Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or wisely taking a social media break), you’ve likely been bombarded with updates about the predicted summer blockbuster The Odyssey, which had its world premiere in London earlier this week.
Interviews with its cast — which includes Tom Holland, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya, to name a few — are coming out thick and fast ahead of the film’s release on July 17, but there’s another news piece that’s caught my eye.
As reported by Empire Magazine [via GamesRadar], Samantha Morton, who plays Circe in the new movie, received the first standing ovation from director Christopher Nolan’s cast & crew since Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
As a dedicated Morton-head of many years, this is the least surprising news possible to come out of The Odyssey’s pre-release marketing. Every time you cast her in a film or TV show, you are guaranteed to get something unsettling, powerful and absolutely impeccable.
I could reel off a never-ending list of projects that showcase her staggering handle on her craft, from Morvern Callar and Under the Skin (which I once got to watch with her, humble brag) to The Walking Dead and The Serpent Queen.
But one devastating 2022 drama is what you need to watch to understand why her Odyssey acclaim was always written in the stars, and you can stream it right now.
Samantha Morton’s standout role in She Said explains The Odyssey hype before we even see it
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If Morton isn’t the lead in a movie or TV show, this is what I can guarantee will happen: she’ll appear in a scene for all of five minutes, deliver a masterpiece of a performance and wipe the floor with everyone around her, and leave.
The best part? She’s all that you’ll be thinking about whenever that story draws to a close.
Based on the above praise, I can guarantee that this is how things will shake out in The Odyssey, but this was also the case in the 2022 drama She Said. The film followed real-life journalists Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan), who published the report that exposes sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, culminating in the #MeToo movement.
Morton plays Zelda Perkins, a Miramax London assistant in the 1990s and an abuse victim and witness. She’s on screen for one scene that runs under five minutes, giving testimony to Jodi about what happened during the Venice Film Festival.
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It’s the scene from She Said that went viral online precisely because it was also the strongest, most vulnerable, and powerful moment in the entire 129-minute runtime. That was all thanks to Morton’s performance.
Even now, you can see the impact that one single scene had on whoever was watching. As one fan wrote on YouTube, “She’s absolutely phenomenal, one of those rare performances in which one scene would had been worthy of an Oscar nomination even a win.”
“I think that in this relatively small role, Samantha Morton stole the movie. She is absolutely riveting,” a second weighed in.
Mark my words: this is exactly what we are going to see with her portrayal of Circe in The Odyssey, and I am beside myself to see it. Christopher Nolan… you are a man of great taste.
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