Samantha Morton

Biography

Samantha Morton has established herself as one of the finest actors of her generation, winning Oscar nominations for her turns in Woody Allen's Sweet and Low Down" (1999) and Jim Sheridan's "In America" (2002). She has the talent to become one of the major performers in the cinema of this young century.Samantha Morton was born May 13, 1977 in Nottingham, England to parents who divorced when she was three years old. Peter and Pamela Morton took other spouses and made Samantha part of a mixed family of 13: She has eight brothers and sisters. She turned to play-acting early in her life, while she was a school-girl.At 13, she left regular school to train as an actress at the Central Junior Television Workshop, where she learned her craft for three years. It was at the end of her training then that she decided that a life as a professional actress was for her.She honed her skills in television roles, working her way up from series television to TV-movies and prestigious mini-series, such as Emma (1996) and Jane Eyre (1997). Her first major film role, Under the Skin (1997), won her the Best Actress Award from the Boston Film Critics Society. Woody Allen cast her as Hattie, the "dumb" (unspeaking) lover of Sean Penn's caddish jazz guitarist in Sweet and Lowdown (1999), a beautiful performance in a role that could have flummoxed a less-talented performer. Penn was Oscar-nominated for his performance, but it was Morton's Hattie that was central to the success of the film, Allen's last unqualified success. She provided the moral and narrative center of the film. It was quite a remarkable performance for a 21-year old as she had to do all her acting with her face, having been shorn of her voice. The role of Hattie won Morton a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award…