‘The Odyssey’ Star Samantha Morton ‘Hasn’t Worked for a Year’ After Making Nolan’s Epic Because ‘I’m 49’ Years Old and ‘There’s Other Good Actors Out There’

Samantha Morton revealed on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that she has been out of acting work for an entire year since wrapping production on Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in 2025. The two-time Oscar nominee attributed her age as the reason why.

“I haven’t worked for a year since making ‘The Odyssey,’ you know, and I’ve got really good agents and a manager, but at the end of the day, I’m 49,” Morton said. “I do believe I’m a good actor, [but] there are other good actors out there. Do you know what I mean? So, the politics of the industry has changed massively.”

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Morton said that when Nolan called her to offer her the role of the witch Circe in “The Odyssey” opposite Matt Damon that it afforded her “hope and faith, that, I suppose, if you keep at it, and you keep producing good work, and that the right people see it, then maybe you can carry on working.”

The 49-year-old has been a working actor since 1991 and her career spans major Hollywood movies (Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report”) and franchises (“The Walking Dead”) in addition to indie dramas that have garnered her Oscar nominations (“Sweet and Lowdown,” “In America”) and various awards. Morton has earned some of the best reviews of her career and Oscar buzz for playing Circe in “The Odyssey.” Variety ranked her as the movie’s best performance among the sprawling ensemble cast.

“When I got the call [from Chris Nolan], I started to cry,” Morton previously told Variety about landing Circe. “Then we had a get to know you chat, and I read the script. But I didn’t know if it would go any further. So when he called and said, ‘Would you like to do it?’ I was blown away. He could have anybody on the planet, and he chose me… As you get older as an actress, roles like this are just few and far between.”

Morton also opened up on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast about one of her lowest points as an actor, which is when she was dropped from Spike Jonze’s “Her” after filming already wrapped. Morton was the original voice of the chatbot Samantha, who Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with. Morton read her lines aloud on set with Phoenix during production was booted from the movie and replaced by Scarlett Johansson in post production.

“I have to say, I think my version of Samantha was very… she’s English,” Morton said on the podcast. “It was just very, very different. And I think Scarlett Johansson has a beautiful voice. She’s incredibly evocative. It’s, you know… I got it, but I was sad… It does hurt when you’re fired from something or before it. I don’t know. What I’d have wished for was another chance in a booth to do an American accent. But I think, you know, Scarlett Johansson! I mean, come on.”

Watch Morton’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” in the video below.