The Louis Theroux Podcast - S1 EP8: Samantha Morton on growing up in the care system and facing adversity in the acting world

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Louis meets actor and director Samantha Morton. The pair discuss depicting the British care system in her directorial debut, The Unloved, turning up high on live television, and the enthusiasm of Tom Cruise. Warnings: Some strong language and discussions of sensitive themes including drug use and sexual abuse. If you've been affected by sexual violence or any of the themes in this episode, you can find information and resources at spotify.com/resources Please note that this episode was recorded before the SAG actors strike. Links:  Minority Report (dir. Steven Spielberg) Minority Report (2002) Official Trailer #1 - Tom Cruise Sci-Fi Action Movie Under The Skin (dir. Carine Adler) Under the Skin.1997.trailer.avi Sweet and Lowdown (dir. Woody Allen) Sweet and Lowdown - Official Trailer - Woody Allen Movie Morvern Callar (dir. Lynne Ramsay) Morvern Callar (2002) Official UK Trailer The Whale (dir. Darren Aronofsky) The Whale | Official Trailer HD | A24 The Unloved (dir. Samantha Morton) The Unloved | Trail | Channel 4 Louis Theroux - Law and Disorder in Johannesburg https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g1vdq/louis-theroux-specials-law-and-disorder-in-johannesburg Band of Gold https://www.itv.com/watch/band-of-gold/1a2028    About Adam About Adam - Trailer Mister Lonely (dir. Harmony Korine) Mister Lonely [2007] Official Trailer Samantha Morton as Alpha in The Walking Dead Alpha shows Daryl The Whisperer Horde | THE WALKING DEAD 9x15 [HD] Scene John Carter of Mars (dir. Andrew Stanton) John Carter of Mars | OFFICIAL trailer #1 US (2012) Gil Scott-Heron - I’m New Here https://open.spotify.com/album/1S5FP0ZGG6XGOIdL8OsrZB?si=HJFwsy8QSaOHcvG0xLZ_8Q Candleshoe Candleshoe trailer Samantha Morton interview with Simon Hattenstone https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/12/samantha-morton-interview-rotherham-sexual-abuse Longford (dir. Tom Hooper) LONGFORD Official Trailer (2018) Lord Longford - Myra Hindley Credits:  Producer: Paul Kobrak  Assistant Producer: Maan Al-Yasiri  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett  Music: Miguel D’Oliveira  Show notes compiled by Shaloma Ellis  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows    A Mindhouse Production exclusively for Spotify  www.mindhouse.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here we go. Hello and welcome to the Louis Theroux podcast. Presented by me, Louis Theroux. Presented by me, Louis Theroux. Today, our guest is the amazing actor and director, Samantha Morton. Star of, well, too many brilliant films, but including Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg. Sweet and Lowdown, directed by Woody Allen. Morven Calla, directed by Lynne Ramsey. More recently, The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Basically, she's been in tons of extremely high-quality films.

She's also directed a high-quality film called The Unloved, which we talk about in some detail because in some ways it's a roadmap to her early life. It deals with a young girl growing up in care, something Samantha experienced firsthand in her childhood in Nottingham. The usual warnings to do with intimate, sometimes gritty content, strong language, drug use, sexual abuse. We recorded the episode remotely, just me and Samantha in our respective homes, and the production team in theirs, so slightly at long distance. All of that and much, much more coming up. hello hello nice to see you speak to you likewise it doesn't feel very it's it's hard with this kind of suppose if we're in person and we're going for a walk we wouldn't be with anyone else it'd be just the two of us yeah would you prefer that yeah you'll forget they're here they're behind their little digital curtains yeah thank you for doing this no it's an honor i'm a huge huge fan oh my god so it's amazing i'm not that good i get overstimulated

by compliments i want them and then when i get them it makes me feel overwhelmed but thank you for that i could just start talking about which ones you've seen and enjoyed but people wouldn't learn that much about you maybe all right tell me one that you've seen the one in South Africa or are you going back now the one when I first I mean I think it's just the education of thing how you communicate with people and how it opens up in a very gentle way conversations about things that aren't normally talked about. For me I didn't really understand very much about South Africa in the same ways when I was at school and my brother was serving in Northern Ireland

I didn't understand the politics as a kid you know nobody really talks to children in that way and then years later I was doing a job in Ireland and I was so excited getting my punts in Nottingham like I got my Irish money and I went over to Dublin and I had some rehearsal and then I got the train up to the north working on my accent I went into a pub I went to spend my money I went to buy a pint of Guinness and they said oh we don't take Irish money here and I went what do you mean you don't take Irish money I'm in Ireland and I can't spend Irish money and it was like whoa you know I must have been 17 and it was like a real like oh fuck I didn't realize anything about Northern Ireland I didn't know anything so I think in the past when I've seen your documentaries unbeknownst to the viewer you're just getting

a massive education all the time without it being rubbed down your throat. It's nice to hear that. Yeah, I think a lot of these things that we think of as being complicated or opaque, like geopolitical issues or sociological issues, they're actually very human dramas. I know you grew up in a situation that was in some ways very deprived and you went into care. And that's one of those classic subjects that some people might sort of glaze over. If you read a story in The Guardian, it says new report on care homes. I'd be guilty of sort of saying I don't think I'm going to read that. It sounds quite dry. But at the heart of all these kind of perennial social issues are the most compelling. I don't mean to sound vampiric, but actually extremely relatable and deep human dramas.

Does that make sense yeah completely and so in the end like these issues keep using the word issues but these social issues are played out in a small scale between just humans just human beings yeah these personal stories but this idea that human beings exist that have those thought patterns it was just mind-blowing to me all of those things let me ask you before we we went quite deep quite quick, you're talking to me from where? Home. I was told you're in LA, is that right?

No, I live in England. No, no, I'm in England. I live out of a suitcase, really, like a lot of actors. So I'm about to go to France for five months and was in Atlanta for three years, on and off, making The Walking Dead. I did used to live in New York when I was younger. I loved that for a few years. But Ellie, I've never lived in LA. I've rented a house there, on and off, making The Walking Dead. I did used to live in New York when I was younger. I loved that for a few years.

But Ellie, I've never lived in LA. I've rented like a house there for work and stuff. But no, I can't drive. Can you not? No, and I love the bus. You could actually lose half your life if you tried to get around LA by bus. And their train system is sadly really bad in America. The city's become sort of coterminous with the industry. Do you get on with...

What does coterminous mean? Well, like they're the same thing. I know, it's such a pretentious word. But do you get on with Hollywood, like the industry? I don't know. I don't get on that well with the industry. Maybe because I'm not that recognised there. Interesting point.

