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BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. This is an extended version of the original radio for broadcast and for right reasons. The music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the actor and director, Samantha Morton, she was still a teenager when her breakthrough roles in the TV dramas Cracker and Band of Gold earned her a formidable reputation by her mid 20s.

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She was a Hollywood star working with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen and winning two Oscar nominations, 20 years and many awards later. She's one of the most respected actors of her generation with the Quicksilver talent, her minority Report co-star Tom Cruise, once described as a lightning in a bottle. If her professional achievements are extraordinary in themselves, set alongside her personal story, they're nothing short of miraculous. She grew up in care, left school at 13, experienced homelessness as a young teenager and is a survivor of childhood trauma that more recently in her career, she's returned to on screen in the BAFTA winning films.

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I Am Kirstie and her directorial debut, The Unloved. She says I'm an actor. This is what I do. I'm not a charity worker. I'm not a doctor. And this is my way of giving back. This is the best I can do to try and share with people how it feels. Samantha Morton, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

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Hello. Thank you for having me. Well, it's a real pleasure, Sam.

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We're not together today. You're recording at home. Tell me a little bit about the roles that you play. I mean, you've played historical parts, Mary Queen of Scots, Jane Eyre Smith in a very contemporary roles as well. Teenage prostitute, band of gold. When it comes to you taking on a part, you've described acting as something that comes from my spirit, how does that work in practice? How does it feel to inhabit a role? A bit scary and a bit weird, it's almost like like breathing in and it's there sometimes.

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I watch actors, I work with actors that have been trained and I get very intrigued and envious about their process because I never I wasn't really taught how how to act. I think I've always been a watcher. So as a kid, I used to watch people on the bus, how they smoke cigarettes, how to move the head, how they listened, how they got off the bus on the bus, walk down the street. And I think of they just had some news.

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What's their morning been like?

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Are they happy? They said why they got their hands in the pocket. Just I just constantly asking questions about people and being around growing up with so many different mums and dads or children that I live with in homes, absorbing all the different people like a sponge. And so when I start getting acting roles, I'd read the scripts and like a good book, I could literally be them.

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Your list has been very thoughtfully curated today. What part does music play in your life and your professional life, too?

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I think in my life I couldn't live without it. But I think that there is music everywhere, from birdsong to the sounds of buses to the gentle breeze in our ears, to the voice of a child or the snore of a dog or whatever we can hear.

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You know what I mean? We can hear it. But music as in music that we know it to be, it's like breath to me. The oxygen.

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Well, we can hear the birdsong where you are today. And it sounds rather lovely, but it's time for your first disc, 17 World. And what's it gonna be and why have you chosen this?

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My first film is Burden of Shame. Why do you be 40?

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This song is a song that I loved as a child and danced to and it reminds me of growing up in care. Really reminds me of not running around the flats in Hyson Green playing with my friends till it was dark.

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My dad would put my sandwiches masala cream sandwiches in a sun blessed bag, fold them in off and say Come back when it's dark and my siblings were off we go. And it was magical, really.

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We must have gone for good deeds being done in my. And our shot that. I'm a British subject, not from nothing. I carry the burden to say I'm not proud of what I carry the burden. You've 40 and burden of shame, Summerton, you described the cinema, I think, as a place of refuge for you, even as a very small child. Where was your first and what would you have been watching?

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My first cinema experience was over where you are. It was 2001, Stanley Kubrick, and it was in the ABC cinema in Nottingham, and me and my sister used to go off gallivanting for hours and we used to hide in the cinema and just watch film after film all day because you were safe.

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It was warm and we just see different films. But that was my earliest memory of cinema. Going back to the beginning of your own story, then you were first taken into care when you were a baby and then throughout your childhood you kind of went between foster care, children's homes and living with your dad and you were very keen to live with your mother, but that was never possible. Now, before we talk about being in care, tell me a little bit about your mum, Pamela.

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You said that she was your most powerful teacher.

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I always had this thing where people put my mom down. My dad had nothing positive to say about her. A lot of other people, the social workers had nothing positive to say about my mother.

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And people criticized her choices. And I just looked at this woman who was kind of subservient, vulnerable, funny, beautiful. And did I say vulnerable? I want to kind of really if I could write that and capital letters, I would.

