Samantha Morton’s latest film, I am Kirsty, blew apart all her preconceptions about sex work.
She plays Kirsty, a single mother of two who is pulled into exploitation because it feels like her only option, faced with spiralling debts from her ex-partner who has vanished.
“I had always assumed that getting into sex work was to do with social standing,” says Morton, speaking over Face Time. “But I told friends about I am Kirsty and one of them told me she’d had a time in her life where she was forced to do it. I was flabbergasted. It blew my mind that it’s not a class thing, not to do with where you grew up or parents or what education you had, it’s to do with the unfortunate situation of finding yourself absolutely without anything and nowhere to go for help. And it’s getting worse in the current economic climate.”
I am Kirsty is the second of three short films created by Dominic Savage, developed in partnership with the leading actors and exploring the experience of women. The first, I am Nicola, aired on Channel 4 last Tuesday and showed Vicky McClure playing a woman in a coercive relationship, I am Kirsty is on this Tuesday and the final installment, I am Hannah, will be shown the following week with Gemma Chan as a woman in her mid-thirties who is under pressure to have children. Morton is fond of Chan and McClure – she and McClure went to the same Nottingham drama school, The Television Workshop, albeit four years apart: “Nottingham powerhouse,” smiles Morton.
She’s called me from Atlanta, where she is filming the 11th series of zombie drama The Walking Dead. There’s a huge multi-coloured pompom resting on the TV behind her, which her youngest daughter, Edie, aged 11, made. “She puts them all over the house,” says Morton. “Look I could wear it as a wig,” she adds, fetching it to cover her bald head, which she has shaved for her role as group leader Alpha. Her other daughter, Esme Creed-Miles, 19, has followed her into acting. Her most recent film was Hanna. “It’s in the genes,” says Morton. “Her dad is an incredible actor. As long as she is happy.”
Morton says she “has always been interested in what and how the sex industry is and how it’s changed over time”. When she was eight, she went into care, which, she says, “meant very sadly I knew children that had been exploited that way and sex trafficked”. One of her first TV shows, Band of Gold by Kay Mellor, was about prostitutes on Long Lane in Bradford, and more recently she was in Harlots on Hulu, which is based on true accounts of the life of a sex worker in Georgian England.
“When it came to I am Kirsty,” she continues. “I had been reading in the press about poverty sex, what women are forced to do to keep a roof above their head or feed their kids,” she says. “I knew people from my very many foster families who had been forced into sex work, escorting, by dodgy partners or abject poverty. It’s a story that needs to be told and sometimes you miss these stories when you’re just flicking through the news on your phone, or distracted by Brexit. But this is happening every day.”
She is political – her semi-autobiographical film The Unloved was about a child in care and led to her being consulted by the government on changes in the law. So now, what do women like Kirsty need? “The whole system is broken in regards to zero hours contracts and protection of workers. We need to sort that out immediately because it is not fit for purpose. Then we need to look at making sure single mothers are not penalised through the benefits system through universal credit. There are so many bigger things happening like Brexit that people forget the individual stories. Stop quibbling, you were elected by the people, sort these problems out. It costs a lot to fix these problems once they are happening, let’s prevent them happening by getting it right in the first place.”
Midway through our interview, I realise my camera is focussed on the ceiling and have to apologise as Morton is afraid of ceilings. In 2006, the roof of her house fell on her and she had a stroke. “I lived on Fournier Street in Spitalfields in two beautiful houses that had been knocked together,” she says. “The ceiling was meant to have lots of horse hair in it to hold it up. There wasn’t enough and it fell on my head and caused a vertebral artery dissection.” Friends rushed her to hospital, The London Clinic, and she says this was crucial. “With strokes it’s about how quickly they get to you and administer the drugs. I’m lucky. I had rehab at The Wellington and went straight back to work afterwards, making Synecdoche New York with Philip Seymour Hoffman."
She’s still busy, and rallying for women in her industry to play more of a role in making films. “I heard Billie Piper made a film and that made me scream with joy. We need more women making movies. It doesn’t make sense that it’s so unequal. Whether it’s quotas we need or to make it law, we have to keep fighting – there are a lot of people who don’t want it to change.”
She has spoken about how Harvey Weinstein didn’t want to work with her because, he allegedly told Terry Gilliam, men would not “want to f*** that”.
“I thought Harvey was this genius producer and I wanted to work with him,” she says. “So I was so sad that he never wanted to work with me. I heard things about sex but you hear that about other producers too. There’s a lot more guys out there that behaved abhorrently and the studio didn’t do anything. I remember seeing Harvey with some of these women and I thought they were in relationships.
“I went to one audition and a producer from Hollywood was sat there with a great big cigar and his hand down his pants. I didn’t smoke, it was horrible. And you get general degrading comments about your body all the time.” Has it changed? “I’m not a young artist going out for roles so I don’t know but you have to be mindful. It’s complex – where do you draw the line?”
Has she ever had to ask for equal pay? “I have. I did a movie once where I had done a lot more than the chap in it. He was given something like 600 per cent more than me just an insane amount of money. He was less experienced but he was a guy. I found out just before we started shooting and I was heartbroken. I said it’s not fair, he’s not done anything and I’ve already been Oscar nominated. They said it’s this or nothing, they’ll recast. It’s so systemic. Men earn triple, treble. This man didn’t know – hopefully now men are saying it isn’t right.”
After The Walking Dead she’s coming home to Nottingham and is listening to British music out there – Thom Yorke’s Anima and Talk Talk. She’s reading a self help book, “like a typical mother”, called Living the Mindful Life. “I bought it when I was living in New York aged 19, it’s like a bible to me.” This attitude has trickled into I am Kirsty. She wants people to know that it’s not a grim film. “It’s beautiful, it’s about survival, the resilience of children and how children can inspire you to overcome a lot.”
I am Kirsty airs on Channel 4 on July 30 at 10pm.