It's hard being a small cog. You know, obviously you've got a lot of credibility there, like two times Oscar nominated, amazing history of roles, but you've never lived there. So I guess that's just to do with the driving, is it? It's not just to do with driving, it's to do with mental health. And I think that living in a city where everybody seems hungry and desperate for, when I was younger, I used to think it was for fame. And now I believe it to be for survival, whether it's your healthcare, just feeding your family, whatever. It is a really tough place to be right now, America. But I love America, like love it. I mean, I remember arriving to do some press for Jane Eyre and arriving in New York, people say, oh, you're either going to

love it or you hate it. I remember being at a crosswalk and seeing a Hasidic Jew and a black man and a white woman and everybody's just doing their thing it's Manhattan and I was like I'm home I always felt an outsider being in care growing up in care being a child of the state being judged and hated and treated like shit basically for just being alive and here I was in New York and I was like well everyone's accepted here you can just get on with your life and you can make a success of it I also love aspects of Hollywood I love old Hollywood I love the architecture the Spanish architecture I love the fact that there is a lot of can do like we can do this like you know where is where I'm from it's a bit like just sit yourself down have a think about that one you know I mean I come from a culture where it is so naysaying so this is not for you

that's not your place and I don't feel very English at all I'm British but I don't feel very English my family were Polish Irish and then I was in care my whole life with loads of different foster families so for me I feel most at home in New York but LA it does inspire me and I love the light I love light and I love heat so I take the best bits and then the rest I'm like it can just excuse my language it can just get to fuck I just don't take it on board I don't get involved in any of that stuff I never have you say you can just get to fuck yeah is that. Did you say you can just get to fuck? Yeah. Is that the phrase you said? You said you can just get to fuck. That's not a phrase I've heard before. Because it seems superfluous. It seems unnecessary to put my energy into worrying about those things. I mean, I remember being told when I was very young and doing very well with films that I was

overweight. I was like eight stone and I was a size eight, you know, I was tiny. This was like in the mid to late 90s where there was this thing that you had to be a size zero. And I remember saying to my team, if you like, back then, I will never, I will never fit into any of those boxes. Like, you know, the missing piece meets the big O, the Shel Silverstein thing. I will never be that. I'll never fit in there. So don't try. It's just never going to happen. And when I was offered lots of very, very big movies when I was younger, with all sorts of things attached to them, stipulations, I just said no. A big movie opposite big movie stars of the day still are. And one of the requests was, you don't know your screen test, you've got the role, and you're going to dinner with the heads of the studio and the director and the leading actor and could you please wear a skirt

because they haven't seen you in a skirt yet you've just been wearing jeans the whole time and I said is that a request I might have worn a skirt anyway Lou but I wasn't going to fucking wear a skirt because they told me to wear a skirt or requested I wore a skirt and they said well they will recast you and I said well great it's probably going to be a shit film anyway just sod it fine so I've always had that attitude and And with magazines like Vanity Fair, they didn't really embrace me from the off. I think I was too political in a way. I think they thought I was trouble. And now all the things that I was trouble about are being embraced. Equality, being able to speak for yourself and be heard and have a healthy working environment.

I was considered difficult. so I love my industry I wouldn't be here without it you know what I mean I don't think the British liked me very much for a long time so I'm really chuffed that the Americans did because I wouldn't have my home I wouldn't have the financial security that I have I don't know what I'd have because the British didn't like me they thought I was trouble as well what makes you say that I mean I've been immersing myself with great pleasure in your films the ones I hadn't seen and the TV work as well and what I haven't picked up on is any sense that you've ever been unliked. When I was younger and I was doing a lot of telly work I would be 16 17 years old and I'd be doing incredibly long days six day weeks working on good stuff. I would be 16, 17 years old and I'd be doing incredibly long days, six day weeks,

working on good stuff. But I would be asked to do things that now just wouldn't happen. So, you know, the way that they would ask me to remove my clothing for certain scenes in Band of Gold, say, and there wasn't an etiquette about that. Band of Gold was the TV series that you, one of your first roles on, was it on Channel 4? Yeah, it was on ITV. I did Crackerer first and that was kind of big and then i auditioned for cracker and band of gold in like the same day and got both parts it was great but let me try and as articulately as i can without sounding bitter give you a little bit of a brief history so in care all my life from birth so lots of different foster families going back and living with my dad when he was out of prison, then going back to different foster families, then you get to a certain age where you're not cute anymore, you're not good anymore. And you cannot be fostered. So you are

then put into children's homes. And some of these children's homes, well, most of them have been closed down. You know, lots of independent inquiries and public inquiries now about those particular homes, where the most horrific abuse was happening in those homes. Just can I pause you one second? Yeah. Foster care is where you're living with a family. Are they getting a small income from that? Yeah, they do. Yeah.

I don't know what it is. Which is part of why they do it, presumably, because in theory, like they could adopt you, right? No, no, no, that's very complicated to be adopted. You have to be legally allowed to be adopted. So I was on what's called a matrimonial interim care order, which meant when I was very, very little, when I was taken into care for the first time, my mum was very, very poorly. She'd had a breakdown and was in Mapley Hospital.

My dad suffered serious bouts of manic depression. And he was also a member of the Socialist Workers Party. We were living in communes. It was very idyllic in some ways, like looking back and the banners and his political things and him playing his guitar and making bread and growing the vegetables. It was all like looked great, but there was some serious downsides to all of that. Let's say, for example, an average person suddenly got sick and was in and out of hospital. They were a single mum, single dad. Sometimes the authorities would help that individual and say, listen, you've got no other family, no one can take your child, the child will go into care for a little bit whilst mum or dad gets better. That's kind of a nice version of a child being taken into care because there's just nowhere else.

So that child, let's say it's doing really well at school, say it's nine years old, might just go with a foster family, a local foster family on a short-term foster placement whilst mum or dad or carer gets better I started off on one that was a bit like that because my dad was poorly in and out of prison I never lived with my mummy sadly she I was taken away from her at birth pretty much and then never ever lived with her because my mum and dad also separated when I was very very little and my mum was in hospital, bless her, for her illness. And so I had this childhood like that. And then I was in these children's homes. I was running away from all the time

for various obvious reasons of abuse and neglect and all the rest of it. I was very angry. And then I was put into a homeless hostel at the age of 16. They call them independent units where you're meant to learn how to cook and take care of yourself, pay your bills, but you basically, you haven't got long there.

And luckily for me, at the same time, I'd always been going to this drama workshop that I'd also been kicked out of for drug taking. I did this show called Go Wild and Chris Packham presented it. Go Wild, I remember that. That was the nature show. It famously had a very funky theme tune

that sounded a lot like the horn break from Uptown Funk. Anyway, yeah, so I'm getting off track. No, no, no. Well, I was one of the presenters on that. Anyway, I just discovered going out to raves and I remember taking something and not coming down off it, but still getting on the bus in time to go to work. And I was still really out of it. It was live television. It was a disaster. So I was kicked out of the workshop. So that was really heartbreaking for me because I'd been really badly behaved. Didn't really see it as being badly behaved at the time.

I was just having a good time. How could they tell? Were you not making any sense while presenting the show? I think I was making a lot of sense, but I was properly like, I think I fell over. I was just not the usual Sam. But the point was... That probably exists somewhere.

It does. I used to get auntie's bloomers. I used to get money for that. Seriously? Because I think I fell over with Fungus the bogeyman or something. There was some... Yeah, anyway, I got chucked out of the workshop, which was really sad for me.

