Samantha Morton says she doesn't 'have any regrets' about working with Woody Allen: 'It changed my life'
Samantha Morton’s new interview with Vanity Fair is as about as candid as they come, with the Oscar-nominated English actress opening up about being replaced by Scarlett Johansson in Spike Jonze’s Her — after she’d spent months filming the role of Joaquin Phoenix’s virtual assistant — and going “ballistic” over demands from filmmakers to see her exposed body.
The star, next up in the U.K. drama I am Kirsty, also reflected on working with Woody Allen. The director, whose 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown resulted in Morton getting her first Oscar nomination, has faced renewed scrutiny over his daughter Dylan Farrow’s allegations of sexual abuse against him, which he has repeatedly denied. And while other stars, such as Greta Gerwig, have expressed remorse for starring in Allen’s films, Morton is not one of them.
“I don't have any regrets,” Morton told the magazine. “I’m terribly sorry for the situation that is publicly known. It’s heartbreaking. I was sexually abused. Some of the people that hurt me can’t be brought to justice for complications of time. I have full sympathy for anybody who says that happens to them, and it needs to be taken incredibly seriously.
“But if I look back at the situation that I was in, where I was working for a director who was kind, funny and wonderful to work with,” she continued, “it changed my life. And I’m forever grateful for that.”
She added, “I can’t now go back [and change anything] ... It’s such a funny world we live in now. I’m still learning to navigate it all.”
The 42-year-old star — who has also acted in In America and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — took a stronger view against the sexist attitudes she’s encountered in Hollywood, both as an actress and director.
“I remember working on one particular movie, and the director had a megaphone and said, ‘Take off your bra. I want to see your nipples,’” she shared. “I went ballistic, walked over to him and I said, ‘Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,’ and really gave him the what for... I’ve been fired from shows for being too fat — I was like, ‘Well, you knew what I looked like when you hired me.’”
She added that a role in a major 1998 film ended up going to a “big movie star” after she told her agent that producers could “go f**k themselves” when they asked her to wear a skirt to dinner.
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