Samantha Morton: On the warpath

Samantha Morton thinks that the British film industry is going down the tubes. But she's determined to do something about it. Charlotte O'Sullivan meets her

Sam Morton is so angry that she's shaking. She's just been told that the film company Pathé has pulled out of a picture she's about to make with Michael Winterbottom, called Code 46. Production was due to start in 10 days' time, and without Pathé's money, the project is hanging in the balance. Trying to make a joke of it, she says "so I'm going to have to go off tonight and have a meeting to see if we can sort anything out". A little cackle follows. "A meeting with lots of rich men. I should probably wear a short skirt..."

But she's clearly devastated. "For them to pull out at this stage is just... I've turned down so many films because I'd committed to this. And it's happened to so many films I've tried to be part of. There was this Damien O'Donnell film and Anthony Hopkins was on board, but even with him it fell through". She rocks backwards and forwards. "There's something wrong with this country. To get a film made you need to have Jennifer Love Hewitt or Reese Witherspoon attached – it just makes me sick."

And the afternoon had begun so quietly. To start at the beginning, Morton's new film, Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar, was released last week, and, because it's had a mixed reaction, and because she's so keen on it, she's agreed to do some late publicity. The 25-year-old actress has been in a number of small, exceptional movies (Under The Skin, Jesus' Son) and some big, exceptional ones, too (Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, for which she was Oscar nominated; and more recently Minority Report).

But Morvern Callar – the story of a young girl who turns something terrifying (her writer boyfriend's suicide) into something full of promise (a £100,000 cheque from a publishing firm) is special. I'm supposed to go and join Morton after a photo shoot for US Premiere magazine (the film will open in America in January). And I soon find myself in the scrubbiest, most godforsaken bit of land known to Hornsey.

Suddenly I see a blonde urchin with a big, wide-open face. She beams at me, I tell her who I am and she beckons me over, saying "Come over, dullin', sit down." It's Morton, engulfed in a furry-hooded coat. The photographer takes her off to be snapped in a derelict Gothic building, and I crowd into a bus with the make-up crew.

When Morton finally exits the house, she's a bit shivery. As we drive off to her place, she says, "As soon as I went in that building, I wanted to get out. I pick up on things... I think some bad shit happened in there. It seemed like the kind of place paedophiles take kids, because no one would be able to hear them scream."

Morton is obsessed with how kids get treated, how they're forced to grow up too soon. (She herself has a face that gains twenty years between smiles). She started acting at 12 because she "really wanted the money", but looking back she thinks that the experience was "horrible".

One of the women on the bus hands Morton a calling card with a picture of a "sexy-looking" young girl on the back. "I hate that," she exclaims, "seeing a girl selling women's clothes. She hasn't had sex, do you know what I mean? But she's selling it..."

It's at this point that Morton gets the phone call about Code 46, and dashes off to the back of the bus. Back at home (Edwardian; elegant, full of mirrors and glowing orange fairy lights) she's on the warpath. The partition door in the sitting room has been shut; she wants it open to let in more light. And, on top of everything else, she discovered a copy of Now magazine in the house this morning, left by a guest. She doesn't want her three-year-old daughter, Esme, coming across pictures of herself. (Even while raging, Morton is solicitous; "Are you all right?" she asks me, "D'you want to sit down?")

"But there are no photos of you in here," protests her assistant.

"Yeah, I know," says Morton, "but there could be. I don't want to be a wanker, but I don't want that stuff in the house."

On the way to her favourite organic café, she explains the reasoning behind this rule. One of her first interviews, aged 16, was with The Guardian, and the resulting article – full of details about her parents messy divorce, her dad's affair with a much younger woman and the time Morton spent in foster care – got syndicated to the tabloids. The press descended on Nottingham (Morton's home town) and her mother became so stressed that she took an overdose. "She didn't die," says Morton, "but it just showed me. Since then, I've never wanted those papers in my house. Someone took a photo of me and Esme recently and it turned up in a magazine and I just burst into tears. How can you take a picture of a child without asking her consent? That's not what I want for her."

Morton is in a difficult position. Films such as Minority Report have plonked her into the mainstream. And showing up in U2 videos (she's the mermaid in the one for "Electric Dreams") doesn't help. She says that she never goes to premieres unless they are her own, that she isn't "a product – like a Coca-Cola sign, or Tom Cruise". But she's part of a business, whether she likes it or not.

We're now standing in the café. Coincidentally, Morton invited the woman behind the counter to the film's premiere ("Did you like it? You can say if you didn't. Did you have a nice night? I was mullered...") Morton admits she wasn't too keen on the Armani suit she wore for the occasion. She also sported a hat with netting. "The hat was mine! But not the suit. I didn't like it, but they gave me and Lynne £4,000 to wear stuff, so I said, fine."

