You may (or may not) recognize British actress Samantha Morton from such roles as the notorious precog in Minority Report, or as the wife, Sarah, in In America or even from her most recent role in Code 46 with Tim Robbins, but now the actress is speaking out against what she feels are big-budget actors only responding to scripts if they are offered millions for the query. Her primary target = Gary Oldman.
The WENN reported the story originally on August 22 and can be found here at IMDB where Morton is quoted saying, “I used to be, and still am, considered very difficult. I think, ‘What is difficult?’ If I’m put in an uncomfortable environment, I become defensive. We really want Gary Oldman for a part in my next film, River Queen, but we cannot even get him a script because he won’t read anything we send him unless we offer him a million. I mean, how sad is that? These actors get people to do everything for them and five years down the line they don’t know how to pay their bills or even cook their own food.”
This apparently struck a cord with Oldman and what appears to be his agent, the Douglas Management Group. While the actual validity of the Douglas Management Group as Oldman’s official agent remains in the air, the website representing the agency had some choice words for Morton and her claim:
The idiotic comments by ultra stupid actress Samantha Morton came to our attention a couple of days ago. Gary, completely puzzled by these and other weird remarks about him by the nutty and well known as “difficult” actress, was very unhappy at her false remarks. A little research showed that this is not the first time she has—for whatever reason—taken a public swipe at him. While these two have met once or twice in social settings, they do not know each other. Morton’s asinine assertion is of course completely untrue. When Gary—who was indeed offered the film River Queen—received the material, he examined the project (along with the many others he had at the time) and passed on any involvement. If the kooky Ms. Morton had wanted to know any facts about Gary passing on any involvement it would have been easy since they are represented by the same agents (CAA) in America, who would naturally have passed any message from her to him! She clearly did not want to know the actual fact that Gary had passed on being involved with her film! A quick search of the internet reveals a number of stories about “Miss Moody” Morton’s extremely difficult and unprofessional conduct on the film. In fact, it appears if these reports are true, that her conduct has been a contributing factor in the film actually shutting down mid-shooting! Urbanski was personally told by someone close to filming that her “flu” has strange aspects—including the report that she was spotted halfway around the world at a social event while supposedly being sick! Gary’s choice to not be involved with the film was obviously the correct one! One is bewildered at her extreme naivete as to how the process of artists actually selecting their work actually functions. As to her other remarks about Gary’s working method as a director, she apparently “channels” some sort of understanding of his approach—-since she has never worked with him as a director, nor spent even a minute on a film set with him, channeling can be her only method for determining that he does not allow actors creative freedom on the set. (The truth is in fact the opposite.) Once again, if she had a genuine interest in Gary’s approach as a director it would have been easy for her to have been in touch with him, and in all likelihood he would have been delighted to have had a conversation with her about it! This story has had more attention than one would have ever predicted. The real story is about a very naive—and apparently difficult—actress who has jumped to all kinds of false conclusions about Gary Oldman, had no interest in knowing the truth, and who has taken some kind of ill-advised delight (not to mention her very bad manners) in publicizing and promoting this false image of someone she does not know.
The response includes some information based on news I was not able to find around the Net, but words being used such as “ultra stupid”, “kooky” and “Miss Moody” certainly paint a picture as to the Douglas Management Group’s feelings on the situation.