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She is a saint in a way. To me, there's something fascinating in what I did get from her, from not getting what I thought I wanted from her. You know, I wouldn't be who I am today without what happened with her, obviously. But I am fuming at how society behaves around mental health issues for women. My mom had a very, very traumatic childhood. And it's fascinating now as a as a mother and as a as a woman, you know, grown up to go, wow.

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And you can't connect those dots at the time. So you loved her. She loved you, but she wasn't able to mother you in the gap between those two things. Taught you a lot.

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Well, I think when I used to go and see her at the occasional weekend, I'd run away to her all the time. My clothes always smelt clean and she'd give comfort and she gave me bubble bath. And I just saw this amazing woman. Her name is Pam and she was a Piper report farms and used to joke about that.

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She had many lives, did my mom, but she was so loving and the food was always nice pork chops and roast potatoes. And she did a great Yorkshire pudding. She was very Zen attitude about life or cleaning or being.

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And certainly how she dealt with her terminal cancer was so inspiring.

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But I was not privy to seeing her when she was very poorly, when I was very small with her mental health issues.

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That's what people were rude about and mean about. Women aren't allowed to be angry if they've been raped or sexually abused. Things weren't talked about.

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And what about your dad? Tell me about him. Oh, gosh, it's complicated because he's still alive.

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And I have a huge amount of love for him and respect for elements of his parenting. He was a single dad with three kids in the eighties, losing his job as a minor.

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He was a Noca daughter, a salesman. Yeah, but my dad would do anything he could to make sure we were eating properly. So he made his own bread. He grew vegetables in the garden, used to write poetry. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He played guitar. He was such a laugh.

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But sadly, he had a temper, maybe to some degree. Growing up in the 70s and the 80s, kids did get a good idea. But I think about the levels to which we got good ideas and it wasn't right and it wasn't normal and it wasn't safe. So there's this great positive memories of of him being an incredible dad and then these dark memories of him being, again, poorly. And I do see as an illness and the illness affecting our family and destroying our family at that time.

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I wish him well and I love him dearly. And I feel sad that by just being my dad and my story is what it is, I have to maybe talk about those things.

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It's extremely complex. And, you know, we're grateful to you for sharing that with us. Some it's time to take a break for some music. This is discrimination. What are you taking to the island next and why we chose this one?

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Oh, OK. So this one is this is a band called The Charlatans. I just loved them. And I love this track in particular called Flower. That's what I'm going to listen to. And the lead singer is Tim Burgess. The thing about the charlatans at the time, I could not it but his music used to take me on a journey. He's. This way with his voice, that literally is heaven, so that's why this song is here and this song is about little Sam running around Nottingham in a flash, having the time of her life falling in love with my first boyfriend.

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Oh, my gosh, he was so gorgeous. And this song makes me so happy and takes me right back. The charlatans and flower system owned by your early teens, you were permanently living in care and you'd be made a ward of court when you were 11.

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I think you told us a little bit about your family circumstances. And you have a very different perspective now on why that happened. But what did you know about it at the time? What did you know about why you were in care?

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They don't tell you why you were literally living with your little.

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Black plastic bag with your contents and just getting moved from pillar to post, the first children's home that you were in was called Red Tiles and you made friends there. You've said that some of the residential social workers were wonderful, but you were also abused there and sexually abused. You weren't safe there either. That was the first children's home I lived in, and I also would be at an emergency home, sometimes if you run away and then you got in the night by the police or whatever, you'd be sent somewhere just for the night.

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But Redtails was the first place that I. Called home and, yeah, an amazing place, a place filled with a huge amount of love and care. I'm not going to mention any names, but if any of the staff are listening, you'll know who you are. There were people that were kind and thoughtful and generous and inspiring and, you know, educating me, you know, I mean, amazing people. But also within the system, you have people that sadly.

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Abused their positions of power. I mean, Sam, we know that many children in that situation who are abused, they don't tell anyone about what they're suffering. But you actually did what happened? How did people react? Who did you talk to?

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I told my mom because it frightened me. I mean, I was always someone that wasn't easily frightened.

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And I was I was seeing things as well. And I was seeing abuse of other kids.