But the thing was, I was in a bit of trouble living in this homeless hostel. I'd already been kicked out of the workshop that was giving me a lot of positivity, helping me because I was writing poetry, writing plays, putting them on. And Ian came up to to me and he I got in touch with him to say listen can I be forgiven how do I how do I redeem myself how do I make everything better because this is the only thing in my life that I feel is positive and he was amazing he came over he read some of my poetry

and he said so listen there's this audition in London and it's to play a runaway. And I think you'd be really good at it if you want to do it. And I was like, yes, yes, please. And he gave me the train fare to London. And that was an episode of Peak Practice. And I played Abby, the blind runaway. And then I never stopped working, touch wood to this day. So I'm really digressing here, Louis, but I didn't have a transitional period between Sam, So I'm really digressing here, Louis, but I didn't have a transitional period between Sam, the care system, in trouble with the police, to being a young adult working in the industry. So there was no transition. There wasn't a gap year for Sam. There wasn't anything like that. So I took a lot of my, if you like, street smarts and bought them to set.

So if somebody asked me to get my breasts out or want to see my nipples, rather than saying, no, I really want to speak to my agent, I'd just be like, fuck off. You don't say that on set. You articulately engage with people in conversation. And I was a little scally and not had any kind of training in that way. So that was why I got a bit of a reputation early on for being tricky, because I didn't have the skill set to articulate when I was uncomfortable or if something didn't feel right or I've had to learn all that. In a way you you had an even better skill set which was you know an instinct for self-preservation. People suffer as much from being overly agreeable and kind of going along with things and sometimes you have to be a bit of a dick in order to state your terrain and not be

violated right absolutely and I think saying yes too much is a problem but I think also it was because these were older men that were asking these things of me older men in their 40s saying to me a 16 17 year old young girl we're doing a scene now, and the scene might say, Tracy is in bed with a client. It doesn't say I'm naked. It doesn't say I'm doing anything. And I would arrive on set, and the director or somebody would say, okay, we need no top on here. And I'd be like, really? And the wardrobe girls and the makeup girls would be so kind to me and be like, right, what we're going to do, we're going to put corn plasters on your nipples. So that way, if the camera comes down, they can't use the footage Sam because you've got plasters on your nipples I'd be like okay thank you and so I started off being like I had to do everything

that was asked of me and then I got upset and then I'd start to say I don't want to do this and then say but you have to and then the battle happened I'd be like well fuck off no fire me this is not okay and I didn't have mum and dad on set. I didn't have a chaperone because after 16, you don't have a chaperone. So that's where the trickiness came, I think. I'm being these problems in America. I just feel really safe within the boundaries of how they operate and how they function on a film set. You know, and I think that's because America's so litigious. You know, people have their pay grades and you ask someone a question, they ain't going to answer if it's above their pay grade.

They don't want to get into trouble, which I understand and I equally don't like. But in the UK, certainly in the early 90s when I started, things that went on were like, this is not okay. You don't have to answer in the UK, certainly in the early 90s when I started, things that went on were like, this is not okay. You don't have to answer to anyone, Louis. On a film set here, let's say we've got our production company. We hire people in. We do what we want to do. There's no human resources. There's nobody behind the people. So who do you go to when you're being bullied or you're being taken advantage of in ways that are just not professional, you've got nobody to talk to other than your agents and your union. And equity ain't that strong.

SAG are fantastic in America. They support you, you've got any problems. Anyway, I'm waffling about negative stuff. No, no, no, this is all good. This is helpful. While we're on the subject of impropriety on set or bad practice, can I ask you about Harvey Weinstein? Little bit, and then it might be boring. I'd read that he made some reference

that your arms, he didn't like your arms. Yeah, and that I was unfuckable. I was meant to be doing a movie with Heath Ledger, Matt Damon, what was he? Brothers Grimm. Brothers Grimm was the name of the movie, right? Yeah, and ultimately it just wasn't going to happen.

And it was kind of a lot of mean stuff was going on and the role was offered to lots of actresses but they were all told listen we've offered it to Sam there's complications and most of my friends at the time just said no I'm not going to do it if I'm not wanted for the role you know Heath wants Sam Matt wants Sam it's meant to be Sam there's just a little problem with Harvey and it was to do with bartering over cinematographers and they just play all sorts of games but it made me kind of question why he was so anti-me so I was doing a movie in Philadelphia and I must have been about 19 or 20 I was young and he'd seen a movie called Under the Skin that I'd done that did very, very well at film festivals. And it was the film that Woody Allen saw and then cast me in Sweet and Lowdown. And, you know, Miramax loved me. I was

bought into the offices. It was all amazing. And then this role was offered. And I said, I don't like it. I think the film is really misogynistic and I don't want to be part of it. The casting director came back with you don't say no to Harvey and I said well it's not to him I just don't want to do this film are we going to say what the film is or was it never made yeah it was a called about Adam or something Stuart Townsend was in it he played the guy and I just worked with Stuart anyway on under the skin and I was like that's not interesting for me and I was uber polite but I had a phone call saying you can't say no and it just the no

wasn't being listened to so they kept coming back with this role and I was told unequivocally you're not going to work again unless you do this role I'm going to make your life hell you will not work again that's Harvey that's totally his mo isn't it yeah so the person asking me to do the job was pleading just do the job just do it do it, it's Miramax, then you're in there, you're in the Miramax stable. And I said, but it's rubbish. And this whole conversation happened. I forgot about it because it was years earlier. And then all these years later, I realised that I get an offer, I get a letter from a director, if Miramax or then the Weinstein company had anything to do with it, it was just awful for me. And then I very publicly called him

out on some of this behaviour at the Venice Film Festival at a press conference, which must have been about 2002, that there was some weird shit going on here. He had a reason, a deep-seated reason, to just try and destroy my career. And he couldn't. He categorically couldn't, because I kept working, doing independent cinema all over the world.

So evidently, that was how he operated, was quid pro quos, you do this role for me and I'll give you this better role over here. Yeah, he controlled the table for a long time. And let's just say he's a convicted rapist. I mean, that's the whole other side of things, regardless of bullying and all the rest of it. We're talking about a sex offender who was allowed to be a sex offender. You've, you said you've worked consistently and that's really striking how much you've worked. This might sound like a weird question, but are you conscious of having a gift? Like I know some people are confident in their talents and then some people have what they call imposter syndrome. And to what extent are you aware of being a gifted actor? Wow, she's thinking. I think this is radio, so I have to fill the silence.

She's looking like I've really stumped her. Do you have to think about that? Think about how to find the words to answer you. So I don't sound like an absolute wanker. Because you are talented. It's like some brain surgeons don't think like oh I don't know I guess I just got lucky do you know what I mean I think that whether it's acting or writing or music I'm able to access another dimension if that's the right phrase of human behavior like I understand things in a very empathetic way I see things that other people

don't see and can very quickly translate them in order to perform them i don't know if i have a gift as an actor per se because i don't know about that because i work with other actors that are meant to be amazing at what they do and i think they're shit because i think that they are just mechanical and i can see the cogs and i I think, oh, they're technically very brilliant, but I don't feel anything. I don't think they're really giving me something from in here. Really? There's actors who would be cruel to name names, would it?

I'm so fussy, though. I'm not going to say anyone. Really? Are there people you wouldn't work with? Like, big names you like? I'm not working with that person. Yes, categorically. Because it's all up here.

Lots and lots and lots. It's not down here. It's not in the heart. It's not just heart, Louis. It's something else. It's something else. You called out Liz Hurley. That's on public record. You said she wouldn't do street theatre in Poland. Looks like a weird benchmark.