She says that she's been sent lots of great clothes, half of which she can't wear ("not with my belly"). And yet on film and in person, she seems thrilled to be inside her own skin, which is maybe why she's such a hypnotic dancer (in Under The Skin, Jesus' Son and Morvern Callar we get to see her move, and her body makes any music playing seem 100 times more intense).

Fiddling with her Jean Seberg hairdo, she says her favourite scene to perform (one that was eventually cut) was the bit where she had to sit in a room, looking out at the sea. "I was naked, and Lynne just left me alone in the room with a camera and it was the most exhilarating feeling I've ever had – it was like going back to your childhood, when no one can see you and you're just talking to your dolls, in this private world."

Her favourite scene to watch is the bit where Morvern sleeps with a grieving boy she's just met in a hotel, "just 'cos it's so sexy". Again, though, the "best" bit got left out. It's where Morvern comes back the next morning, discovers that the boy has gone and "finds this condom" (Morton whispers this last word) "lying on the floor", and hurls it with happy gusto out of the window. "It really captured that feeling when you've been in love with someone, and you think 'I don't know if I'll ever be able to have sex with anyone else again, how can I ever let someone else inside me?' And then you get over it. You sleep with someone, and you don't feel disgusted with yourself, and you're able to move forward."

Morton's cornflower eyes look particularly imploring during this speech. She and Esme's father, the actor Charlie Creed-Miles, broke up some time ago, and she's now got a new boyfriend. "It's really good to have someone supporting your choices, whether it's your films or the food you buy, 'cos sometimes," she makes an apologetic face, "it can get a bit lonely." Her faith in love has been restored. Which is partly what she responded to in Winterbottom's script for Code 46. "It's a really good love story, I was reading it and just sobbing."

This brings us back to the film's newly precarious status and, somehow, to the Evening Standard's film critic, Alexander Walker, whom Morton detests. "This country's got some amazing critics, and some wankers. I mean, Walker's constantly going on about the film council, and lottery money, but there are lots of politicians, I just feel like saying, 'stick to your criticking' [sic]. His reality, his world – how can he identify with Morvern? Lots of people – lots of men, especially – think that the character is cold, but he didn't even try to understand her. They just need to get rid of him, anyway."

Having said this, and as we're getting up to go, Morton spies a paper showing Jennifer Love Hewitt on all fours dressed in a low-cut top, with the headline "Why I'll never pose nude". She's the equal and opposite of Morton (who's clearly happy to take off her clothes for the right project). "She just looks so unsexy," sighs Morton, "she doesn't give off any confidence or happiness." Under her breath, she adds something libellous about Hewitt's breasts.

Even as she says it, her face melts at the sight of a baby in a pram (several have already caught her eye). We walk past this long-lashed little blob – and Morton says softly, "That one looks just like Esme when she was little, it's uncanny." One of the waitresses says, "Ooh, getting broody," and Morton giggles.

She's someone you can't imagine ever being happy doing just one thing – be it motherhood or acting. She wants to master everything. Walking back to her house, Morton tells me about her recent mortification on a radio station. Discussing one of her favourite tracks (Gil Scott-Heron's "Revolution Will Not Be Televised"), she had to read the name from a card and got so flustered that she pronounced Gil "Jill". She cracks up at the thought of this. "That's one thing about Code 46 that's gonna be hard, because there are lots of other languages involved" (the film's about a group of Afghan refugees and their attempt to get into London). "I'm not good at languages – well, that's not true, I just don't know many, but I'm going to try my best." Big intake of breath. "The more things go wrong with that film, the more I'm determined to do it."

Back at Morton's house, all the lights are on and a man can clearly be seen at the window, holding up a child. "Oh," says Morton with just a trace of stiffness, "there's Charlie." We've been pretending I'm not a journalist, but of course I am. Creed-Miles brings Esme to the door, and I hear plaintive-excited cries of "mama, mama". Morton draws me a map to the nearest tube station, then rushes inside.

What do you do when your life is a movie people want (and feel entitled) to watch? The money Morton occasionally makes, plus her talent and youth and charisma, surround her and Esme with an aura she can't diffuse. An aura that she herself can exploit, but that also leaves her open to exploitation – something she already knows more than a bit about.

Morvern Callar takes that big fat cheque from the publishers and walks off into the sunset. Morton is making a bid for freedom and trying to put down roots. It would be daring in a movie. It's even more impressive in real life.