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Yeah. Yeah. And so I went to my mom and my stepdad what had happened. And I said, you know, I've already told the staff and I told my social worker, and they've not done anything. I don't I don't want to go back. And so we went to the police.

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With the hope that, you know, I suppose when you're a kid, you don't forget, you just want it to stop, you don't you don't want that to carry on anymore. And from my understanding, the people that did what they did were they were downgraded and I was moved to another home, but they were allowed to stay in the job at the time. So you were taken out.

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Did it feel like you were being punished? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

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Because the two individuals were, you know, apart from this incident, were amazing, funny, confident, strong, clever. I thought these these people were amazing people. I absolutely adored them.

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And it was a big shock to me what happened, because I actually really genuinely cared about these individuals that that did what they did as well. It was heartbreaking.

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Some I'm going to take a break for some music. Tell us about this next piece and why you've chosen it today.

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This is a song called The Town I Loved So Well by Luke Kelly from The Dubliners.

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Growing up, I knew that my mom was Polish Irish, but I didn't know really what that meant.

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And I didn't fully understand the history of our family.

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So when I, luckily for me, got this job, Mary McGuckin gave me a job in my first, I'd say proper film called This is the C, and I went to Ireland for the first time. My step dad had been in the military and had served in Northern Ireland. He was from Glasgow, from the Gorbals, and I loved him enormously and worshipped the ground he walked on. And he had a really tough time in Northern Ireland. And I didn't understand the politics of Northern Ireland and I was very naive.

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And I started to educate myself and, you know, hearing these are they call them rebel songs, people telling stories through song about oppression and having grown up in care, having been oppressed, having been, you know, my my voice wasn't worthy of anything. My opinions didn't matter. I didn't have a voice. I didn't belong anywhere. And so this song appealed to me on so many levels. I get emotional thinking about it.

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And I just I suppose this song makes me feel that I can identify slightly with the feelings of that and that through song and art music. And we can tell our stories. And then through telling our stories, maybe times will change.

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Oh, man. Very funny. The day I found me the of. Over half days day in many, many ways. In the town of. Luke, Kelly and the town I loved so well, so some you were in and out of care in your teens, you did go to school West Bridgford Comprehensive, but you left when you were just 13 and you were swept up in the rape scene around that time. Was that is that what you were doing instead of school going off to right now acting as well?

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I was in Soldier Soldier and I think initially started me not going to school because I couldn't get to school and had my foster parents in term and West Bridgford. And then I'd gone off to Redtails and I'd had a foster placement before that breakdown. And I just it was turbochargers.

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And I had a voluntary driver who I used to fight with because she she said kids were asking for it when they were abused and uncharismatic dog in the car. And I was not having it. So I didn't go to school. But to be fair to the school, they tried really hard to help me. I mean, they really did.

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There must have been able to see your potential. You must have been.

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I think so. They tried. I kept getting expelled, though, which is weird because you might try to get expelled once, but I think I got expelled three times, but I could never get the money to go to arrived, you know what I mean? And started shoplifting to get food because I was running away all the time and I shoplift and then I shoplift for orders. If somebody wanted some clothes, I'd go and get what they wanted or body shop, lip balm or makeup or whatever, and then just get the money.

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So get myself some food and then I'm saving up. And I was like, I'm going to go to one of these raves. So I did. I went to arrive and it changed my life.

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My gosh, it was this feeling of love and community. And I loved music obviously even then and felt like a revolution. I was very young. I was too young to be doing what I was doing, obviously. But when I was at one of these raves, everybody's friends and I didn't see any aggression, no violence. And the music was phenomenal. And also it was a family for me and it didn't have a family because I was always in and out of all these different places, there was no consistency.

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So alongside of that, you had the sense of family, obviously also pretty out there in terms of drugs and overdoing that side of it alongside that. How did your connection with the central television workshop start? It was Ian Smith. I think he was your mentor.

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Yeah. I think if I could just go back to a drug thing, I didn't do a lot of drugs, but I did try drugs and I didn't fully understand what I was involved in. It's really bad, but I never saw it as taking drugs of being a drug. It's actually hated the idea of drugs because my idea of drugs were Izumo off Greengold with heroin because there wasn't that much education about ecstasy. When I was a kid, it was a new drug.

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I think that the drugs are some of the drugs I took then healed a huge amount of trauma. And I think in future generations they will be using some of those drugs in very special ways to help people. And they're already starting to I'm not advocating everybody go out and take some pills, but I think that certainly in an accidental way, I was it was a positive force, not a negative force. But obviously drugs can lead into other things. And for some people, addiction is an absolutely horrific life, damaging for the families, everybody, as is alcohol.

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I'm waffling now. We've got lot to worry about.

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OK, so alongside all that, you've got the side of life and then you've got the central television workshop run by Ian's happened was I was at junior school in West Bridgforth and this teacher turned up Mr Thomson and he was amazing and he did drama and I didn't really know what drama was and he just said I was good. He said, listen, he wrote down on a piece of paper central to any TV workshop and I should go and look into it because I might not be good because you couldn't just go into the group.

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That audition was really hard game. And then red tiles for one of the staff members took me along and I got in to the workshop and what Ian did or what the workshop did, they put on their own plays. They had an edit suite with camera equipment. Ian was just doing the maddest improvisations and put it on plays. And then we'd get cast as extras in shows that Central TV were doing. So it was just different and seemed to suit me some.

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Let's take some more music. This is your fourth disc today. Why you chose it.

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Oh my gosh. OK, it's called This Must Be the Place. Naive Melody by talking heads. I'm now nineteen.

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I've moved to New York and this song encapsulates meeting my baby's father Charlie as my dad, meeting Shifra, my best friend working in New York. And there's a place called the Terry Tavern. And I was living in the East Village and going to this little pub and they had this jukebox and it was the first time I ever heard the song in this place and oh my. It just blew my mind and decide. That sing into my mouth that night and and I had this really amazing childhood friend and this guy called Darren Darren Smart, and he moved in with me when I kind of moved back to London and it became our soul.

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And Darren sadly passed away four years ago. So I read the words to this song at his funeral. So this song means so much to me to do with Darren living in New York. Just hope.

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Yeah, optimism. I can tell you there was a time for someone to maybe where I grew up in. Talking heads, and this must be the place, naive melody, someone you've said that you want to prove that you don't have to come from Oxford University, you don't have to have gone to Rada. You don't have to have parents who will support you to succeed. When your career started, you were still in care. You were homeless for a while.

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You were in trouble with the police. There was an incident where you were convicted of threatening someone with a knife. Incredibly traumatic things happen to you as a young person. How did you come to turn that around? And was there a moment when you thought, I think I might have made it out of this?

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I think, yeah, I was living at an independence unit, which is just a stupid term for homeless hostel for young people. You can be there for years.

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It's when you're there's nowhere for you. And I got the part in practice and that was it. And give me the train fare to go to London because he'd heard about this audition. It would be really good playing a runaway. Know, I said I think I could do that for the man if he'll give me the part. And off I went and I got the part. So I was still in the system, if you like, when I started the bigger roles.

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But going back to the knife crime, I was involved in a situation in the particular home I was at where one girl was bullying other kids and I was fed up of being beaten up and I had taken, sadly, some drugs.

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And I've been away to some rave somewhere. And I got back and there was a little boy that had been pimped and he was nine years old and I snapped.

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And I thought this girl had been doing it and I snapped and I said I was going to kill her. I didn't Hamah, I didn't touch her, but I said those words and I regret it. And I am sorry. And I was sorry to her when I was in the cells for three days, solitary confinement as a child in adult cells. And I was mortified. And I'm sorry to her. We were all abused. She was a child herself.

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Maybe he looked after us properly.

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We were writing in that home because they were locked in the fridges at night. The Teddy, we we were not safe. You had two members of staff on duty with 14, 15 kids and then the staff members, 19 years old. I am incredibly sorry, but it wasn't just like self-defense.

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I was angry at the system and I've rambled. I wanted to kind of put the record straight a little bit. I think I do understand absolutely there's a context around that which is really important.

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So you've said that despite everything that you went through, you always knew you were going to be OK. How was that? How can that be? Faith and God and love. When I was little, I did get very confused with my relationship with faith. But I always felt loved and in the same way as I look at my children and I know I love them and it's so enormous and it's so overwhelming and it's so huge, that's the love I feel from God.

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And so when you're small or if you're in pain or in a very, very. Tough situation by accepting that love and allowing that of the most amazing, transformative things can happen to you. So that's how I think that I was able to to survive, I suppose I think on that note, we better hear some more music.

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What's it going to be like? Oh, no, not really weirdly ties in with this one, so this is ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space by spiritualised Jason Pierce.

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I first bought the CD, but about probably 18 and years later, I'm introduced to and I make friends with Jason and his partner, Julia. I love them. Incredible. Just so much. And I got very sick. I had a stroke and I went to see him play live after I got better. And this song just makes me think of that time and the love of friendship and his lyrics and and watching him perform is a is very euphoric and and beautiful and very deep.

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And so that's why this song is here.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we're floating in space. Spiritualized, ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space, so Sam Morton, that truck helped you through a very difficult time during your rehabilitation, after you had a stroke and you'd been hit on the head, I think, by a piece of falling plaster from a ceiling.

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Oh. So I was born on Friday the 13th and I've had some really funny accidents. Not funny like they are funny to me. But when I tell them to people that I'm flipping, heck, you know, yeah, I was living I bought this dream house. And when I first moved to London, the amazing actress Kate Hardy took me to Spitalfields Market. And I remember walking down these streets going, I must have been about 16. And I remember thinking, oh, one day I'm going to live there.

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And one of those houses and I did I managed to buy my dream home.

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And yeah, so the house was old and there wasn't enough hair in the plaster. And I'd had a party the night before as I often did, and everyone had left me in the morning.

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I was standing at the bottom of the stairs and all the kids were going to get pancakes.

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And I was like, come on, I'm going to go in. And I saw the little children's faces at the top of the stairs. And then we heard this noise and then the entire ceiling just fell on me. And yeah, it had a vertebral artery, my neck. Yeah, I was very poorly, but I always think that I'm glad it was makes it could have been all those kids. It's a miracle it was me. Thank God it was me, you know.

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How long did it take to get better? Three, three months, but longer, and it's hard with stroke because you feel the effects forever, really, in a way, any kind of head injury can cause anger, confusion, disfluency how you process information. I play piano and my left hand is not what it was.

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Some as soon as your career took off, it really took flight. When you got your first Oscar nomination, you were just 21. What did you think about being recognized in that way and being so successful at such a young age? Did you reflect on it at the time or were you just in the moment?

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It didn't mean anything to me. That means more to me now.

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I was just happy for Niki my age and because I love her and she's she's amazing and I just wanted to make her proud. And so she was very excited about the Oscars. And we took Azmeh, who's a baby, Charlie. And I took her to the Oscars. And it's just like a bit of a laugh, really, starting in the in a fancy hotel. But it didn't.

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It's become all of the awards, things have become so branded now that it almost takes a little bit away from the individual. I've been on juries, so I understand how these manipulations work and how the politics and how much money it takes to get a nomination.

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I did I did nothing to get a nomination. I did a couple of press interviews. That was it. I didn't campaign. Now, you categorically cannot get an Oscar without a campaign. Back then, it was a little bit more you would based on merit, I suppose.

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And if people thought you were really good and did you feel like people thought you were really good, were you sitting there at the Oscars thinking, you know what, five years ago I was in a homeless hostel?

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No, I didn't think that at all. Then I was just breastfeeding. My boobs are in pain. I was leaking all over my dress and my suitcase I wore to actually Sex Pistols T-shirt was a great look.

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Thank you. Make quite a bit wrong, though. I hate I hate makeup, but I didn't feel that way because I was just so happy to be a mom as she was, I think eight weeks old. I felt good because my mates told me I was good, not because the academy told me I was good. You know, if and Smith said I was good, I was good. But I now realize in hindsight that it means a huge amount.

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And I'm privileged and fortunate because it opens doors some. It's time for your next desk. Tell oh, at this one.

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Oh, this one is this is this this. Say the name of the band wrong. It's AstraZeneca now Bouton. I think that's how I say this song is called Bloom and this is the French version of the song. My husband, who I love very, very much, Harry. He started dating me and he took me to one of their gigs and I met his stepmom, Sophie. Distemper, who is incredible, was incredible to me in kind.