It's like, where are you on the street theatre in Poland-ometer? I'd do street theatre in Poland, but I don't think it would make me a good actor i was a kid i was very young i don't know how that was asked you know to be fair to liz hurley who i've never met she's an actress there's so many different types of us and we're all under the same brolly but you know there's a lot of people she's not good though i mean i only saw her in austin powers and it's really odd when you see bad acting because you don't see it that much when you see bad acting you're like oh wow that is what yeah but they're protected by good editors I've worked with some people that literally can't say

a line and they're huge they've got their acting coaches on set by the monitor really they're called their voice coaches there's a lot of stuff that's by the numbers and I think what I get from your looking back over your filmography you've done extraordinary films and you've really picked a path I don't know if it's a road less traveled but you've worked with such interesting people you know all the way from Spielberg, Harmony Corrine, Charlie Kaufman like all those auteur directors who have really distinctive voices yeah so just saying that I'm complimenting you on that. And to each role, you bring a quality of whatever it is,

like authenticity or some kind of vulnerability, just a really complex screen presence. Oh, I should mention Tom Hooper. I wanted to mention him as well, because your role in the TV film Longford, in which you play Myra Hindley against Jim Broadbent playing Lord Longford, was also play Myra Hindley against Jim Broadbent playing Lord Longford was also amazing thank you people don't ever mention that so that's really helpful when you look back at

your um I mean there's so much to dig into is there work that you're particularly proud of I loved playing Alpha in The Walking Dead but not a lot of people, like arty people, if you like, have seen that role because it's a horror show. And it's season nine. My son said he was excited that I was speaking to you because of The Walking Dead. I jumped off the bus at season four. Some of the writing, I think the way you are with acting, maybe I am with writing. And some of the writing in season two was a bit wobbly. And then it came season five.

Some of the characterizations I was like this isn't consistent and you know it is a lot of episodes so forgive me if I haven't seen that but it's nice to hear that you're proud of it because quality television is a beautiful thing but I don't know if the episodes are any good I'm just proud of what I did in my role that sounds very arrogant and eager how many episodes did you watch before you took the role just the first season barely get started because I didn't have telly then I lived on a farm in the north of and eager how many episodes did you watch before you took the role just the first season barely get started because I didn't have

telly then I lived on a farm in the north of England and it was grade one listed so we couldn't put anything on the outside of it and we didn't have internet for a really

you don't have to make excuses no no it's not I literally when the show was offered to me they were like what you'd never heard of the show and I was like

I remember seeing a billboard with Andrew Lincoln with a big cowboy hat on that's good enough. Tell them that at the audition. Well, this is the thing. Do you do an audition? Just in passing, do you do an audition for something like that?

Or they say no. No, you want Samantha Morton. You know what you're getting. She auditions for nobody. Are you kidding me? I should put the phone down on you right now. I would audition. That's me being your agent. Yeah, thank you. I would audition. That's me being your agent.

Yeah, thank you. I would audition. But I also like to audition other people. They want to meet me, I want to meet them. So the offer comes in and we get on a Zoom or we meet for a cup of tea or coffee and you just walk away and go, do I want to work with those people? No, no, no. You know, so that's what happens. And I think that's really sensible because the worst thing is to just spend months of your life with people that you have nothing artistically in common with.

It can be very, very miserable. But I'm very proud of that role. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, the character itself. And it was like, yeah, I loved it. It was my first American television. And so I felt really proud that that muscle had been exercised. Because American television is very different to British television. And I can say, oh, I've done that.

In what way? How is it different? Oh, it's brutal. It's brutal. To do that many hours, the scripts are coming in at a fast pace, learning things. You just feel like top of your game. Like, I felt amazing doing that. And then some movies you do, they take so long, and there's, you know, there's a lot of money wasted.

Can we just do it? Can we just get there and just do it? Can we talk for two seconds about Tom Cruise? I love Tom. I was a bit overwhelmed by his enthusiasm to start with because when you've done a good take and he's like, yeah, and he's so enthusiastic. And I didn't know how to be with that at first.

I hope I didn't come across rude to him when I didn't do the high fives. He would do a high five after a scene like that was an awesome take yeah Sam you killed it yeah he's so enthusiastic and stuff and I was really cynical when someone's bringing that energy

you feel like you need to mirror it but then you feel like you're not being the real you sometimes oh I wouldn't even do the mirroring just didn't know how to respond so I think I was a bit in the Agatha zone of like I wasn't method and I'm not a method actor but I do certainly like to find a space where I can at any given point if I'm asked to do something be able to perform it I mean I was still what was I 21 or 22 this was Minority Report for those who don know, a film directed by a little known director.

Actually, he should get more attention. His name is Steven Spielberg. Mr. Spielberg. He was lovely. Tom Cruise called you lightning in a bottle. Oh, that's, I mean, maybe I was when I was younger. Maybe I'm a bit more sleepy ship in a bottle now. I don't know.

Harmony Corrine, who I've got a slight fascination with, famous director of Gummo, Julian Donkey Boy, and the one you were in, Mr Lonely. Yeah. About lookalikes holed up in a Scottish castle, also starring Werner Herzog, a fellow documentary maker. You played a Marilyn Monroe lookalike, falling in love with a Michael Jackson impersonator. What a great script. Him and his brother wrote that. It's just this beautiful concept about all of these lookalike falling in love with a Michael Jackson impersonator what a great script him and

his brother wrote that it's just this beautiful concept about all of these lookalikes who are always on the road always doing their work just decide to live together in a commune and just the dynamics of all that and my daughter Esme who is now an actress that was her first role so she played the Shirley Temple lookalike in that it was a really beautiful time i confess i haven't seen it yet but now you've encouraged me to seek it out it's sweet it's just sweet and finally john carter did you think i was going to mention that one it's the 10th most expensive film ever made, directed by Andrew Stanton, who'd previously directed Finding Nemo and WALL-E.

It was his live-action feature directing debut. I went and saw that at the cinema. Do you know who I played in it? I'm not going to ask for my money back. I believe you played Solar, a thark. Yeah, princess. So when I got this email, my agent was like, so there's this, you know, Andrew Stanton wants to meet you

for this big John Carter of Mars. It's Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I love Tarzan, so I love Grey Stoker. Right, who wrote Tarzan. Yeah. I was like, oh, okay, amazing. And all it said in the thing was Princess Solar, and I was like, I've never played a princess before,

because I'm normally, I've got so many stories where I've auditioned for films, and I haven't got them because of my features. My forehead's too big, I'm goofy, overweight've got so many stories where I've auditioned for films and I haven't got them because of my features. My forehead's too big, I'm goofy, overweight, underweight, whatever. How do they say, well, they would say, oh, we loved Samantha, but her forehead was just a little too big. Yeah, they actually did say that. I had a massive slap head, a big five head.

Come on, I don't think they're allowed to say that. Well, they did. They wouldn't put that in print. Well, I don't know if they put it in print, but this was problem so i was my ego was like oh my gosh i'm going to meet andrew stanton to possibly play a princess and i go into the meeting and he's got all the artwork everywhere and then he's like so this is sola and i was like oh she's an alien a green alien with like four arms and they're about seven foot and willem dafoe was already cast as my dad at that point so i was like he was the other fuck it was this three picture deal and it was going to be and they're about seven foot. And Willem Dafoe was already cast as my dad at that point.

