The actress talks her standout performance, falling in love with movie magic, the standing ovation she received on set, and comparisons to Heath Ledger.

Samantha Morton on her acting Odyssey from magician’s assistant to a standout role as sorceress Circe

The actress talks her standout performance, falling in love with movie magic, the standing ovation she received on set, and comparisons to Heath Ledger.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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July 19, 2026 12:28 p.m. ET

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Samantha Morton as Circe in ‘The Odyssey’. Credit:

Universal Pictures

- Samantha Morton was a teenage magician’s assistant before playing sorceress Circe in *The Odyssey*.

- “I didn’t perceive her as a villain,” Morton says of the figure from Homer’s epic poem.

- The actress reacts to Nolan’s story about the crew giving her a standing ovation on set.

Decades before portraying one of literature’s greatest sorceresses in Christopher Nolan’s *The Odyssey*, Samantha Morton was a magician’s assistant.

It came about during her time in Nottingham with the Central Junior Television Workshop (now known just as the Television Workshop), a drama group for working-class youths which she joined in her early teens. (*Sinners*’ Jack O’Connell and *The Last of Us*’ Bella Ramsey are other graduates of the program.) Morton, 49, became friends with a male member, who was also part of the Magic Circle, the British organization dedicated to magic. He lost his assistant and asked the future star of *Minority Report*, *The Walking Dead*, and *The Serpent Queen* to fill in.

“I would be a plant in the audience and then would feign innocence and go up and do these amazing things,” Morton recalls in an interview with **. “The one thing he taught me that I was so proud of was the Pendragon trick.”

It’s the signature feat of illusionists Jonathan and Charlotte Pendragon, also called the Metamorphosis, wherein one tied-up magician goes inside a locked trunk before switching places with the second magician. Morton picked it up quickly.

Samantha Morton at the world premiere of ‘The Odyssey’ in London.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

“I was a dancer and a gymnast as a very little kid,” she says. “Unfortunately, I had a car accident when I was 12, which put the gymnastics to bed. So I was able to use some of those contortionist skills to do the Pendragon trick.”

Morton fulfilled the job until she was 16, but it comes to mind all these years later, given her scene-stealing role in Nolan’s film, inspired by Homer’s epic poem of gods and monsters. “I remember years ago when he was making *The Prestige*” — the 2006 film starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians — “and wanting an audition so badly for that movie,” Morton remembers. “I’m saying to my agent, ‘But I was a magician’s assistant for real!’ So, anyway, it’s managed to tie in beautifully.”

Morton has always been dazzled by the magic of movie-making. It began as a kid watching films like *The NeverEnding Story*, *Labyrinth*, *The Dark Crystal*, and even horrors like *The Exorcist* and *An* *American Werewolf in London*, all of which she watched through her stepfather’s off-the-books video store that peddled bootleg copies of banned American cinema.

It continued when she started work as a production assistant and as an extra. Morton remembers being on set in New York during the 1990s for a project with magician David Blaine and director Harmony Korine. “Watching the special effects team at work is mind-blowing,” she remarks.

Samantha Morton at the New York premiere of ‘The Odyssey’.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal Pictures

That passion continues even now through her work with Nolan on *The Odyssey*. The feeling, she says, is innocent and pure. “It feels like when you’re a kid and watching *King Kong* or *Jason and the Argonauts*. How do they do that?!” she adds. “It’s magic and it should continue to be magic.”

Critics, and now audiences, continue to shower Morton with adoration for her relatively brief but standout performance as Circe, one of the many fantastical figures that Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his crew encounter on their return voyage home from the Trojan War. After facing a man-eating Cyclops (Bill Irwin) and an island full of armored giants known as the Laestrygonians, the Greeks land on Circe’s island on the hunt for food.

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The ensuing sequence shifts the tone of the movie into horror. The enchantress transforms Odysseus’ men into swine as they eat her cursed food, physically molding them as if they were clay.

Morton never read Homer’s *The Odyssey*, having left school at a young age to start acting, but she recalls “sobbing” over Nolan’s script after casting director John Papsidera called her up to say the director wanted to meet with her. Morton marveled over the contemporary aspect of the story — the idea that history often repeats itself.

Matt Damon as Odysseus, Zendaya as Athena in ‘The Odyssey’.

Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Studios

In traditional translations of Homer, Circe is often portrayed as a villain, someone who revels in luring victims to her island and damning them to her animal menagerie. The Circe of Nolan’s *The Odyssey* is more layered.

She’s representative of the human casualties of wartime, all the women lost to history who are raped and ravaged by soldiers. Blessed with supernatural sight, Circe fears Odysseus’ men will do the same to her, so she turns them into the beasts she believes they truly are.

“When I read it, it felt like it was my mother’s story or my sister’s story or my daughter’s story or my grandmother’s story,” Morton extrapolates. “You can open any newspaper and there’s a woman there that you recognize within Circe. So I didn’t perceive her as a villain. I just didn’t, even though I can understand why people would think that. Our lessons come in really strange ways in life, don’t they? And learning those lessons are sometimes very hard and I don’t think it’s as black and white as if she’s just a baddie.”

A story told by Nolan on the press tour adds to the word-of-mouth around Morton’s performance, which was enhanced with practical effects. After one of her takes, “The crew gave her a round of applause,” the filmmaker told *The Los Angeles Times*. “I was talking with Emma [Thomas, Nolan’s recurring producer and wife], and she remembered that the last time that had happened was with Heath Ledger on *The Dark Knight*.”

Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Samantha Morton, Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas at ‘The Odyssey’ photocall in London.

Shane Anthony Sinclair/Getty

Morton responds to Nolan’s remarks: “Thinking about it, it makes me emotional, really. I’m really moved.”

The actress didn’t know Ledger well before his death in 2008, but she knew him well enough. They nearly worked together on 2005’s *The Brothers Grimm*, which also starred Damon. As the story goes, she was the pick of director Terry Gilliam for the female lead, but producer Harvey Weinstein later replaced her with Lena Headey. His alleged reason was that men wouldn’t “want to f--- that.” Morton spoke about that experience previously.

“We spent some time together,” she says of Ledger, “with Matt, as well, in Rome. I was aching to work with him and Matt, and it didn’t work out. Things just don’t always work out that way. So there was something bittersweet in this moment because it’s an honor to be compared to him or to be even mentioned in the same breath.”

The particular take in question, she says, “was true movie magic, because it was an alignment almost, like the stars aligning, where everything worked.”

Matt Damon’s Odysseus on Circe’s island in ‘The Odyssey’.

Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

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They filmed the Circe scenes in Scotland, where Morton’s ancestors are from. Her foster parents also live in Edinburgh, and her brother lives in Aberdeen.

“There was something that I could use to my advantage,” she reflects. “Not only was it extraordinarily beautiful where we were — I saw dolphins every morning — but I could tap into the fact that I was really at home, that I knew that land was familiar in some way, in an ancient way to me.”

She remembers a hot day on set inside Circe’s hut, purely from the body heat of several men performing physically taxing work in such a confined space around her. The makeup and effects teams came together flawlessly. There were also no intruding sounds from overhead planes.

“It was a beautiful coming together of the special effects working,” she continues. “My interpretation of Circe seemed to resonate with the crew and touch something.” In other words, movie magic.

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