Samantha Morton Based Her Homeless Past On Her Role In ‘The Serpent Queen’ – DNyuz

Samantha Morton’s affinity for playing complex, richly layered mothers – an 18th century brothel madam in Whoresthe leader of a group of survivors of the post-zombie apocalypse in The walking dead—is a genre-bending oeuvre for the actor-actor, and a rich, years-long gift to TV fans. Morton’s latest entry in this category of formidable schemers and strategists is Catherine de’Medici, the Florentine orphan who became queen of France in 1547, in Starz’s period costume drama, The Snake Queen.

After surviving the snobbery and ruthlessness of the French court in season one, this vulgar foreigner who might also be a witch, season two is all about Catherine trying to settle into her Regency, while her son Henry III tries to navigate a still-treacherous court. It all sounds so promising, but things start badly and quickly get worse.

Fighting off potential challenges to the Crown from both the Roman Catholic Guise family and the Protestant House of Bourbon, the tragic death of her son Hercule, and a dizzyingly tactical Queen Elizabeth of England (Minnie Driver, looking every bit the funniest) – it’s exhausting! Ultimately, Catherine decides that half measures are futile and deploys another son, Anjou, alongside her Flying Squadron of female spies to assassinate nearly all of her religious and political rivals.

For The Snake QueenIn the second season finale of ‘s, Morton spoke to The Daily Beast’s Obsessed about how her experiences in Britain’s foster care system inform her performance and what inspiration she draws from it Good guys And The Sopranos to play a mother who takes it seriously.

(Warning: Spoilers for the Season 2 Finale The Snake Queen.)

Catherine de’Medici is the latest in a series of performances in your career in which you play a very particular type of mother. I think of Margaret Wells in Whores and Alpha in The walking dead.What is it about these two types of characters and these specific characters that is so meaningful to you?

I’ve never been asked that question before! It was the complexity of the writing, anyway. Margaret Wells was a dream role in a deeply feminist show, and so brilliantly written. Her relationships with her daughters and the girls she cared for and who worked for her in the brothel – to get to play all that over the course of three seasons, with all these great actors, was amazing. At first I thought I wasn’t the right age for it, late 30s, because Margaret’s daughters are in their late teens and early 20s, but the producers pointed out that she had her first child at 12.

What about Alpha in The walking dead?

Again, the writing on that show is so strong. Alpha was amazingly well written and her relationship with Lydia blew me away. I came in for season 9 and hadn’t seen the show before I got the part, even though I knew it was really famous. So I watched a couple of seasons and thought, “Wow, this is brilliant.” It was always a dream of mine to do television in America, so it was a great opportunity.

We were lucky that we had these flashback episodes where you see how and why Dee became Alpha, while she’s protecting Lydia. Their relationship blew my mind. And then we went even further when we Stories from The Walking Deada spin-off show where you saw, you know, Lydia losing her mind, Alpha having a breakdown, and going back, how kind and loving and protective Dee was. She would do absolutely anything to protect her daughter.

The intensity of that is so powerful. How did you come up with the idea to play Catherine?

Soon The Snake Queenwhile we were figuring out if I was right for the part, part of the conversation with the producers and directors was about how some of my favorite movies are mafia movies, like The godfather And Good guys. I Love Scorsese. Ray Liotta’s performance in Good guys really inspired me because he breaks the fourth wall at the end when Henry Hill is in the courtroom and is about to grant witness protection.

Another part of the appeal is that I had a really difficult childhood. I was homeless at one point and I grew up in foster care. When I went into television, I suddenly had a very, very different life and I had to fight very, very hard. So I found some similarities with Catherine there that I could fall back on. This idea of ​​prejudice too.

Oh, tell me more about that.

Catherine was not respected, because she was a commoner. And in the UK we still have a class system that you don’t really have in the same way in America. And that’s another identification that I have with Catherine, because I know what that feels like, being unwanted, fighting for everything. She went to convent schools, I went to a children’s home, so I had that connection with her. She was also not French, and I kept thinking about what it must have felt like for her, just as it must have felt for my grandparents, who were immigrants from Poland and Ireland, to arrive in a country where she was not welcome.

There are certainly similarities.