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And she introduced me to Blixa Bargeld, who is in this band. And so this song, this band encapsulates a time in my life of of just you know, I was I was in my late 20s, so I didn't know that I could experience love again like that. And I didn't know that I could experience having a family, another family on top of the family. I already have my little man, Azmeh, that was just so tight.

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And then I was able to have what I didn't have as a kid. I don't even know what they're singing about, Lauryn, because it's all foreign to me.

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But I really like the song Chrysanthemum Recipes and Crazy Aunt and Supernova in it too. I see. I, I don't. It is the female TV. Owners of the.

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Iron Shirts and Neubauten with Blumer, some, given everything that you've talked about today, you know what you went through as a child and also now having your perspective as as an adult, I imagine that you've thought a lot about the idea of forgiveness.

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And I wonder to what extent you're able to look back and forgive adults who either as family members or as professionals should have taken care of you and didn't. I think I have absolute forgiveness for everybody, but I do not forget that when you become an adult, you are in a position of power, certainly over children. And I think that people in a professional role have a duty of care not only to the children that they're looking after, but to do their jobs properly.

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And I think a lot of people failed in those jobs in regards to me and many of my friends, you know, that I grew up with foster siblings, etc. my my siblings. And I just wish certain individuals would put their hands up and say, yeah, we we were wrong. We could've done better. But people don't want to admit any liability in the culture that we all know because it's like people get sued or what's what's that going to achieve unless people say we got it wrong, we want to get it right, how are we going to change?

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Tell us about your seventh disc's. It's time for some more music. What's it going to be? Oh, this song is.

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I first heard this song on the documentary Hyper Normalization that Adam Curtis made, and, oh, gosh, the song is called Dream, Baby, Dream by Suicide.

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And this song was the song that got me through, if you like.

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My mother's kind of allowing myself to move forward from my mother's death. When she passed away, I was wallowing that just feeling this this enormous sense of loss.

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And then I went I went to watch this film again and all of a sudden it was like the blue butterfly inside of me, which I've always had as a kid. I've always visualized these blue butterflies from when I was a tiny, tiny kid, just flew out of my heart and something lifted and shifted and all of a sudden I was OK. And I knew I was there. I knew I was going to be OK because she was still with me and she always will be.

[00:36:46]

She always was and she always will be said. This is why this song is called Dream Baby Dream. Suicide and dream, baby dream Sam Morton, you recently co-wrote and starred in Channel Four's hugely successful I Am Kirsti. It was about a young single mother who gets into debt and is forced into sex work. You have a platform now to tell stories that otherwise wouldn't be on screen, whether it's the big screen or the small screen. How careful are you about the stories that you want to tell and what's your plan going forward?

[00:37:52]

I think I'm very careful and I think there has to be absolute justification for your message.

[00:37:59]

And I don't want to be just some kind of socially conscious kind of flag-Waving beating my chest on all these matters. It isn't just about that.

[00:38:11]

I think a story, a human story is important, whether you are upper class, common, whatever culture you're from, it's about the story and the characters fundamentally for me when you're doing that, otherwise I'll be a documentary maker. So at the moment, for me, I feel that I can only tell stories I know a lot about, as in writing or directing, because that's where my truth comes from and that's where I'm most comfortable. I'm not saying I can't go into other areas, but that's just where I'm comfortable, right.

[00:38:38]

About what you know, you know, or if you don't know about it, make sure you know about it before you put that director's hat on. And moving forward in the process of writing the TV series, writing another film, The Unloved is part of a trilogy. So this is the second part of that trilogy and then the third part I haven't yet got funding for. So that is the hope that I make more content. It's horrible quality content, isn't it?

[00:39:03]

But make more stuff that people might enjoy. I'd have to say Go Back to the unloved is a bit grim, but it's also very funny. And I think the thing about my childhood was, yeah, the really tough stuff. But I had a laugh. I had a great time as well. And I'm not just saying that I had the most magical feral childhood as well as some of the horrible stuff happening. And so there's always a lot of humour in it because how many times I can't cope with this?

[00:39:29]

Actually, I actually can't watch this film. It's going to be too upsetting. I don't want that either, because life is full of colour. So I hope that I can make people laugh as well as cry.

