Biography
With only a handful of film credits to her name, British actress Samantha Morton earned a reputation as one of the most critically lauded up-and-comers of the late '90s. Small-boned and possessed of almost elfin features, Morton, who was born in Nottingham in 1977, began acting on television at the age of 13. She appeared in a number of series, including the popular crime drama
Cracker and such costume extravaganzas as
Jane Eyre and
Emma.
Morton became known to an international film audience in 1997, when she won wide acclaim for her wrenching, fearless portrayal of a young woman driven to promiscuous behavior by the death of her mother in Carine Adler's
Under the Skin. The following year, she did starring work in
The Last Yellow and
Dreaming of Joseph Lees, playing the girlfriend of a small-time crook in the former and a dissatisfied young woman harboring romantic feelings for her long-absent second cousin (
Rupert Graves) in the latter.
In 1999, Morton's name became an increasingly familiar one to American filmgoers, thanks to starring roles in two very different films. The first,
Jesus' Son, cast the actress as a heroin addict, while the second,
Woody Allen's
Sweet and Lowdown, featured her as a shy, mute woman who gets used and abused by a legendary jazz guitarist (
Sean Penn) whose musical talent runs in inverse proportion to his qualities as a human being. Heralded for both films, Morton scored a surprise Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the latter. Not resting on the laurel, the actress immediately set to work with a pair of venerable cineastes, directors
Julien Temple (in
Pandemonium) and Amos Gitai (in his first English-language production,
Eden).
Director
Steven Spielberg soon followed Allen's lead, casting Morton in a small but pivotal role as a shivering, near-mute, clairvoyant "Precog" in his
Blade Runner-esque mystery
Minority Report, which premiered in the summer of 2002. Though the film would introduce Morton to her largest audience yet, it was a pair of independent features released in late 2002 and 2003 that would garner her even more significant critical attention. Teaming with the maverick Scottish director
Lynne Ramsay, the actress would essay the enigmatic, directionless title character in
Morvern Callar, a dreamy, elliptical adaptation of Alan Warner's cult novel. About a year later, Morton would see the release of
In America,
Jim Sheridan's acclaimed slice-of-life tale of an Irish family immigrating to New York City's Hell's Kitchen, for which she would receive her second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actress.
Morton continued to take on challenging assignments such as the futuristic
Code 46 opposite
Tim Robbins and directed by British helmer
Michael Winterbottom, and appearing opposite
Johnny Depp in the little-seen
The Libertine, and the period drama
River Queen. Although
Lassie may seem like a unusual film for Morton to appear in, she has a history of working in family friendly fare having provided the voice for Ruby in the
Max and Ruby animated television series based on the popular children's books by Rosemary Wells. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide