David Morrissey
Encyclopedia
David Mark Morrissey is an English actor and director. Morrissey grew up in the Kensington
Kensington, Liverpool
Kensington is an inner city area of Liverpool, England. It is located immediately to the east of Liverpool city centre, and is bordered by Everton to the north, Fairfield to the east and Edge Hill to the south....

 and Knotty Ash
Knotty Ash
Knotty Ash is an area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Historically within Lancashire, at the 2001 Census, the population was 13,200.-Description:...

 areas of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series One Summer
One Summer
One Summer is a British television drama series written by Willy Russell and directed by Gordon Flemyng. It stars David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh as Billy Rizley and Icky Higson, two Liverpool boys who run away to Wales one summer. It also starred James Hazeldine and Ian Hart...

(1983), which won him recognition throughout the country. After making One Summer, Morrissey attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

 before acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

 and the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 for four years.

Throughout the 1990s, he often portrayed policemen and soldiers, though took other defining roles such as Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend (1998 TV serial)
Our Mutual Friend is a British television serial broadcast in 1998 and adapted from Charles Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend .-Plot summary:For a full length summary of the book see Our Mutual Friend plot summary.-Awards:...

(1998) and Christopher Finzi
Christopher Finzi
Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi is a British orchestral conductor.He is the son of composer Gerald Finzi. Like his father, the younger Finzi became a pacifist; he refused to do his National Service, and was briefly imprisoned. After his father's death in 1956, he helped his mother, Joy Finzi, to...

 in Hilary and Jackie
Hilary and Jackie
Hilary and Jackie is a 1998 British biographical film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is based on the memoir A Genius in the Family by Piers and Hilary du Pré, which chronicles the life and career of their late sister, cellist Jacqueline du Pré...

(1998). More film parts followed, including roles in Some Voices
Some Voices (film)
Some Voices is a British 2000 film directed by Simon Cellan-Jones and adapted for the screen by Joe Penhall, from his own stage play . It is the first feature film by Cellan-Jones, a renowned TV director respected for his work on the BAFTA-winning Our Friends in the North...

(2000) and Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a 2001 film directed by John Madden and based on the novel of the same name by Louis de Bernières. It stars Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz.-Plot:...

(2001), before he played the critically acclaimed roles of Stephen Collins in State of Play (2003) and Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 in The Deal (2003). The former earned him a Best Actor
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
- 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —...

 nomination at the British Academy Television Awards
British Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

 and the latter won him a Best Actor award from the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

. His film parts have not been always acclaimed, particularly his leading roles in Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2, also known as Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, is a 2006 German/British/American/Spanish thriller film and the sequel to 1992's Basic Instinct. The film was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and produced by Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, and Andrew G. Vajna. The screenplay was by...

(2006) and The Reaping
The Reaping
The Reaping is an 2007 American horror film, starring Hilary Swank. The film was directed by Stephen Hopkins for Warner Bros. and Dark Castle Entertainment. The music for the film was scored by John Frizzell.-Plot:...

(2007). In the years following those films, he has had leading roles in Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility (2008 TV serial)
Sense and Sensibility is a 2008 British television serial adapted by the BBC from Jane Austen's novel of the same name. It was written by Andrew Davies and directed by John Alexander. The serial was aired on BBC One in three parts on 1, 6 and 13 January 2008. It aired the United States in two...

(2008), Red Riding
Red Riding
Red Riding is a television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. Published between 1999 and 2002, the quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four , Nineteen Seventy-Seven , Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three...

(2009), Nowhere Boy
Nowhere Boy
Nowhere Boy is a 2009 British biopic about John Lennon's adolescence, his relationships with his guardian aunt and his birth mother, the creation of his first band, the Quarrymen, and its evolution into the Beatles. The film is based on a biography written by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird...

(2009) and Centurion
Centurion (film)
Centurion is a 2010 British action thriller film directed by Neil Marshall, loosely based on the supposed disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion in Caledonia in the second century CE. The film stars Michael Fassbender, Olga Kurylenko and Dominic West....

(2010), and produced and starred in the crime drama Thorne
Thorne (TV series)
Thorne is a television drama series which debuted on Sky1 in the UK on October 10, 2010. It stars David Morrissey who plays the title role of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne created by crime writer Mark Billingham. The supporting cast includes Aidan Gillen, Eddie Marsan and Natascha McElhone...