It’s phenomenal what Catherine had to go through, being transplanted from Italy to marry a French prince. So overall, it was the writing that brought these complex women to life, how they manage to love their children. I wanted to explore in each of them where I could bring a level of truth into a fantastical drama. I mean, let’s face it, even with these historical beats that we know are true in Whores And The Snake Queenthey are fantastic dramas, just like The walking dead is.

I’m so glad you talked about your background, growing up in the British foster care system. Is there anything else you’d like to say about how that experience has influenced you as an artist?

Yes, absolutely. It’s just very rare that people from my background get the opportunity to work in television, theatre or music. All of those opportunities aren’t available to people from my background or other very disadvantaged backgrounds. So when I received my BAFTA Fellowship, I said in my acceptance speech that it was almost a miracle that I’m still alive, let alone receiving the most prestigious award that BAFTA can give to someone. But I still have to fight against the class system: I’ve never been a CBA, an OBE or a Dame, because I’m still not part of that world.

That’s crazy.

I’m lucky that I get to have these conversations in support of such an incredible role. When the conversation gets a little bit personal, I can highlight issues that are close to my heart that need to be addressed. As you saw in season 1, Catherine got married at 12, in 1533. But we still have a problem with child marriage worldwide in 2024. Men are still marrying 12-year-old girls, girls are still dying in childbirth at 14. So even though it’s a historical show, we’re touching on things that are still going on today.

Let’s talk a little bit more about Catherine and her many masks and personas that she uses to maintain her position. She survives and is left with allies on one side and enemies on the other, and that’s about all there is to her life.

It must be lonely at the top. For anyone, whether you run a country or you’re a superstar, an actor or a musician, because everyone wants to be your friend and make you feel good. At the same time, there’s always a huge business around someone at the top. It’s like its own little economy. As far as her psychology goes, as an actor, you can only work from your script. The script is sacred to me, and Justin Hayth’s writing has so much depth. I learn my lines and then something clicks and I think, “Oh my God, it is that!” I was so lucky that he got to direct part of season one, and a big part of season two, and I got to work so closely with him to understand the nuances and everything that was going to go into the last two episodes of the season.

At the end of this season, Catherine is back in full control after deciding that she needs to clear the board and have all of her opponents killed. It sets up a very interesting situation for a potential third season. Is it even possible for Catherine to lose at this point? Can you imagine a moment where there would be a real reckoning for her?

Well, maybe when she meets her maker, maybe when it’s the end, and she looks back on the choices she made. Sure, in season 2, things aren’t going so well for her. Not at all. Everyone wants to get rid of her, her kids hate her, based on decisions she’s forced to make, because the men in the room aren’t making the right decisions. She’s forced to take control again. For example, her support for religious tolerance and her desire for a secular state, rather than one run by the Catholic Church. That was way ahead of its time to want peace in that way.

If you’ll pardon the pun, I know you don’t intend to make her seem saintly.

No, she’s really about business – she’s like a mafia boss. Whether it’s marrying off her daughters or revenge, it’s still about business, and that business is running the country. My interpretation is that she sacrifices her own happiness because she sees the bigger picture and knows that it’s not about her. She believes that her choices are for the good of the country.

Is there anything you want viewers to think about or keep in their hearts as we look ahead to the third season we’re so eagerly awaiting?

The complex family dynamics are so interesting, thinking about these Valois children growing up and becoming who they are going to be, and how that will affect the world. If you like history, this is really fascinating, and if you like shows like The Sopranos or if you like shows like Successionyou have the same level of complex family dynamics going on The Snake QueenThe relationships between Catherine and the poor King Charles, between Catherine and Anjou are so fascinating and interesting.

If we go into season 3, if we go that way, we have the huge cliffhanger at the end of the season finale. When I watched it, I wanted to go straight into season 3, because I have to know what happens here, what the retribution is going to be, what the price is going to be, because there’s always a price to pay. And this season is funny too! Minnie Driver is so funny as Queen Elizabeth, and I mean, the Bourbons. They make me laugh out loud, they’re just crazy!

They are my favorite characters! I was so glad they survived Catherine’s very well orchestrated bloodbath at the end of the finale.

Yeah! You know, even though it’s a period drama, the music and the way the cinematography is done, it feels very contemporary. You don’t feel like you’re watching an episode of CSIand it won’t scare off fans of costume dramas, but it will attract a younger audience – well, hopefully an audience of the right age, because it is kind of a mature show, and as Starz says, we’re all adults here.

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