So I was like, yeah, fuck. He was the other fuck. It was this three-picture deal and it was going to be amazing. And it was before Flash Gordon, before any of these superheroes, this is the original superhero, basically, what John Carter does. It's sort of the ur-text of any kind of space opera. It was written in the late 19th century. Yeah, like 1910 or something, something like that.

Precursor to any comics, any of those things. I was really excited. And it's Andrew Stanton. Oh my gosh, he's incredible. So I was really chuffed to get the part. And then I knew something was wrong when they weren't doing any big premiere. No, no, no. They had a little screening and there was no posters and there was no press. I was like what's happening with this film we're meant to be making the second film in Hawaii and a third two more yeah yeah and I was meant to be pretty much a bigger part like the lead in the second one because the dad dies and I'm like the queen of the tharks now and I was so excited because I had a great time filming the first one it was incredible there was no feeling on set that this could possibly be a clunker. No, no, no, no.

It was a really good time. I loved it. We shot in Arizona and in studio. It was just amazing. And then, yeah, they bought Star Wars Disney. So they decided to pack it off. Is that what it was? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah. And so they didn't promote it, didn't push it out there. It was fine. I was a bit sad to not work with Andrew Stanton again. But that happens. And it was, again, another experience another experience you know like doing the television there i was in a big action film kind of thing with a funny suit on with ping pong balls and a helmet with cameras and learning thark they actually wrote a language for it i read that yeah the same people who developed navar e or yeah yeah for what's it? Avatar.

Yeah. They worked up a language. So you actually learned Thark. Yeah. I should have learned. Dominic West was in it. Who did Dominic West play, just as a test? Dominic West played a prince that was trying to get off with...

Did he play Sab Than, the Jeddak of Zodanga? I think he did. Or Tardos Mor, the Hecador of the Ferns. Tardos Mor. I don I think he did. Or Tardos Moore, the Hecador of the Ferns. Oh, he wasn't Tardos Moore. I don't think he played Tardos Moore. Who knows? I think what I read was that actually that source material is so mined in the Star Wars films,

it's almost like, oh, this looks like a pastiche of Star Wars. Yeah, but it's the original one. It's so sad. Whereas it's actually the other way round. Yeah. It was overtaken but do you know what it was a lot of fun

you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. Hi, me again, Louis Theroux. Just to remind you, you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. And now back to my conversation with Samantha Morton. We cover a lot of different things. I want to, you mentioned that you notice things. You said it's not so much acting per se, but you see things.

Yeah. Do you relate that to anything? Do you think that's to do with having grown up in care or do you think that's just a natural gift that you had? I don't know, but I do know that it's about spirit. I would have thought as someone who is taken from their home, is going into other homes, is moving around foster homes and then residential care homes, someone who is in a new environment has to acquire the skill of noticing things about their new life very quickly in order to survive. a way that can help with your acting isn't it you know I can look back and go well I was always acting a little bit new family new rules new ways of foods new religions but I think what I'm talking about is something other I don't know like having a very active imagination maybe music having a profound effect on me and not everybody feels those things not everybody I think is as connected to

we call them the arts you know but it's connected to those things so Not everybody, I think, is as connected to, we call them the arts, you know, but as connected to those things. So there's something else going on there that even if I wasn't doing acting or drawing or music or any of those things, there would be an element of what I bring to playing characters in my own life. And I think it's humanity, isn't it?

I think it's trying to be a decent human being. I know music is important to you and and i read recently that i don't know if this is true that you did desert island discs and that maybe off the back of that you you will be recording some music you got like a record deal is that right it isn't wrong but it wasn't like that i did some work with a musician artist called chris cunningham a few years ago, and he's an old friend. The director, the video director. Yes, yes, yes. Didn't he do the famous Aphex twin video, Come to Daddy?

Yeah. Come to Daddy. He did all that, yeah. The same person. And so Richard Russell, musician, producer, listened to the Desert Island Discs and heard the Molly Drake song on there, the Firelight songs, one of my favourite songs. Right, Molly Drake, who's the mother of...

Nick Drake, yeah. The folk legend Nick Drake, and you had one of her songs on your Desert Island Discs. And Richard heard it and then was making his album, Everything Is Recorded. I think he was wanting to sample a bit of me talking about a blue butterfly. He didn't want to go through agents and stuff, which is fine. I like that sometimes when people just want it to be a bit of me talking about a blue butterfly he didn't want to go through agents and stuff

which is fine I like that sometimes when people just want it to be a bit more personal so sent me a message through Chris saying listen could I sample your voice and if you you know want to come to the studio and listen to the music see if you're happy with it and I was like yeah so I went to meet him heard the little bit of a sample said said, yeah, of course you can use that. You can have it. It's fine. Me talking about a butterfly. And then we just started talking. A couple of hours went past and we decided that we should make some music together. And it was just there was no pressure. It was just nice. It was like, this is what we're doing. And then after a bit, it was like, you know, we've got a lot of stuff here, Sam. And I think we're like a band now. We're a synth pop duo.

And I went, oh, we've been doing this for like six months or something. And then all of a sudden we had a lot of songs. It was like 18 or so songs that we'd made. Hang on. Were you singing or were you playing an instrument? Singing and writing and piano. Singing, writing and piano. So you play piano quite well.

I plonk. You plonk? I make stuff up. I wish I could plonk. Even planking would be something something it's not trained and then yeah we had like all these songs and then we were so proud of it so we decided that this is what we're going to do so we are releasing an album yeah richard russell yes i have the name right yes you do he's very well credentialed is what i've been told what's he worked on is he a producer he's a musician and a producer and he also has a label called XL.

I would know his work from... He did the amazing Gil Scott Heron album. The one that Gil Scott Heron recorded late before he died. Yeah, yeah. Really, that was him. That's Richard's sound. That's Richard, yeah. So we are going into rehearsal in September.

Yeah, going to rehearsals for the live shows. You have to come to one, Louis. Oh my God, I would kill to come. It would be amazing. I hope you like the music. This is the thing. This is like now. I'm sure I would.

You know, I've enjoyed your musical choices in your film, The Unloved. And then a lot of the music. Basically, I watched Morven Calla for the first time last night. Almost feeling like, oh, this was the missing piece of my 20s that i didn't know was missing it's almost an existentialist road trip with a female protagonist so anti-hero protagonist without giving too much away with this amazing soundtrack it has sort of apex twin and boards of canada and quite a lot of can the german the kra, the Krautrock group. And then I don't think it's giving too much away to say that it starts with, she wakes up next to her dead boyfriend in their

flat. And all the way through, you're like, what is happening? Like you're constantly trying to figure out the choices she's making. There was an extraordinary, beautiful, it's Lynne Ramsey's the director, isn't she? And she wrote the screenplay, yeah, as well. And wrote it. So Alan Warner wrote the novel, amazing Scottish writer. You know, he did The Sopranos, right? He's an amazing writer. He can really write for women.

He can write for girls. Sometimes male writers, when I read their writing, I'm like, oh, is it? Get to fuck. You wouldn't do that. Oh, I don't believe that. And Lynne wrote an incredible screenplay and directed it. Exactly.

