Samantha Morton has revealed that she was branded “difficult” for refusing to do sex scenes as a teenager.
The 47-year-old actress was just 16 when directors asked her to strip off in front of the camera and show her breasts on the set of ITV’s Band Of Gold.
But since she felt ‘enormously uncomfortable’ doing so, then she would be considered difficult.
Six years later, Samantha broke down in tears after a director told her, “Take off your bra, I want to see your nipples” in front of the entire crew on the set of a new film when she was 23.
After experiencing two memorable and awkward incidents, Samatha says it “wouldn’t happen today” because of “how far we’ve come.”
Samantha Morton, 47, revealed she was branded “difficult” for refusing to do sex scenes as a teenager
The actress was just 16 when directors asked her to strip naked in front of the camera and show her breasts on the set of ITV’s Band Of Gold (she is pictured on the show in 1996).
Speaking to The Sunday TimesSamantha said: I had been working since I was 12 and I made Band Of Gold. At 16, there were sex scenes that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
‘Directors would ask me to take my breasts out and I didn’t want to, so they considered me difficult.’
She added: “When I was 23 I was on a film and the director said through a megaphone: ‘Take off your bra, I want to see your nipples’ in front of the whole crew. I burst into tears. I didn’t see how that would improve the film. We’ve come a long way, that wouldn’t happen today.”
Last year, Samantha claimed that Harvey Weinstein tried to destroy her career when she was in her early twenties.
Harvey is currently in jail after being convicted of sexual offenses and rape charges in February 2020.
She accused the disgraced producer of threatening to make sure she “never worked again” after she turned down an offer to star in his 2000 romantic comedy About Adam, starring Kate Hudson, Stuart Townsend and Frances O’Connor.
She remembered in The Louis Theroux PodcastI said, “I don’t like it. I think the movie is very misogynistic and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
The Minority Report actress said the casting director told her: “Don’t say no to Harvey.”
Six years later, Samantha broke down in tears after a director told her, “Take off your bra, I want to see your nipples” in front of the entire crew on the set of a new film when she was 23.
After experiencing two memorable and awkward incidents, Samatha says it “wouldn’t happen today” because of “how far we’ve come.”
Samantha said: “I worked from the age of 12 and did Band Of Gold when I was 16, where there were sex scenes that I was incredibly uncomfortable with. Directors kept asking me to take my boobs out and I didn’t want to, so I was considered difficult.”
She added: “When I was 23 I was in a film and the director said through his megaphone: ‘Take off your bra, I want to see your nipples’, in front of the whole crew. I burst into tears” (pictured in Band Of Gold in 1995).
But Samantha stressed she was not dissing the producer, just the film, and received a chilling warning when she refused to change her stance.
She said: “I had recently worked with Stuart Townsend on Under The Skin. I didn’t find it interesting. I was super polite.
‘I got a phone call saying, “You can’t say no.” Nobody would listen to me. So they offered me this role again and told me straight up:
“You will never work again unless you play this role. I’m going to make your life hell. You will never work again.”
The Whale actress refused to budge, admitting she felt her decision cost her roles in some of Weinstein’s later films, including being passed over in favour of Lena Headey for a part in 2005’s The Brothers Grimm alongside Matt Damon and Heath Ledger after the producer deemed her “unfuckable”.
During her early childhood, Samantha grew up in several children’s homes. At the age of 13, while staying in one of her homes, she was abused by her trusted caregivers and the police did nothing about it.
In her opinion, the youth care system remains “completely broken”, “beyond repair” and “needs to be completely rethought from scratch”.
Based on her experience, she confesses that she ‘always felt like a foreigner, being and growing up under guardianship, being a daughter of the State.’
She says she loved living in New York because she felt like everyone was accepted there, a feeling she never experienced in the UK as a child.
Continuing her talk about her love for the United States, Samantha admits that she also preferred working in that country and that the sets always seemed “more comfortable” to her.
She says that when she was young and working on film sets in the UK, she was often asked to do things that “wouldn’t happen now” and gained a reputation for being “difficult”.
She says: “I didn’t have the ability to express myself when I felt uncomfortable or when something didn’t seem right.” She said she had “never had these problems in the United States.”
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