Morton33:38

Well

Speaker 233:39

Just

Speaker 233:45

Supernova unitoises precér.

Speaker 233:51

Astra.

Speaker 234:00

La selectaffy multiplier.

Speaker 234:06

Yeah.

Speaker 234:07

I know.

Presenter34:12

Einstrützender Niebarten with Blumer.

Presenter34:16

Sam, given everything that you've talked about today, you know, what you went through as a child, and also now having your perspective as an adult, I imagine that you've thought a lot about the idea of forgiveness. And I wonder to what extent you're able to look back and forgive adults who, either as family members or as professionals, should have taken care of you and didn't.

Samantha Morton34:42

I think I have absolute forgiveness for everybody.

Samantha Morton34:46

But I do not forget that

Samantha Morton34:49

When you become an adult, you are in a position of power, certainly over children. And I think that people in a professional role have a duty of care not only to the children that they're looking after, but to do their jobs properly. And I think a lot of people failed in those jobs in regards to me and many of my friends, you know, that I grew up with, foster siblings, etc., my siblings. And I just wish certain individuals would put their hands up and say, Yeah, we we were wrong, we could have done better, but people don't want to admit any liability in the culture that we are now because it's like people get sued or

Samantha Morton35:30

What's that going to achieve? Unless people say we got it wrong, we want to get it right.

Samantha Morton35:36

How are we going to change?

Samantha Morton35:39

Tell us about your seven. The discs

Presenter35:40

Uh

Samantha Morton35:40

Yeah.

Presenter35:40

Sam, it's time for some more music. What's it gonna be?

Samantha Morton35:43

Oh, this song is. I first heard this song on the documentary Hypernormalization that Adam Curtis made. And oh gosh, the song is called Dream Baby Dream by Suicide. And this song was the song that got me through, if you like, my mother's that kind of allowing myself to move forward from my mother's death. When she passed away, I was wallowing, but just feeling this.

Samantha Morton36:13

this enormous sense of loss. And then

Samantha Morton36:17

I went to watch this film again and

Samantha Morton36:21

All of a sudden it was like the blue butterfly inside of me, which I've always had as a kid, I've always visualized these blue butterflies from when I was a tiny, tiny kid, just flew out of my heart and something lifted and shifted, and all of a sudden I was okay.

Samantha Morton36:39

And I knew I was I knew I was gonna be okay.

Samantha Morton36:42

'Cause she was still with me.

Samantha Morton36:44

And she always will be.

Samantha Morton36:46

She always was and she always will be, so this is why this song is called Dream Baby Dream.

Speaker 236:54

Keep on dreaming party and baby

Speaker 237:00

Keep and transparent forever.

Speaker 237:06

Oh dream.

Samantha Morton37:08

Yeah.

Samantha Morton37:14

True verb drink

Speaker 237:15

Yeah.

Speaker 237:20

Forever.

Presenter37:24

Suicide and Dream Baby Dream.

Presenter37:27

Sam Morton, you recently co-wrote and starred in Channel 4's hugely successful I Am Kirstie. It was about a young single mother who gets into debt and is forced into sex work. You have a platform now to tell stories that otherwise wouldn't be on screen, whether it's the big screen or the small screen. How careful are you about the stories that you want to tell and what's your plan going forward?

Samantha Morton37:52

I think I'm very careful and I think there has to be absolute justification for your message and I don't want to be just some kind of socially conscious kind of flag waving, beating my chest on all these matters, because it isn't just about that. I think a story, a human story, is important whether you are upper class, common, whatever culture you're from. It's about the story and the characters fundamentally for me when you're doing that. Otherwise I'd be a documentary maker. So at the moment for me I feel that I can only tell stories I know a lot about as in writing or directing because that's where my truth comes from and that's where I'm most comfortable. I'm not saying I can't go into other areas but that's just where I'm comfortable. Write about what you know you know or if you don't know about it make sure you know about it before you put that director's hat on. And moving forward I'm in the process of writing a T V series, writing another film. The Unloved is part of a trilogy so this is the second part of that trilogy and then the third part I haven't yet got funding for. So that is the hope that I make more content. It's horrible to call it content isn't it? But make more stuff that people might enjoy. And I have to say going back to The Unloved it is a bit grim but it's also very funny.

Samantha Morton39:10

And I think the thing about my childhood was, yeah, they were really tough stuff, but I had a laugh. I had a great time as well, and I'm not just saying that.

Samantha Morton39:18

I had the most magical feral childhood as well as some of the horrible stuff happening. And so there's always a a lot of humour in it.

Samantha Morton39:27

Because how many times think? Oh, I can't cope with this actually. I actually can't watch this film, it's going to be too upsetting.

Samantha Morton39:32

I don't want that either because life is full of colour, so I hope that I can make people laugh as well as cry.