And you're constantly watching and thinking, like, whatever that test is where it's like, is there more than one woman in the film? Is it actually a film in which the women have agency and aren't just adjuncts to the men? Yeah. This film passes that test with flying colours in the sense that... I think it was ahead of its time as well.

And also you think like, oh no, she's going to get assaulted. You just think it's going to go down some sort of path... Oh, okay....that would leverage some sort of path. Oh, okay. That would leverage some sort of victim narrative, right? Because they're obviously vulnerable. They're off their tits, if I can use that phrase, clubbing. And having romantic encounters with men. And you think like, oh, this isn't going to end well.

But that's not where it goes at all. It goes somewhere completely different. I think it must be interesting watching the film from an older person's perspective than if you'd have seen it when it came out. How dare you? Are you suggesting that I'm an older person? Do you know what I mean?

It is, though, because we do see things with fresh eyes. It's like watching Gremlins with the kids. It's like, oh, I'm going to watch this film. It's a Christmas film with the kids, and it's so rubbish. And you're like, why is Gremlins so bad? Some films don't last at all. I thought Gremlins 2 held up quite well. I haven't seen Gremlins 2. Better than the first Gremlins so bad? Some films don't last at all. Whereas Morvan Callow... I thought Gremlins 2 held up quite well. I haven't seen Gremlins 2.

Better than the first Gremlins. You know, I had the same experience though. I spent a lot of capital, figurative capital, social capital, trying to get my kids to watch a film I remembered from my childhood called Candleshoe, which had Jodie Foster in it. Okay, I'm going to read that.

No, after five minutes, I was like, okay, fine. It was so bad. Some of these films don't work, but when young people, so there was a screening of Morven Cadder, I think, at the NFT recently, and young people watching it loved it. Like it really had, you know, time travelled well. But yeah, it's interesting the kind of the worries

that we might have as adults now watching that film about them being in danger or having encounters with young people of the same age whilst high or drunk. Yes, and it feels high risk in this day and age. It does, but not there. I mean, I don't know, students back then. I don't want to give too much away about the film. It's normal life. And actually, my point was simply that I enjoyed that it wasn't trying to be a kind of Me Too fable or a fable about consent. It's about something kind of weirder and more interesting.

I don't even know what it was about, actually. Do you? Because by the end of it, you're like, I think I like it, but I'm not really sure. I don't want to give away, if anyone out there does want to watch this film, first of all, it's Lynne Ramsey, if you know Lynne Ramsey. So it is really good good just cinematically and all

the rest of it but there's something quite inspiring in a pretty dark way about how she claims the right to have a future to have some kind of other future than what's been prescribed for her and interestingly in the book she was a foster child and she was kind of there in oban imagine being a teenager sometimes in places like that you know it's kind of can be tough. Well in the film because I actually watched it while reading this is going to sound odd while reading a transcript because I was missing parts of the dialogue and the scene where Morven arrives and knocks on a guy's door or he comes to the door and he says I've just found out my mum's dead and then then she goes in and says, do you want me to tell you about how my foster mum died?

Yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah. So it's these kind of subtle references to the past. And then they're bonking. Yeah, well, they're dancing first, dancing and drinking. Yeah, dancing and drinking first. I'm glad you watched that. That's cheered me up. I was so good.

I loved that and I loved The Unloved as well. Thank you. And I thought, wow, you're a terrific director. I like documentary style direction. I'm a kind of a pervert for nuance and texture. So if things feel not quite believable, even if they're in the intonations and how people relate around each other,

it takes me out of the moment. Yeah, filmmaking can be really pretentious as well. And there's kind of, you've got something happening, but we're going to frame it this way because it's more interesting and you miss what's going on of the moment. Yeah filmmaking can be really pretentious as well in those kind of you've got something happening but we're gonna frame it this way because it's more interesting and you miss what's going on with the people. Yeah what I got was some verisimilitude like truthfulness in terms of it's really about abuse among other things but the way in which the abuse is enacted it's very finely grained and it's horrendous and at the same time the people are behaving exactly as people behave if that makes sense like the girl slightly seems to imagine she might be giving consent but clearly is in no position to give consent and the guy's preying on her under

the guise of caring for her and yeah as an explanation of those dynamics it felt very subtle an explanation of those dynamics it felt very subtle well I think your job was a my job when I'm behind the camera is to just try and find the truth and then just not be too invasive with the camera that's why I sometimes I don't want to do too many cuts or too many takes so I do a lot of rehearsal prior to shooting with the young people so that they're so comfortable with the camera. And this was a while ago now, so we're talking 2007, 2008. And now so many young people are very comfortable with cameras because Instagram, TikTok, whatever, they're used to seeing themselves. Back then it wasn't so much. So in the rehearsals, I'd be filming everything

so that by the time we got on the set, the camera was like just so they could forget it was there so they weren't performing for the camera. And likewise, with the camera, letting space and light happen, because when bad stuff happens, there's a tendency for certain cinematographers or filmmakers to want to get right in there, let the audience see what's happening as close as possible. And I think that when those things happen, the earth is present as well. The light is present, the space is present, and they're just as important as the thing itself. So how does that person feel? Let's say, for example, they are being molested or abused.

I'm always fascinated in what are they looking at? What can they see on the wall? It's not always telling the audience what they're feeling physically it could be where they're at mentally just allowing that process to happen and then obviously things can always change in the edit but also working with children you know letting them be in that space and in their character the two female principal characters one is i guess an 11 is she 11 or so the girl yeah and there's a 16 year. And it sort of follows their friendship. And they're both extraordinary in the performances. And one's coming into care in a residential home.

And she's put in a room with a 16-year-old. And at first, she gets on the older girl's nerves. And then they kind of rub along. Yeah. And there's a great scene where they go shoplifting. Or one goes shoplifting and brings the little one. And then it's so gobby with the security right you know fuck off your plastic police and then it's continuing to be a gobshite in the car on the way back when the police are

escorting her you don't for a second sort of not believe it like it just feels like one of the moving things in your film is the girl the younger younger girl, experiences the abuse vicariously. Like she witnesses it. She's in bed seeing it happen. And a lot of the camera is on her face or her hiding her face as the older girl's being abused in her bed. And it's a very powerful way of doing it. Seeing both the impact, not just on the victim,

but on the witness to the crime is really powerful. But I was going to say, just as upsetting or even more upsetting to me, it was a scene where the young girl goes home to see her mum and her mum seems almost a little bit miffed, initially anyway, to see her daughter home, a bit like, what are you doing here? And I just wondered how close to reality that was in terms of your own experience of your mum.

