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<\/p>\nSamantha Morton didn\u2019t mean to start humming during that scene in \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d the scene everyone is talking about, when, as the sorceress Circe, she turns Odysseus\u2019 men into pigs, literally molding them into their true savage selves. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t in the script. It just happened. And when Morton was done, she looked over to director Christopher Nolan, waiting for him to say something like, \u201cMaybe try it without the humming, Samantha.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Nolan didn\u2019t say anything, so Morton did it again and the music that was swirling inside her head, which she remembers now as a symphony of glass harmoniums and theremin, kept coming out as Circe went about her witchy business, altering her gluttonous guests, who are busy slurping and gulping down her stew. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese are sounds that can make you go mad, apparently,\u201d Morton, 49, tells me, reclining on her bed at the Hotel Chelsea in New York. \u201cSo to transform the men, the magic came not just from my hands but from my sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Samantha Morton as Circe in \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d directed by Christopher Nolan.<\/p>\n
(Melinda Sue Gordon \/ Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n
Morton unabashedly believes in magic. How else, she asks, can you explain how a girl who was shuttled between children\u2019s homes and a dozen foster families, only to be living on the streets of Nottingham, England, at the age of 14 with a criminal record, be here talking with me now, sipping green tea at the Chelsea?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s got to be guardian angels and love \u2014 and not that I suddenly became good at acting and got a job,\u201d says Morton, a veteran who\u2019s been at it for 35 years, dazzling audiences and stealing scenes for the likes of Steven Spielberg<\/a>, Jim Sheridan and, now, Nolan. \u201cI\u2019ve always believed that anything is possible and there\u2019s no doubt in here,\u201d and she pats her heart, \u201cbecause I\u2019ve always felt this immense love for me from another entity.\u201d<\/p>\n When Morton heard that Nolan wanted to meet her for \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d she says she wept. If that sounds dramatic, she makes no apologies. She likens it to being an athlete who qualifies to represent their country at the Olympics. She\u2019d spent decades honing her craft for that phone call. When it came, she flew to Los Angeles in January 2025 during the wildfires, embarking on what would become the best job interview of her life. <\/p>\n I ask her what she remembers about that meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it went really well,\u201d Morton answers, laughing. <\/p>\n Morton told Nolan she hadn\u2019t read \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d which, when you quit school at the age of 12, makes sense. Flying back home to England \u2014 she and her husband live in East Sussex with their children, 18-year-old daughter Edie and 12-year-old son Teddy \u2014 she recalled that, yes, she knew a bit of \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d from having seen it parodied on an episode of \u201cThe Simpsons.\u201d<\/a> (\u201cWe\u2019re \u2018Simpsons\u2019 mad in our house,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, mad.\u201d)<\/p>\n But Morton doesn\u2019t believe in bogging herself down in research, not since starring in a British TV production of \u201cJane Eyre\u201d when she was 19 and carried around a heavily highlighted copy of the Charlotte Bront\u00eb book, despairing whenever the adaptation deviated from the novel. From that point on, she stuck to the script and her own imagination. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s got to be guardian angels and love \u2014 and not that I suddenly became good at acting and got a job,\u201d says Morton of her career. \u201cI\u2019ve always believed that anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n (Ebru Yildiz \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Thinking about Circe, Morton recalled going to the library with her dad (\u201cWe had nothing and were beyond poor, but he always had a library card,\u201d she says) and finding the Howard Pyle fairy-tale book \u201cKing Stork.\u201d She remembers being mesmerized by the story\u2019s wicked witch. She recalls other witches from folk tales like Baba Yaga, frightening characters but also, she says, \u201cwomen possessing an innocence that had been eroded over the years by the harshness of life.\u201d <\/p>\n Morton does a playful verbal evasion when discussing the nuts-and-bolts aspects of shooting the scene where Circe transforms Odysseus\u2019 men, saying that back in the day when behind-the-scenes features were prevalent on DVDs, she routinely declined to participate. <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to be tricky, but it was like: This is my private moment. This is for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI do like the idea of a little mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n But then a beat later, she laughs it off and dives in, remembering that her husband showed her an Instagram post from Nolan\u2019s set revealing how the movie\u2019s Cyclops was, in fact, a puppet. <\/p>\n \u201cOh my gosh \u2014 I love puppets!\u201d Morton raves, and off she goes, telling me how much she adores Jim Henson and how \u201cThe Dark Crystal\u201d is one of her all-time favorite films. <\/p>\n What she will say about her \u201cOdyssey\u201d scene is that there were no digital effects. Everything was real and \u201cin camera\u201d and that she was so in the zone that she barely remembers any of it, only flashes.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not CGI,\u201d Morton says. \u201cThat\u2019s human brilliance and a connectivity of me as a performer, almost dancing and feeling one. And not to say that it was sexual, but I wanted it to be very sensual when she\u2019s with the men and the animals, just like, you know, that she\u2019s almost one with them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was lovely about that,\u201d Morton begins and then stops, wondering if she should draw back the curtain on the creative process. She goes ahead. \u201cThere was a day on set when Chris was like, \u2018OK,\u2019 and he put his hand in because I was a little scared. It\u2019s like that scene in \u2018Raiders of the Lost Ark\u2019 where he puts his hand in the thing, and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh no!\u2019 I was a little nervous, but Chris did it first. I think he actually cut his finger.\u201d She giggles. \u201cYou know, he\u2019s going to go in first, like getting into the cold water in the sea. I felt protected and supported in that whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n When Odysseus\u2019 men arrive at Circe\u2019s home, hungry, asking to be fed, Circe seems frightened \u2014 understandably so. She\u2019s alone, and these soldiers have a history of pillaging and taking what they want. And yet, she\u2019s a powerful sorceress. Is Circe really scared or tricking them to lure them in?<\/p>\n \u201cI played that like she was genuinely frightened because she was caught off-guard,\u201d Morton says. \u201cI also wanted to play somebody that was all ages, so I played her like a 16-year-old girl in that scene. And then in other scenes, I\u2019m playing her as a 90-year-old woman or a 49-year-old woman or a sister or a mother, a grandmother. I just wanted her to be ageless.\u201d<\/p>\n Morton, looking out for Circe, stresses that transforming Odysseus\u2019 men was not purely vengeful.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just hate,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just harm. It\u2019s not just anger. It\u2019s almost like a Zen master within the goddess role of the teaching as well. \u2018Be careful what you wish for,\u2019 gluttony, greed, all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a righteous feminist rage underneath the scene as well, a modernization that brings \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d fiercely and disturbingly up to date. It\u2019s another reason why people leave are leaving the theater talking about Morton.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some weird way, the film lived or died over that character,\u201d says director Nolan of Morton\u2019s Circe, a creation of pure acting and no digital sorcery. \u201cShe was the fulcrum.\u201d<\/p>\n (Ebru Yildiz \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784813112_731_.jpeg\")
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