[00:39:40]

Well, you have done both today and you can see it in your work and you can see it in you. You have such a sense of joy. Where does that come from and how do you maintain it?

[00:39:50]

When I was little, I mean, this film isn't really about I'd do anything for a laugh. And I grew up around a lot of very funny people. I love that lot.

[00:39:59]

You know what? The world is tough enough. Come on. You know, we've got a smile and I try not to get all heavy, but it's like, you know, don't borrow trouble from the future. Enjoy the moments if you can. And those mindful ways just try not to dwell too much on on the negative and invite the light in. And I think, Joy, I get it from my kids. I get it from my husband.

[00:40:23]

I get it just from the world is a beautiful, magical place. And people are amazing. Oh, friends.

[00:40:30]

The Sunshine. I love the autumn. I love the mushrooms growing out the ground. I love music therapy and joy. It's everywhere. Just go see it. You've got be open to it.

[00:40:42]

It's time for one more disc today. It's your eighth. What are we going to hear.

[00:40:46]

Oh oh. I'm so happy to be able to share this with your listeners. This song is called I Remember by Molly Drake. It sounds weird, but I got sick a while ago. I'm okay now, but I got sick and I was a bit scary again. And I suddenly thought, what if what if I wasn't here anymore?

[00:41:09]

I was thinking about that away for a while and what your legacy is and what you can leave behind.

[00:41:13]

And if it was all to suddenly end this song is one of those kind. I'm not saying this is the end of my life or anything like that because it's not.

[00:41:21]

But this song gives me a lot of hope. But it also is where I am now. I'm at this time in my life where, I mean, I could pinch myself. Everything's so good and I am blessed with my family and my children. This is Nick Drake's mom.

[00:41:37]

And oh, when you well, though, you'll hear it. The listeners will hear it and hopefully they'll see what I'm talking about.

[00:41:45]

This is a bit of a perfect song, really. We trap the open more in the rain in April and came upon the little land that we had fun together. The landlord gave us tost. And stop to share a joke. And I remember firelight, I remember firelight, I remember it and you remember. Molly Drake and I remember so some more, and it's time to send you to your island to cast you away. I'm going to give you the books, the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

[00:42:37]

You can also, of course, take a book of your own. What will that be?

[00:42:42]

A yoga book is BKS Iyengar, and it's basically the Bible of yoga, because I keep falling in and out with yoga, as in I can do it for a few years and I have to stop and then do it again. And I want that to be something I can do in practice for hours and hours and get it right.

[00:42:59]

You can also take a luxury item with you for pleasure or sensory stimulation. What can we give you there?

[00:43:05]

Can I have a photograph, please, of my children? It's yours. You can have it.

[00:43:09]

Absolutely. Thank you. And finally, which track would you save if the waves threatened to wash your desks away? Has to be.

[00:43:19]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space by spiritualised because that's what we are doing. It's all bigger than we know and it's better than we know. And this is one part of our journey. But I believe that that we are more than this. So, yeah, that song encapsulates that.

[00:43:38]

Samantha Morton, thank you very much for sharing your Desert Island Discs with us. You're welcome.

[00:43:43]

Thank you for inviting me. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sam, as I hope you know by now, the Desert Island Discs Back catalog includes many of her fellow actors and directors, including Dame Judi Dench, Anne-Marie Duff, Kathy Burk and Emma Thompson. And you can find all of those editions on BBC Sande's. Next time my guest will be Baroness Florella Benjamin, do join us then. Have you ever wondered what teachers talk about when no one else is listening?

[00:44:39]

Well, you're about to find out.

[00:44:41]

I'm Marienborg and my brand new podcast, The Secret Life of Teachers, goes behind the headlines to see what's really going on as teachers go back to school after the lockdown. I was a teacher for almost a decade, but I never witnessed a time like this.

[00:44:55]

So I've created my own virtual secret staff room where each week some teacher friends and I will discuss everything from remote learning and mental health to offset inspections and teachers behaving badly.

[00:45:09]

If you'd also like to overhear their uncensored story from confessions that subscribe to my podcast, The Secret Life of Teachers on BBC Sounds.