Samantha Morton on Jumping Timelines for The Serpent Queen
In Creative Company had a chat with actress Samantha Morton for her role in the Starz series, The Serpent Queen. The eight-part series is based on Leonie Frieda's book "Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France" and Morton walked us through stepping into the role for the first time. She spoke to not wanting to be overly reliant on the costuming and makeup and remaining true to the character that lies beneath it all, letting the intelligence of Catherine shine through, and working through the subtext and her interpretation of the Queen with Showrunner Justin Haythe.
Morton shared the role with actress Liv Hill, who played the role of young Catherine. She highlighted the importance of carrying over the element of Catherine being a survivor from the storylines played out by Hill to the rest of the series, but ensuring that Hill felt like she could make the character her own. She also spoke to being meaningful when the two actresses were breaking the fourth wall and making sure the audience wouldn’t feel like it was a trick.
In regards to the challenges of shooting out of order, the actress talked about not focusing too hard on putting together the “mega-emotional jigsaw puzzle” of the script timeline and being more attentive to the emotional memory of the story as well as simply being in the moment as it comes. When asked about how her journey from film to more episodic series in more recent years, Morton mentioned the sense of sadness she feels when it comes to cinema and missing the investment in different varieties of film, but also her excitement for returning to the world of television years later to find it has evolved to where she can now enjoy working with the aspects of high quality film-making on an episodic scale.
Watch the full conversation below.
Q&A on the Starz series The Serpent Queen with actor Samantha Morton. Moderated by Mara Webster, In Creative Company.
The story of Catherine de Medici who, against all odds, became one of the most powerful and longest-serving rulers in French history.