(2010). He returned to the stage in 2008 for a run of Neil LaBute
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...

's In a Dark Dark House
In A Dark Dark House
In A Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. It had its world premiere at the Lucille Lortel Theater on May 16. It ran through June 23, 2007, under the direction of Carolyn Cantor, produced by the MCC Theater in New York City...

and played the title role in the Liverpool Everyman
Everyman Theatre
The Everyman Theatre stands at the north end of Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Established in 1964 in a former cinema, it encouraged local talent and played a part in the development of new artistes and writers. The theatre was rebuilt between 1975 and 1977, and was closed again for...

's production of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

in 2011.

As a director, David Morrissey has helmed short films and the television dramas Sweet Revenge
Sweet Revenge (2001 TV film)
Sweet Revenge is a 2001 British television film that aired in two parts on BBC One on 15 and 16 October 2001. It stars Sophie Okonedo, Paul McGann and Pam Ferris....

(2001) and Passer By
Passer By (TV film)
Passer By is a British television film broadcast on BBC One in two parts on 28 and 29 March 2004. It was directed by David Morrissey from a script by Tony Marchant and stars James Nesbitt as Joe Keyes, a man who sees Alice, a young woman played by Emily Bruni, accosted by some men on a train one...

(2004). His feature debut, Don't Worry About Me, premiered at the 2009 London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

 and was broadcast on BBC television in March 2010. The British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

 describes Morrissey as being considered "one of the most versatile British actors of his generation", and he is noted for his meticulous preparation for and research into the roles he plays. He is married to the novelist Esther Freud
Esther Freud
Esther Freud is a British novelist.-Life and career:Born in London, Freud is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud and Bernadine Coverley and is a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, and returned to London at the age of sixteen to train as an...

, with whom he has three children, and is a patron of numerous charities.

Early life

David Morrissey was born on 21 June 1964 to Joe, a cobbler, and Joan, who worked for Littlewoods
Littlewoods
Littlewoods is the name of a former retail and gambling company founded in Liverpool, Merseyside, England by John Moores in 1923.It started as a shopping catalogue company, processing orders by post in the early 1970s. In 1981, it expanded to a call centre, processing orders via telephone. At its...

. He was their fourth child, following brothers Tony and Paul, and sister Karen. The family lived at 45 Seldon Street, in the Kensington
Kensington, Liverpool
Kensington is an inner city area of Liverpool, England. It is located immediately to the east of Liverpool city centre, and is bordered by Everton to the north, Fairfield to the east and Edge Hill to the south....

 district of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

. For National Museums Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool, previously known as National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool, England. All museums and galleries in this group have free admission...

's Eight Hundred Lives project, Morrissey wrote that the house had been in his family since around the turn of the twentieth century. His grandmother had been married there and his mother born there. In 1971, the family moved to a larger, modern house on the new estates at Knotty Ash
Knotty Ash
Knotty Ash is an area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward. Historically within Lancashire, at the 2001 Census, the population was 13,200.-Description:...

, and Seldon Street was later demolished.

As a child Morrissey was greatly interested in film, television, and Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

 musicals. After seeing a broadcast of Kes
Kes (film)
Kes is a 1969 British film from director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett. The film is based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave, written by the Barnsley-born author Barry Hines in 1968...

(Ken Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...

, 1969) on television, he decided to become an actor. At his primary school, St Margaret's Mary's School, he was encouraged by a teacher named Miss Keller, who cast him as the Scarecrow in a school production adapted from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

when he was 11 years old. Keller left the school soon after, leaving Morrissey without encouragement. His secondary school, De La Salle School
De La Salle School (Liverpool)
For the school of the same name in Basildon, see De La Salle School.De La Salle Academy is a boys' voluntary aided school under the trusteeship of the De La Salle Brothers and maintained by the Liverpool Education Authority. The school is named after St John Baptist De La Salle, patron saint of...

, had no drama classes and was the sort of place where the fear of bullying dissuaded pupils from participating in lessons. On the advice of one of his cousins, Morrissey joined the Everyman Theatre
Everyman Theatre
The Everyman Theatre stands at the north end of Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Established in 1964 in a former cinema, it encouraged local talent and played a part in the development of new artistes and writers. The theatre was rebuilt between 1975 and 1977, and was closed again for...

