Samantha Morton, actor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Samantha Morton is an actor and director. She has appeared in films directed by Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg, and is also known for her work on independent productions, often with serious themes such as prostitution and bereavement. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards and won many accolades including a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. Born in Nottingham in 1977, she had a difficult childhood. She was first taken into care as a baby, then spent the next decade between foster parents and her father’s home before being taken into care permanently at the age of 11. She was sexually abused in one of the homes, and left school at the age of 13. She discovered acting when a teacher recommended she apply to the Central Junior Television Workshop which lead to her appearing in TV series including Soldier Soldier, Cracker, and Band of Gold. She went onto appear in the films, Emma and Jane Eyre and received her first Academy Award nomination for her role as a mute laundress in Woody Allen’s 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown. Her second was for her portrayal of a grieving mother in the 2003 film In America. Other roles have ranged from Mary, Queen of Scots, in Elizabeth: The Golden Age to a war widow in The Messenger and the wife of a serial killer in Rillington Place. She made her directorial debut with The Unloved in 2009, a film based on her own experience of the care system. It won the BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama. Sam lives in Sussex with her husband, Harry Holm. They have two children together, Edie and Teddy. Sam also has a daughter, Esme, from her relationship with Charlie Creed-Miles. DISC ONE: Burden of Shame by UB40 DISC TWO: Flower by The Charlatans DISC THREE: The Town I Loved So Well (Live) by Luke Kelly And The Dubliners DISC FOUR: Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) by Talking Heads DISC FIVE: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized DISC SIX: Blume (French version) by Einstürzende Neubauten DISC SEVEN: Dream Baby Dream by Suicide DISC EIGHT: I Remember by Molly Drake BOOK CHOICE: Light on Yoga: The Bible of Modern Yoga by B. K. S. Iyengar LUXURY ITEM: A photograph of Samantha's children CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:05.0	Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.
0:09.0	Every week I ask my guests to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take
0:13.4	with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:16.7	This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and for right reasons the
0:21.8	music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:24.8	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:30.0	Music Music
0:47.4	My cast away this week is the actor and director Samantha Morton.
0:52.0	She was still a teenager when her breakthrough roles in the TV dramas Cracker and Band of
0:56.4	Gold earned her a formidable reputation.
0:59.4	By her mid-twenties she was a Hollywood star, working with the likes of Steven Spielberg
1:03.8	and Woody Allen and winning two Oscar nominations.
1:07.2	Twenty years and many awards later she's one of the most respected actors of her generation.
1:12.7	With the quick silver talent her minority report co-star Tom Cruise wants described as a
1:17.7	lightning inner bottle.
1:19.8	If her professional achievements are extraordinary in themselves, set alongside her personal
1:24.1	story, there's nothing short of miraculous.
1:26.9	She grew up in care, left school at 13, experienced homelessness as a young teenager and is a
1:32.3	survivor of childhood trauma that more recently in her career she's returned to onscreen in
1:37.8	the BAFTA-winning films I Am Cursty and her directorial debut The Unloved.
1:43.6	She says, I'm an actor, this is what I do, I'm not a charity worker, I'm not a doctor
	...

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