That film could have been like a six-part telly where you understood why she was estranged from her mum. I wanted to take this character through that character's day or the next day or the next day and not explain anything so you're just with Lucy all the time feeling how it is to be that person and that's all we can do if we want people to think differently this happened to me I don't think this was okay what do you think can? Can we make a difference? Can we make this better? That was my motivation all the time. And in reference to my mum, my mum had lots of different jobs. She worked all the time, whenever she could. And she was an amazingly dedicated grafter, if you like. She worked at pork farms, double shift, and she didn't

want to be late for work. But my mum also, and we don't have very long, so I don't want to be late for work but my mum also and we don't have very long so I don't want to get into it too much my mum also suffered extreme complex post-traumatic stress syndrome she was very very mentally poorly a lot of the time due to things that had happened to her when she was younger and Susan Lynch is one of my favourite actresses of all time plays her so beautifully and you have all the moments the fantasy moments where Lucy's in bed with her mum and just the closeness of those moments the dreams that Lucy has about having a mum I never had a mum in the way that maybe other people do but then everything's relative and everyone's got problems in their families and it's how we forgive and we heal and we love each other and we're open to change so I don't feel sorry about those things

and I was never cross with Pam who was my birth mother but I had a fantasy about having a mummy like they were in the movies. Is she still alive Pam? No my mum sadly died 2017 she died quite young of lung cancer my foster mum died of breast cancer Sue and it's like they were all my mum so sometimes they oh my mum died of breast cancer and then but I thought your mum died of lung cancer. My foster mum died of breast cancer, Sue. And it's like they were all my mums. So sometimes they're, oh, my mum died of breast cancer. But I thought your mum died of lung cancer. Oh, no, that was Pam. That was my real mum, because I've got so many mums that have been my mum for a bit. So she was dealing with her own things? I don't know, dealing with. I think she was just getting by, just going to work, coming home, fighting the social services to try and get custody of me at various times when she was well. Yeah, she was doing her best, always doing her best.

Did she have a diagnosis? I'd really like to be able to get hold of her records and the stuff, it's hard to read it, like in my files from the social services. It just talks about her hospital admissions. But no, it doesn't really say. And she was also heavily medicated a lot as well at certain times to cope with what happened to her as a kid and also the trauma of having your children taken away from you well i would just mention briefly like you know clearly that kind of subject matter which is about vulnerability it's also about

predatory behavior and you know i've made several documentaries about sexual abuse or predators or sex offenders. And I've also made documentaries in prisons and mental hospitals. And I've often thought about whether I could make a film that was somehow based in some kind of secure unit for children or children in care. And what you keep coming up against is, I could never see a way of making the film that wouldn't in some way end up compromised because of the need to take care of the kids, right? There's no film that's worth making if you think there's a chance it might end up hurting the kids. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you did was perfect because it's better off to do it as fiction. I think that if they're young adults, let's say the government considers a 16 year old now as an adult. So you're not taking care of past 16 when you're in care. It should be 18, but they're not making it a legal requirement for local councils to take care of those young people.

So if you were doing something in a secure unit, Louis, why can't those things be made? How old would the kids be in a secure unit? It depends, but from 16, you can get a unit above 16. It's very rare you have younger people than that. I hear what you're saying about filming the abuse and not doing anything about it. But if you don't film it, if you don't somehow get the cameras in there, how are we going to have these conversations? Because I'm not able to make my second feature right now. Film four won't read it. The BBC haven't got back to me for eight months and my second film is about leaving care. So The Unloved is about going into care.

The second film is called Starlings. It's been written for a long time. They don't want to make it. Why won't they make it? Just out of interest. I don't know. I've not had an email back from the Beeb. Just no response.

And Film Four is just not for them. It's not a comedy and it's not a love story. The Unloved was a while ago now. When did you make that one? I've been trying to get it made for a very long time. Different producers. And actually, The Unloved did very well, didn't it? It got two million on Channel 4 when it went out.

Yeah, I think at the time it got the highest viewing figures for a single drama at the time. Yet it won loads of BAFTAs and stuff like that and nominated for other things. And it went around the world in regards to its cinema release as well. But I think if you've won BAFTAs and you've got really good viewing figures

and it did really well, why don't they want to make the second part? It's not a shit script. If it's shit, they can just tell, listen, it's just not good enough, we'll do some more work on it. But the script's in great shape. It's just they don't want to make that content.

They don't want to make grim... It's not a tough watch, as in like, oh, this is like being squeezed through a mangle. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I wanted it to be financed through good old BBC or Film4 because it's taxpayers' money in that way. It belongs to the people. And this is a film about the people, for the people. That's how I've always envisaged my responsibility as a filmmaker. I get offered to do other films, all the rest of it. I can't tell those stories. I don't know how to tell that story.

That's not me. I'm not a director for hire per se in that way. I've just got these particular stories I want to make. People don't want to make them yet. So I'm just going to keep on my soapbox until someone said, yeah, OK, maybe we're ready for it. But this is why people like yourself should go into these places and don't feel bad i mean there's so many brilliant documentaries out there that are incredibly tough watches but then we have to have cameras in places that people don't want them they've got to be there because people are so

judgmental in the world at times we're living in these times now where people are so kind of extremely this or extremely that and we forget to just have a look at how it is for other people. You know, the shoe on the other foot, the realities for other people. So we get these glimpses into other people's lives and we see it differently and we grow up as human beings. We have compassion and empathy and we're less judgmental about things and I think that's why films like The Unloved or documentaries that you make or the show I'm referencing just is an eye-opener and a kind of a way of loving each other loving loving human beings. How close was it to your upbringing like does that reflect things you experienced? Oh completely but there was a lot of blending of

stories so this bit happened here and that bit happened there. Can't put that person's story in because they're still alive. Eek, we'll move that there. So it is all true, but different characters' names have been changed and all things like that. You've gone on record in the past as saying that you experienced sexual abuse in at least one of the group homes that you were in. Yeah, there were lots of things at lots of different homes, but one particular time we're talking about, something happened and I told my mum, I still knew my mum,

I didn't live with my mum, but I used to go and see her. I told my mum and Frank, my stepdad, and we went to the police. We told the police and the police didn't do anything about it at all. It was one of the residential care workers who'd done it? Two, two, yeah. But there were other things happening in that home as well that I made a report about. And there was other homes where I witnessed things and reported them and things were never done. But I then went and told the officer in charge at the home

and my account was verified of that, you know, whatever. There were more than one person there at the time. And I was just moved to another home and those staff members were downgraded. So they didn't lose their jobs. There was no and those staff members were downgraded so they didn't lose their jobs there was no investigation they were just downgraded and the reason I talked about that years and years later was because of the Rotherham stuff and the fact that the police knew how old were you when it happened to you I can't remember now I think I would have been maybe 13 and you knew not to ask a stupid question, but you knew it was wrong.

It wasn't a case of, oh, I thought... I was really shocked. The staff members were drinking. There was a lot of drinking and there were young people at that home that were on the game. They were young teenage prostitutes, but they were being abused. You don't choose to be a prostitute when you're 15, 16. You're groomed and you're put into that profession. In fact, the term child prostitute using quote marks,

I think is rightly frowned on now. Like it's about child pornography. That's abuse that's been videoed. It's not child pornography. Exactly. There needs to be new... It's a new language. Yeah, I... But these were girls who were in the residential home that you were in.

One particular girl who I knew was being used by the staff. So I'd reported that anyway, and then this thing happened. And as I say, I was moved and they were downgraded. How did you know what was going on? Because you said very young, like 13? Yeah, I was quite old. I was mature for my years. Kids like that are a lot older because of what you've experienced, and people expect a lot of you, even though you're looking back and you go,

I was 12, 13 the fuck yeah were the girls confiding in you or no no there was it was an older person it's one particular girl it was common knowledge and it was talked about who was getting what and when and why and there was a lot of drug taking in the home but in particular there was also a lot of sadness for me because these two particular care workers had been really kind to me for ages and ages. I thought they were cool and I just thought they were amazing because they were always so nice. Because there were so many really nasty ones. And then they were drunk and this thing happened. And then what was really interesting is the police report. So after I spoke to Simon Hattonston years later.