's youth theatre. For the first couple of weeks he was quite shy and did not join in the workshops. When he eventually participated, he appeared in the youth theatre's production of Fighting Chance, a play about the riots in Liverpool. He went to the theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. By the age of 14, Morrissey was one of two youth theatre members who sat on the board of the Everyman Theatre. Ian Hart
Ian Hart
Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...

, with whom he had been friends since the age of five, was one of his contemporaries, as were Mark
Mark McGann
Mark McGann is an English actor, director and musician.- Acting career :McGann first appeared on stage in 1981 in the production Lennon at the Everyman Theatre and the London Astoria where he portrayed John Lennon, role which won him the first of his two Olivier Award nominations for best actor in...

 and Stephen McGann
Stephen McGann
Stephen McGann is an English actor - one of a family of acting brothers including Joe, Paul and Mark. He began his professional career in 1982, starring in the West End musical Yakety Yak. He has since worked extensively in British theatre and on screen.In 1989 he starred as Mickey in the West End...

 and Cathy Tyson
Cathy Tyson
Catherine "Cathy" Tyson is an English stage, film and television actress.-Early life:The daughter of a Trinidadian barrister father and an English social worker mother, Tyson and her family moved to Liverpool when she was approximately two years old.-Career:Tyson attended the Everyman Youth...

. Morrissey became friends with the McGann brothers, who introduced him to their brother Paul
Paul McGann
Paul McGann is an English actor who made his name on the BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer, in which he played the lead role...

 when Paul was on a break from studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

 (RADA).

When Morrissey was 15 years old, his father developed a terminal blood disorder. He was ill for some time and eventually succumbed to a haemorrhage at the age of 54 at the family home.

One Summer and RADA

In 1982, Morrissey auditioned for One Summer
One Summer
One Summer is a British television drama series written by Willy Russell and directed by Gordon Flemyng. It stars David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh as Billy Rizley and Icky Higson, two Liverpool boys who run away to Wales one summer. It also starred James Hazeldine and Ian Hart...

, a television series by Willy Russell for Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...

 and Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 about two Liverpool boys who run away to Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 one summer. Russell had been attached to the Everyman for many years, and Morrissey had seen him while he was working behind the bar downstairs from the theatre, though the two had never been introduced. Morrissey went to at least eight auditions, and in one read for the part of Icky opposite Paul McGann, who was reading for Billy. McGann, five years older than Morrissey, believed that he was too old to be playing the part of 16-year-old Billy, and stepped back from the production, leaving the role to go to Morrissey. Spencer Leigh
Spencer Leigh
Spencer Leigh is a British actor, who has played roles in movies such as The Garden and The Last of England, and television series such as One Summer. He is considered one of the "Brit Pack".-External links:...

 got the part of Icky and Ian Hart played the supporting role of Rabbit. Russell had a professional disagreement with the director Gordon Flemyng
Gordon Flemyng
Gordon William Flemyng was a Scottish director of six theatrical features, several television films and numerous episodes of TV series, some of which he also wrote and produced. Flemyng directed both of the Dalek feature films of the 1960s, Dr...

 and producer Keith Richardson
Keith Richardson
Keith Richardson is an English television executive who is currently Controller of Drama for ITV Yorkshire and is notable for being Executive Producer of the station's primetime soap, Emmerdale. Richardson was in charge of the programme for 24 years, during which time he oversaw its transformation...

 over the casting of 18-year-old Morrissey and Leigh; he believed that the sympathy of 16-year-olds running away was lost by casting older actors. Russell subsequently had his name removed from the credits of the original broadcast. After filming One Summer for five months, Morrissey went travelling in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

 with his cousins. When he returned to Britain, One Summer was being broadcast, and he dealt with the new experience of being recognised in public.

Morrissey had planned to study at RADA in London, but his colleagues at the Everyman encouraged him not to as he already had his Equity card. His One Summer co-star James Hazeldine
James Hazeldine
James Hazeldine was a British film, stage and television actor. He was born in Salford, Lancashire.James started his career in repertory theatre, firstly in weekly rep, then at the Manchester Library theatre and on to the Royal Court Theatre in London's Sloane Square, where he appeared in the...

 convinced him otherwise, and he went to London for a year. He became homesick while there and did not enjoy the way RADA was turning him into a "bland actor". On a visit back to Liverpool he told Paul McGann's mother that he was considering leaving the college. Back in London, McGann met with him and reassured him that he had been through the same homesickness phase when he first went to RADA. Morrissey continued his his studies at RADA and graduated on 1 December 1985.

Theatre and early television work

After a year at RADA, Morrissey went back to Liverpool to perform in WCPC at the Liverpool Playhouse
Liverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...

. He then did Le Cid
Le Cid
Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...

and Twelfth Night with Cheek by Jowl
Cheek by Jowl
Cheek By Jowl is a theatre company founded by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod in 1981. The company has performed across the world and, with their 1986 production of Twelfth Night, were the first to bring a Shakespearean play to The Swan....

, and spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

, principally with director Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...

 for whom he played the Bastard in King John in 1988. He saw the role as a learning opportunity, as he had often wondered at RADA if he would ever have the chance to act in classical theatre. His performance has been described as "the most contentious characterisation of the production"; he received negative critical reaction from Daily Telegraph and Independent critics, but a positive opinion from the Financial Times. In The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, Nicholas de Jongh
Nicholas de Jongh
Nicholas de Jongh is a British theatre critic and playwright. He served as the senior drama critic of the Evening Standard from 1991 to 2009. Prior to that, he worked for the Guardian newspaper for almost 20 years...

 wrote, "The Bastard, who has the most complex syntax in early Shakespeare, half defeats David Morrissey. His slurred, sometimes unintelligible diction helps to deflate the Bastard, but his bawling rhetoric strikes as mere sham rather than fierce plain speaking." Morrissey also spent time with the National
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

, where he played the title role in Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...

(Declan Donnellan
Declan Donnellan
Declan Donnellan is a British theatre director and writer. He is co-founder of Cheek by Jowl theatre company. In 1992 he received an honoris causa degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France...

, 1990). Michael Billington
Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...

 praised the unkempt energy of his performance. During this time, he lived on the housing estate in White City
White City, London
White City is a district in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, to the north of Shepherd's Bush. Today, White City is home to the BBC Television Centre and BBC White City, and Loftus Road stadium, the home of football club Queens Park Rangers FC....

, where he and his flatmates were the frequent victims of burglars.

Morrissey's second television role came in 1987 when he played the 18-year old chauffeur George Bowman, whose obsession with his employer and lover Alma Rattenbury (Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...

) leads him to murder her husband, in an Anglia Television
Anglia Television
Anglia Television is the ITV franchise holder for the East Anglia franchise region. Although Anglia Television takes its name from East Anglia, its transmission coverage extends beyond the generally accepted boundaries of that region. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional...

 adaptation of Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...

's play Cause Célèbre. At the end of the 1980s, Morrissey met director John Madden
John Madden (director)
John Philip Madden is an English director of theatre, film, television, and radio.- Biography :Madden was educated at Clifton College. He was in the same house as friend and fellow director Roger Michell. He began his career in British independent films, and graduated from the University of...

 for the first time. Madden was looking for an actor who could portray an ordinary man who turns out to be a mass murderer, in his film The Widowmaker (1990). He knew Morrissey was right for the part in his first audition. The next year, Morrissey appeared as Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 in an episode of The Storyteller
The Storyteller
The StoryTeller is a live-action/puppet television series. It was an American/British co-production which originally aired in 1988 and was created and produced by Jim Henson....

directed by Madden ("Theseus and the Minotaur", 1991), and as Little John
Little John
Little John was a legendary fellow outlaw of Robin Hood, and was said to be Robin's chief lieutenant and second-in-command of the Merry Men.-Folklore:He appears in the earliest recorded Robin Hood ballads and stories...

 in Robin Hood (John Irvin
John Irvin
John Irvin is an English film director. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, he began his career by directing a number of documentaries and television works, including the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...

, 1991). Robin Hoods cinema release clashed with that of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a 1991 American adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds. Kevin Costner heads the cast list as Robin Hood...

(Kevin Reynolds, 1991). The latter, starring Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...

 in the title role, was a box office hit and left the Irvin version forgotten. Morrissey was out of work in film and television for eight months after it was released. Eventually, he was hired for a small role as a policeman in Clubland (Laura Sims, 1991). He almost lost the role a week into rehearsals when his appendix ruptured. In order to keep the part, and a flat in Crouch End
Crouch End
Crouch End is an area of north London, in the London Borough of Haringey.- Location :Crouch End is in a valley between Harringay to the east, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north, Finsbury Park and Archway to the south and Highgate to the west...

 he had just bought, Morrissey performed while still in stitches.

At this early stage in his career, he tried to avoid being typecast as policemen and soldiers on television, but his role in The Widowmaker lead to him being offered and taking many obsessive character roles; he played police officers in Black and Blue, Framed, Between the Lines and Out of the Blue
Out of the Blue (1995 TV series)
Out of the Blue was a hard-hitting BBC police drama, set and filmed in Sheffield. It was described by series script editor Claire Elliot as "contemporary, gritty, urban reality"....

, and soldier Andy McNab
Andy McNab
Sergeant ‘Andy McNab’ DCM MM is the pseudonym of an English novelist and former SAS operative and soldier.McNab came into public prominence in 1993, when he published his account of the failed Special Air Service patrol, Bravo Two Zero for which he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in...

 in The One That Got Away
The One That Got Away (1996 film)
The One That Got Away is a 1996 ITV television film, based on the book of the same name by 'Chris Ryan' telling the "true" story of a Special Air Service patrolduring the Gulf War in 1991....

(Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass is an English film director, screenwriter and former journalist. He specialises in dramatisations of real-life events and is known for his signature use of hand-held cameras.-Life and career:...

, 1996). Morrissey first met screenwriter Peter Bowker
Peter Bowker
Peter Bowker is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool , a musical drama about a shady casino owner; Occupation , which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; and Desperate Romantics , a...

 when he played Detective Sergeant Jim Llewyn in the second series of Bowker's Out of the Blue. In 1994, he played customs officer Gerry Birch in the first series of The Knock
The Knock
The Knock was a primetime UK drama series, created by Anita Bronson and broadcast on ITV from 1994 to 2000, which portrayed the activities of customs officers from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise....

, and Stephen Finney in the six-part ITV series Finney. In Finney, Morrissey assumed the role originated by Sting in Stormy Monday
Stormy Monday
Stormy Monday is the 1988 feature film debut of director Mike Figgis. Starring Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones, Sting and Melanie Griffith, it is an atmospheric, noirish thriller. The notable jazz soundtrack is also by Figgis. Being set in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, the film is something of an homage...

(Mike Figgis
Mike Figgis
Michael "Mike" Figgis is an English film director, writer, and composer.-Personal life:Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films...

, 1988). He was the first choice for the part and had to learn to play the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

.

Leading roles in the 1990s

As the 1990s moved on, Morrissey began to assert himself as a leading actor. He made his first appearance in a Tony Marchant drama playing Michael Ride in Into the Fire (1996), and the following year played the lead role of Shaun Southerns in Marchant's BBC series Holding On (Adrian Shergold, 1997). Southerns, a crooked tax inspector, was the first of many "men in turmoil" roles for Morrissey, and it earned him a nomination for the Royal Television Society (RTS) Programme Award
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

 for Best Male Actor the next year. In 1998, he appeared in Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend (1998 TV serial)
Our Mutual Friend is a British television serial broadcast in 1998 and adapted from Charles Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend .-Plot summary:For a full length summary of the book see Our Mutual Friend plot summary.-Awards:...

alongside Paul McGann. As he was a fan of the book
Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life" but is also about human...

, Morrissey asked director Julian Farino
Julian Farino
Julian Farino is a British television and film director and television producer. Farino has directed several shows both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, most of them being for HBO...

 if he could play Eugene Wrayburn, but the role went to McGann. Farino had Morrissey in mind to play schoolmaster Bradley Headstone, a part Morrissey was reluctant to take until he read the script. He studied the role and decided to take it on the basis that the character was unloved and that his motivation by social class causes his mental health problems. His performance was described by a Guardian writer as bringing "unprecedented depth to a character [...] who is more commonly portrayed as just another horrible Dickens git." In the same year, he played Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi
Christopher Finzi
Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi is a British orchestral conductor.He is the son of composer Gerald Finzi. Like his father, the younger Finzi became a pacifist; he refused to do his National Service, and was briefly imprisoned. After his father's death in 1956, he helped his mother, Joy Finzi, to...

 in Anand Tucker
Anand Tucker
Anand Tucker is a film director and producer based in London. He began his career directing factual television programming and adverts...

