Welcome to Screen Sisters, a collection of conversations about what it means to be a woman working in television both in front of and behind the camera.
As well as recognising their contribution to the industry, the series will also examine the highs and lows of working in media, how far television has progressed, and how much further it still has to go.
Next up, we're speaking to The Walking Dead's Samantha Morton ahead of her starring turn in STARZPlay's The Serpent Queen.
In 1997, Samantha Morton posed for a photograph on the set of Under The Skin with her costar, Ladybird Ladybird actress Crissy Rock. Once the Polaroid developed, Crissy scrawled on the photograph "don't let the bastards grind you down" in an act of feminine unity with the formative cast and crew around her, mostly led by women. It's a message that Samantha has carried with her ever since.
It's certainly a life motto held by her latest character, Catherine de Medici, who takes centre stage in The Serpent Queen, a modern retelling of the 1500s queen of France who, by rights, should be spoken about more.
As Samantha explains: "Watching her from a very young child through to being sold off, basically child trafficking, to France to be a bride, to not have any autonomy, to be owned by the men… her body was owned. Everything was owned. She was the cleverest person in the room, so just through sheer intelligence and wisdom managed to survive.
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"Everybody wanted to kill her," she continued. "In Italy, her family name was mud, that was enough for people to want to kill her, to moving into France. Obviously she falls in love which is a very beautiful thing, but also a very dangerous thing, to just her sheer survival."
But frustratingly, Catherine has been seen in only a handful of period dramas. In The CW's Reign, she was a lead character, but her story largely focused on her ongoing feud with Mary, Queen of Scots.
In 1994 film La Reine Margot she was depicted as a calculating villain of her own story.
So The Serpent Queen is on a mission to even the odds – and does so with a rocking soundtrack, stunning cinematography, and a wardrobe filled with luscious fashion.
But why has it taken this long for a series to finally tell the story of someone dubbed by historians as "one of the most important women of the 16th century"? Her influence was unparalleled for a woman at the time.
"I didn't know her story really," British actress Samantha explained. "We're told about Napoleon, we're told about Henry VIII, we're told about Churchill, told about Hitler... we're told about men all the time, and women are not praised or lauded enough in history.
"That's obviously because men have written history, but also they probably write the curriculum with which history is taught at school. There's a real sense of there being a lot of forgotten women, who have done incredible things and who have made formidable changes in society... have managed to stop wars in Catherine's case."
So for The Serpent Queen? "She's having her moment," Samantha says. "Because Justin [Haythe] and Erwin [Stoff], who make the show, it wasn't that they set out to make a period piece. It was that this person is just so fascinating – I mean, absolutely extraordinary."
They both come from film, and the idea was, even though this show is very beautiful – Karen Muller Serreau who made the costumes, and the hair and make-up [team] was absolute dedication," she said.
"I wouldn't say it's accurate, but they put their spin on it, which is very beautiful. So you have Mary Queen of Scots in Chanel tartan, which I think looks incredible. It's very authentic to the period but we know there's been an original take on it.
"They wanted the show to feel very contemporary, so that you really were with Catherine, that you really felt like you knew her, or that this could happen to you."
Samantha Morton has become one of the UK's most beloved character actresses on our screen – thanks to her highly applauded roles across TV and film (most recently as the ferocious Alpha in The Walking Dead.)
Samantha has been in the acting world for more than 30 years, landing her first acting role at the age of 11 and since earning two Oscar nominations, worldwide acclaim, and a lot of lessons along the way as her work took her across the globe.
She's also seen the development of the treatment of women on set – something she says still needs to be improved. But she also notes that it depends on where, just as much as the systemic preference towards men in front of and behind the camera, that has an effect on the industry.
"I think the treatment of women changes where you work, different countries. I've worked in Israel, China, France, Spain, America, the UK, Wales, Scotland, I've worked all over the world. India, Pakistan, Oman… there's differences everywhere, but ultimately, it is a very male business, and there does need to be 50/50 there," she tells us. "50/50 in the writing of these stories and the producing of these stories, in the post production, in the design area, in the cinematography. We need a balance. It's not there yet."
In the spirit of Screen Sisters, she reflects on her time on Under The Skin as a particularly formative experience among women, working with Carine Adler, who became a filmmaker at an older age than her counterparts. The story centres on Samantha's Iris Kelly, whose life begins to unravel after the death of her mother. To cope, she breaks up with her boyfriend and goes on a self-destructive path, widening the distance between her and sister Rose in the process. It became a film festival darling in the year it was released in 1997, and reaffirmed the strong feminine energy Samantha has since displayed in multiple other roles since.
"It was [Adler's] first film, and I believe she was in her early 50s, and she'd written it and was directing it and it was produced by Kate Ogborn, who is a very formidable British film producer and has gone on to do incredible things and actually produced my first film The Unloved.
"That film being written by a woman, produced by a woman, directed by a woman, it was a female story. Myself and Rita Tushingham in that, and that experience there was incredible. Just being with these women and the story that we were telling and it would have been the first time I'd been around that."
Now aged 45, with children developing acting careers of their own (her daughter Esmé Creed-Miles led the cast of Prime Video series Hanna and gave her voice to The Legend of Vox Machina), Samantha acknowledges that as women forge their own career path as they see fit, being a guide to the younger generation of actresses depends solely on their own willingness to learn.
This is something she found in particular on The Serpent Queen with Liv Hill, who plays the younger Catherine in the flashback timeline of the series, as Samantha's Catherine recounts her story to a servant girl as she ages.
"There's lots and lots of young people I've loved working with, but they have to want to have those conversations. I don't force it upon them," she says, noting her previous work in Tom Beard's Two For Joy as a particular example.
"Some actresses really just want to be movie stars and want to be famous, and then other actresses, their ambition lies differently. They want to do theatre, they want to learn their craft. I can only help the people that are maybe a little bit more political, understand things a little bit better. If someone's agenda is just fame, then there's nothing I can do.
"Liv Hill is somebody that really is a hugely courageous young actress who really wants to learn her craft, to do theatre, to do film, to get better," she adds. "Everybody's different. There's nothing wrong with that. So I wouldn't force my opinions or my guidance or my mentorship on anyone. There has to be a connection and a desire."
Coming up for her next project, Samantha is due to star in another female-centric piece, The Burning Girls, portraying single mother Reverend Jack Brooks in the mystery thriller based on the book of the same name.
Bridgerton star Ruby Stokes will play her independently-minded teen daughter, Flo, as their move to a new town of Chapel Cove soon takes a dark turn due to a history of mysterious deaths and disappearances, plus age-old superstitions that dog the area.
If we were Ruby, we'd be soaking up every bit of guidance Samantha has to offer.
The Serpent Queen launches September 11 on STARZPlay in the UK.
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Freelance writer, Digital Spy
Tilly is Gold-Standard NCTJ accredited journalist with eight years of experience in entertainment journalism.
She has been heard giving her insight on the latest TV stories on BBC Radio across the country and on BBC News.
Previously working with The Sun Online, Yahoo, Metro.co.uk and Independent IE amongst others, she joined the Digital Spy team from 2021-2023 as Deputy TV Editor (Maternity cover).
With a speciality in TV drama and true crime, Tilly has been praised for her exclusive content with A-list stars ranging from Sir David Attenborough to the lawyers behind Making A Murderer.
She’s happy to report her mum now takes her seriously as a journalist as she got to interview George Clooney once.
