{"id":583496,"date":"2026-08-05T01:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T01:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583496\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T01:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T01:54:10","slug":"river-queen-director-hits-back-at-samantha-mortons-claims-he-mistook-her-on-set-for-emily-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583496\/","title":{"rendered":"River Queen director hits back at Samantha Morton’s claims he mistook her on set for Emily Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vincent Ward has responded to Samantha Morton’s claims that he mistook the actor for Emily Watson during filming for River Queen, with the New Zealand-born filmmaker saying that it would be “impossible” to have made such a mistake.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused<\/a> podcast earlier this week, Morton claimed that Ward had mistaken for Watson by referencing Lars von Trier’s 1996 film Breaking the Waves, which saw Watson in the central role.<\/p>\n

“I went to New Zealand to do a movie and the director said, ‘We’re so excited to have you, Emily. I’ve loved you since you were in Breaking the Waves,'” said Morton, who has also starred in She Said and Anemone.<\/p>\n

\"samantha<\/p>\n

Taylor Hill\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 \u2013 including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV<\/a><\/p>\n

“I was like, ‘Are you joking?’ I said to the producer, ‘I’m Samantha. Does he know that I’m Samantha Morton?’ He said, ‘Don’t tell him. He thinks you’re Emily Watson,” she continued, before describing her work on River Queen as a “sad job”.<\/p>\n

Ward, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2005 war drama, denied Morton’s claims in an interview with Entertainment Weekly<\/a>, sharing: “In fact, I had admired her work in a range of films including Minority Report, In America and others.” <\/p>\n

“She is a very unique performer. It would be impossible to confuse her for anyone else, and I had pushed very hard to have her in the film even though it caused us some challenges,” added the director, who also helmed Map of the Human Heart and What Dreams May Come.<\/p>\n

River Queen is set amid T\u012btokowaru’s War in 1868, and follows Sarah O’Brien (Morton) as she goes in search of her long-lost son. The supporting cast includes Kiefer Sutherland, Cliff Curtis, Stephen Rea and Anton Lesser. <\/p>\n

\"minority<\/p>\n

CBS Photo Archive\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Related: Matthew Rhys confirmed for new version of first Star Wars movie with all-Welsh cast<\/a><\/p>\n

Though she claimed to have been a victim of mistaken identity, Morton did express one positive from the alleged incident, sharing: “So I always get mistaken for the amazing, the one and only, extraordinary Emily Watson.”<\/p>\n

Morton can currently be seen on the big screen in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, with the actor garnering wide acclaim for her performance as the enchantress and goddess Circe.<\/p>\n

Visit our Streaming Guide<\/a> now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.<\/p>\n

The new edition of Legends, a 100-page all-colour celebration of Ariana Grande, is here! Buy Ariana Grande in newsagents or online<\/a>.
<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies<\/a> and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media. \u00a0His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible<\/a> and John Wick<\/a> to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vincent Ward has responded to Samantha Morton’s claims that he mistook the actor for Emily Watson during filming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,131124,1105,246308,1107,93,1110,61,60,184510,1135,246307,223989],"class_list":["post-583496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-f0a5e1a2-5b6c-4585-a723-9534f857d2da","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-hasproduct-true","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-river-queen-director-hits-back-at-samantha-mortons-claims","tag-sponsored-false"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}