's Hilary and Jackie
Hilary and Jackie
Hilary and Jackie is a 1998 British biographical film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is based on the memoir A Genius in the Family by Piers and Hilary du Pré, which chronicles the life and career of their late sister, cellist Jacqueline du Pré...

. His roles in Our Mutual Friend and Hilary and Jackie were described as his breakthrough roles by Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams is a British columnist and journalist.-Early life:She attended the independent Godolphin and Latymer School girls school and read Modern History at Lincoln College, Oxford.. Her parents separated in 1976 and formally divorced 20 years later.-Writing:Williams writes forThe Guardian and...

 of The Guardian.

In 1999, Morrissey returned to the theatre for the first and last time in nine years to play Pip and Theo in Three Days of Rain
Three Days of Rain
Three Days of Rain is a play by Richard Greenberg that was commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory in 1997. The title comes from a line from W. S. Merwin's poem, "For the Anniversary of My Death"...

(Robin Lefevre, Donmar Warehouse). He continued to take in offers for stage roles, but turned them down because he did not want to be away from his family for long periods. Writing in Time Out, Jane Edwardes suggested that his role as Kiffer in Hilary and Jackie had inspired his casting as Pip in Three Days of Rain as the characters have similarities with each other. Morrissey was attracted to the role because the play began with a long speech and the cast and crew had only two weeks' rehearsal time. Next, he starred with Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...

 and Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2...

 in Some Voices
Some Voices (film)
Some Voices is a British 2000 film directed by Simon Cellan-Jones and adapted for the screen by Joe Penhall, from his own stage play . It is the first feature film by Cellan-Jones, a renowned TV director respected for his work on the BAFTA-winning Our Friends in the North...

(Simon Cellan-Jones
Simon Cellan-Jones
Simon Cellan-Jones is a Welsh television director and film director, who began his career as a production assistant in the mid-1980s, working on series such as Edge of Darkness. By the late 1980s he had worked his way up to become a director, and he gained credits on some of the most acclaimed...

, 2000) playing Pete, the brother of schizophrenic Ray (Craig). Morrissey researched the character of Pete, a chef, by shadowing the head chef at the Terrace restaurant in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, London and chopping vegetables in the kitchen for two hours a day. An Independent critic called him "an instinctive actor who can use his whole body to convey an inner turbulence". For his next film role as Nazi Captain Weber in Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (film)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a 2001 film directed by John Madden and based on the novel of the same name by Louis de Bernières. It stars Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz.-Plot:...

(John Madden, 2001), Morrissey researched the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...

 and read Gitta Sereny
Gitta Sereny
Gitta Sereny is an Austrian-born biographer, historian and investigative journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and child abuse. She is the stepdaughter of the economist Ludwig von Mises....

's biography of Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth. Like for all of his roles, Morrissey created an extensive back story for Weber to build up the character.

Morrissey returned to television in 2002 playing Franny Rothwell, a factory canteen worker who wants to adopt his dead sister's son, in an episode of Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott
Paul Abbott is a BAFTA award-winning English television screenwriter and producer. Abbott has become one of the most critically and commercially successful television writers working in Britain today, following his work on many popular series, including Coronation Street, Cracker and Shameless,...

's Clocking Off
Clocking Off
Clocking Off is a British television drama series which ran on the BBC One network for four series from 2000 to 2003. It was produced for the BBC by the independent Red Production Company, and created by Paul Abbott...

. His performance was described as characteristically powerful in The Independent. He also played tabloid journalist Dave Dewston in the four-part BBC serial Murder, and prison officer Mike in the part-improvised single drama Out of Control
Out of Control (TV film)
Out of Control is a BBC television film written and directed by Dominic Savage. It stars Tamzin Outhwaite as Shelley Richards, an impoverished single mother whose son, Dean , is involved in a string of crimes that lead to his incarceration in a young offenders institute...

. He researched the latter part by shadowing prison officers in a young offenders' institution
Her Majesty's Young Offender Institution
Her Majesty's Young Offenders Institution is a type of British prison intended for offenders aged between 18 and 20, although some prisons cater for younger offenders from ages 15 to 17, who are classed as juvenile offenders...

 for a week. At the beginning of 2003, he played the role of Richie MacGregor in This Little Life
This Little Life
This Little Life is a 2003 drama starring Kate Ashfield, Peter Mullan and Linda Bassett. The story centres around the life of a married couple following the premature birth of their son....