Presenter39:40

Well, you have done both today, and you can see it in your work, and you can see it in you. You have such a sense of joy.

Presenter39:47

Where does that come from, and how do you maintain it?

Samantha Morton39:50

When I was little, I mean, this is going to sound really bad. I'd do anything for a laugh, and I grew up around a lot of very funny people.

Samantha Morton39:58

I love that. You know, God, the world is tough enough. Come on. You know, we've got to smile and.

Samantha Morton40:04

And

Samantha Morton40:06

Not to get all heavy, but it's like, you know, don't borrow trouble from the future. Enjoy the moments if you can in those mindful ways. Just try not to dwell too much on the negative and invite the light in. And I think joy, I get it from my kids, I get it from my husband, I get it just from the world is a beautiful, magical place, and people are amazing. Oh, friends, the sunshine. I love the autumn. I love the mushrooms growing out of the ground. I love.

Samantha Morton40:35

Music is, I say, therapy and joy that's it's everywhere. You just gotta see it. You've gotta be open to it.

Presenter40:41

It's time for one more disc today. It's your eighth. What are we going to hear?

Samantha Morton40:46

Yeah.

Samantha Morton40:47

Oh, I'm so happy to be able to share this with your listeners. This song is called I Remember by Molly Drake.

Samantha Morton40:57

It sounds weird, but I got sick a while ago. I'm okay now, but I got sick and it was a bit scary again. And I suddenly thought, what if what if I wasn't here anymore? I was thinking about that for a while, and what your legacy is and what you can leave behind.

Samantha Morton41:15

If it was all to suddenly end, th this song is one of those kind of I'm not saying this is the end of my life or anything like that,'cause it's not. But this song gives me a lot of hope, but it also is where I'm at now. I'm at this time in my life where

Samantha Morton41:28

I mean, I could pinch myself, everything's so good. And I am blessed with my family and my children. This is Nick Drake's mom.

Samantha Morton41:38

Oh when you well, they'll you you'll hear it, the listeners will hear it, and hopefully they'll see what I'm talking about, that this is a a bit of a perfect song, really.

Samantha Morton41:48

We tramped the open moorland in the rainy April weather.

Speaker 141:49

Yeah.

Speaker 241:49

Tram

Samantha Morton41:55

Came upon the little inn that we had found together.

Speaker 241:58

We had found

Samantha Morton42:01

The landlord gave us toast

Samantha Morton42:05

And stop to share a joke.

Speaker 242:07

Uh

Samantha Morton42:09

Yeah.

Speaker 242:09

And I remember firelight, I remember firelight.

Speaker 242:16

Myron

Samantha Morton42:16

Remember file And you remember smooth

Presenter42:27

Molly Drake and I Remember. So, Sam Morton, it's time to send you to your island, to cast you away. I'm going to give you the books, Sam, the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. You can also, of course, take a book of your own. What will that be?

Samantha Morton42:42

A Yoga Book

Samantha Morton42:44

It's BKS Iyenga and it's by basically the Bible of yoga. Um because I keep falling in and out with yoga. As in I can do it for a few years and I have to stop and then do it again, and I want that to be something I can do and practise for hours and hours and get it right. You can also take

Presenter42:59

A luxury item with you for pleasure or sensory stimulation. What can we give you there?

Presenter43:05

Can I have a photograph, please, of my children? It's yours. You can have it, absolutely. Thank you. And finally, which track would you save if the waves threatened to wash your disks away?

Presenter43:18

Uh

Samantha Morton43:18

It has to be ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space by spiritualized. Because that's what we are doing. It's all bigger than we know and it's better than we know. And this is one part of our journey. But I believe that that we are more than this. So yeah, that song encapsulates

Presenter43:36

Samantha Morton, thank you very much for sharing your desert island discs with us. You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.

Samantha Morton43:45

Yeah.

Presenter43:56

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sam. As I hope you know by now, the Desert Island Disc's back catalogue includes many of her fellow actors and directors, including Dame Judy Dench, Anne-Marie Duff, Kathy Burke, and Emma Thompson. And you can find all of those editions on BBC Sounds. Next time, my guest will be Baroness Fluella Benjamin. Do join us then.

Speaker 144:35

Have you ever wondered what teachers talk about when no one else is listening?

Speaker 144:39

Well, you're about to find out. I'm Maureen Bake and my brand new podcast, The Secret Life of Teachers, goes behind the headlines to see what's really going on as teachers go back to school after the lockdown. I was a teacher for almost a decade, but I never witnessed a time like this. So, I've created my own virtual secret staff room, where each week some teacher friends and I will discuss everything from remote learning and mental health to offset inspections and teachers behaving badly.

Speaker 145:09

If you'd also like to overhear their uncensored starfrom confessions, then subscribe to my podcast, The Secret Life of Teachers, on BBC Sounds.