From The Guardian, you did an interview, right? Yeah. I just wanted to say, listen, things haven't changed. I reported something back then, went to the police about something that happened to me in a children's home, nothing happened. They take the statement and then nothing is done. No investigation, there's nothing done. There wasn't an apology from Nottinghamshire County Council or from the police force, they denied it. And then we found the record my historical records you can find that thing and and all that was mentioned was that I'd reported some frolicking with staff members and so my reasons for talking about it and you have to remember that I have

children and so the impact of me having conversations like the one we're having now that is on the record for the future is grave. You don't just talk about these things because I didn't for years. It was important for me that I just got on with my life. It wasn't that I was burying anything. It just wasn't, to me, it wasn't relevant anymore. But when I saw what had happened in Rotherham and Oxfordshire, I was like, no way. And I phoned Karen Maskell, who was my

publicist at the time. And I said, can you help me? I want to talk to somebody. I want to talk about what happened to me and say that it was happening then and it still hasn't changed. You know, it hasn't gotten any better for young people in care. Also, I read in an interview with you that, because I think you've been keen not to stigmatise social workers as a group group I think you said residential care workers tend to have fewer qualifications like the bar is lower or none or certainly was back in the 80s and the 90s you didn't need any qualifications to get a job working in a children's home access to vulnerable children putting them to bed at night there'll be two staff members on with 16 or 17

young people ageing from the age of, say, seven, eight years old, right up to 16. Some of those care workers were 19 years old themselves, 19, in charge of a unit. So that's what it was like then. Now we have a situation where there is nobody to answer to because they've all been privatised. Children's homes now are run by private companies who then monetise, charge local councils an absolute fortune for the care of these young people. And there's nobody to go to if you're being abused. I was going to come on to that. Yeah. There is a fortune to be made. You read about pub landlords like converting properties because they can make a better check, getting £12,000 a week in some cases for housing kids if they

have complex needs. I would have been better off going to boarding school. I was a bright kid. You know, I've often said, why didn't you just think about sending me to boarding school? The system isn't fit for purpose. The latest figures say there's about 80,000 children in care, I believe, across the UK. And there was a report last year that suggested that the system's still very much in crisis. You know, kids are being failed. Very often they're getting pushed into what they call unregulated homes, aged 15 and 16 at a point when they still need really good support and really good supervision. But what's your sense? Is it that it's improving or not? The system is completely

broken. A report that's just been done is absolutely shocking to do with the state of the care system today and young people in care. It says this is broken beyond repair. It has to be completely rethought and rebuilt from the ground up. you're listening to the louis theroux podcast hi i'm louis through and you're listening to the louis through podcast and now back to my conversation with cement the morton podcast. And now back to my conversation with Samantha Morton. I just find it inspirational the way in which I'm going to sound like Tom Cruise if I'm not careful.

Everything you went through to achieve the level of success and the level of excellence, you know, in what you do. You know, I wish we could put that lightning in a bottle because I worry that there's all these talented people living in care homes or wherever just their talents aren't being recognised. Without sounding really grim I think teachers are striking aren't they everyone's striking because things need to be better for everybody and there's always the underdog there's always the vulnerable person and we need to be mindful that there's always somebody with a greater need than ourselves and I think young people watch and listen they do have access so we just have to keep telling them stories and keep telling them that they can get through it that there is another day that when it's really really rubbish I promise there's another day and it's better

and that there's light at the end of the tunnel there always is there's always a new day and to give them hope and then from the other side of things whether it's through government or charities we'll find ways to help them from our end do you get involved do you are you involved in a charity do you go back to nottingham not local charities no i work with the nspcc and i work with the world health organization trying to eradicate violence towards children and put my name to things when they need letters and things like that. But fundamentally, it's the NSPCC. National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Yeah. Everyone knows that acronym. I don't know why I felt like I needed to say that. No, because we get used to abbreviations for things, don't we? And when you say the words, words have such power when you say them. I know. Cruelty to Children. Prevents Cruel the words, words have such power when you say them. I know, cruelty to children. Prevents cruelty to children, you know. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Louis. Amazing to talk to you. Hopefully our paths will cross again, either here or on helium. Helium is the planet that John Carter went to. Well, you must be tired for asking lots of questions. Oh no, I loved it. Guys, join Ma and Paul.

Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you very much. Oh, no, I loved it. Guys, join Marne, Paul. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Oh, for you. And I meant everything I said about digging into those films are so good. And especially the unloved Longford and Morven Caller were revelatory. And John Carter. And John Carter.

I'm so glad you talked. No one's ever mentioned that. I love that. Have they not? Never. Never been asked about it, no. And with that, the conversation with Samantha was over. I loved talking to Samantha

and also diving into the amazing films that she's been in, which I recommend. And we'll have some links in the show notes to those of her productions that are available that feel relevant. She's got a totally no-nonsense approach to Hollywood, and I imagine that served her in good stead. be well predatory at times and certainly exposing you know both literally in the sense of requiring kind of nakedness but also figuratively that you are emotionally laid bare her channel 4 film the unloved is definitely worth checking out and you can still see that online check the show notes for links morvan calla in particular is worth a watch. John Carter maybe less so, but it also has its charms if you'd like to spend a little time on the planet of Barsoom, fictional representation of Mars.

John Carter's failure has been blamed on its promotion, which has been called, quote, one of the worst marketing campaigns in movie history. The film she made about Myra Hindley is also worth watching. Her battles to continue with her trilogy of films on the experiences of the care system are, as I understand it, ongoing, which is kind of amazing because that first film is so powerful, you would have thought producers would be queuing up. From reading a little about the subject of children in care, it's clear that it's still an ongoing crisis. A little bit of data, this year in the UK

around 36,000 children and young people will enter the care system. That's 100 children every day. And it's horrendous to reflect on how many talented people, people with potential, people who should enjoy a positive start in life will end up being funneled away from that. Last year, an independent review of children's social care called for a £2.6 billion investment to reform a system that is under, quote, extreme stress. The government response was, well, just way less than that. So something to think about. Oh, and just to say, if you have been affected by any of the difficult issues covered in my chat with Samantha, you can find information and resources at spotify.com backslash resources. At time of recording, I have not yet heard the album that Samantha's working on I live in hope that I may get an invitation to one of the live performances I'm curious to know what kind of

music it is so just time for credits this episode was produced by Paul Kobrak and Man Al-Yaziri the production manager was Francesca Bassett and the executive producer, Aaron Fellows. The music in this series is by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a Mindhouse production exclusively for Spotify. I remember living in LA when the posters went up and I was like, oh, that looks quite intriguing. There were posters. There were no posters in London, I don't think LA when the posters went up and I was like, oh, that looks quite intriguing. But there were posters.

There were no posters in London, I don't think, at the time. I think it's one of those ones where they open it in America and it's a big flop and then they're like, OK, we're not going to worry about this one. Yeah.