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Samantha Morton and Richard Russell on their new album: ‘We’re in the business of wellbeing’
The Oscar-nominated actor and the boss of XL Recordings – now a synth-pop duo performing ghostly songs with lyrics rooted in childhood trauma – discuss the healing power of making art
Morton, wearing denim dungarees, is singing the fluty, jazzy, bassy, atmospheric Let’s Walk in the Night while Russell, in jeans and a graffitied white T-shirt, hunches over production consoles, alongside a keyboard player and a guitarist. Throughout her 30-year career, Morton has worked with a spectrum of movie giants, from Woody Allen (Sweet and Lowdown, in which she played Sean Penn’s mute lover, an Oscar-nominated performance) to Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) and Darren Aronofsky (The Whale). This year, she received the Bafta Fellowship, the academy’s highest honour, which she dedicated to kids in care, ending her emotional acceptance speech with: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down!” Her achievements are made all the more remarkable for the lack of privileged leg-up prevalent across the arts today: recent research by Labour showed that nearly half of UK award nominees in the past decade were privately educated.
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