, a television drama about a mother (played by Kate Ashfield
Kate Ashfield
Kate Ashfield is a British actress, best known for her award-winning roles as Jody in the Anglo-German film Late Night Shopping, as Sadie MacGregor in the British film This Little Life and as Liz in the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead.-Biography:Ashfield was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England...

) who has to cope with her 16-week-premature baby. Though Morrissey's character, the husband and father, was not the focus of the film, he researched premature births by speaking to paediatricians at the Royal Free Hospital
Royal Free Hospital
The Royal Free Hospital is a major teaching hospital in Hampstead, London, England and part of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust....

 in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

.

Critical success in dramatic roles

Morrissey's next major leading role was as Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Collins in Paul Abbott's BBC serial State of Play (David Yates
David Yates
David Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...

, 2003). Morrissey received the scripts for the first three episodes and was keen to read the last three. They had not been completed when he originally requested them but Abbott told him how Collins' story concludes. Unsure how to approach the role, Morrissey was advised by his friend, director Paul Greengrass, to get Collins' job as politician right. Morrissey contacted State of Play producer Hilary Bevan Jones
Hilary Bevan Jones
Hilary Susan Bevan Jones is a British television producer, who has worked on several acclaimed drama programmes, including the multi-award-winning State of Play . She entered the television industry in 1979, when she gained a job as an assistant floor manager at BBC Television Centre...

, who set up meetings between Morrissey and select committee members Kevin Barron
Kevin Barron
Kevin John Barron is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Rother Valley since 1983.-Early life:...

 and Fabian Hamilton
Fabian Hamilton
Fabian Uziell-Hamilton is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Leeds North East since 1997.- Education and professional career :...

. Both politicians educated Morrissey on how difficult it is to commute to London from a constituency outside the capital. Morrissey was also able to shadow Peter Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...

 around the House of Commons for a fortnight. He questioned Mandelson about his job as a cabinet minister but did not ask about his personal life. Mandelson told him about how politics can quickly "seduce" MPs who have worked hard to get into Parliament.
That same year, he played Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 in Peter Morgan
Peter Morgan
Peter Morgan may refer to:* Peter Morgan , British sports car manufacturer* Peter Morgan , 1978 British Formula Ford champion* Peter Morgan , Wales and British lions international...

's single drama The Deal (Stephen Frears
Stephen Frears
Stephen Arthur Frears is an English film director.-Early life:Frears was born in Leicester, England to Ruth M., a social worker, and Dr Russell E. Frears, a general practitioner and accountant. He did not find out that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s...

, 2003), about a pact made between Brown and Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 (Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen
Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...

) in 1994. Unlike his research for the fictional State of Play, Morrissey discovered that no politicians wanted to talk to him for this fact-based drama, so he turned to journalists Jon Snow
Jon Snow
Jon Snow is an English journalist and presenter, currently employed by ITN. He is best known for presenting Channel 4 News.He was Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University from 2001 to 2008.-Early life:...

 and Simon Hoggart
Simon Hoggart
Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

. He also travelled to Brown's hometown of Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...

 and immersed himself in numerous biographies of the man, including Ross Wilson's documentary films on New Labour in the year surrounding the 1997 election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...

. When speaking to many of Brown's friends to gain insight into his "private persona", Morrissey discovered that Brown was funny, approachable and charming, which were characteristics he did not see in his "public persona". To look like Brown, Morrissey had his hair dyed and permed, and put on 2 stone (28 lb/13 kg) in body weight in six weeks. The director Stephen Frears originally wanted to cast a Scottish actor as Brown but was persuaded by other production staff to cast Morrissey.

His acting in State of Play and The Deal won him considerable acclaim; he was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
- 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —...

 for his role as Collins but lost to his co-star Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...

. His performance in The Deal was acclaimed by Charlie Whelan
Charlie Whelan
Charles Alexander James Whelan is former political director of the British trade union Unite. He rose to prominence as spokesman for Labour politician Gordon Brown from 1992 to 1999.-Early life and career:...

, Gordon Brown's former spin doctor, and Tim Allan
Tim Allan
Tim Allan is a public relations consultant and was an advisor to Tony Blair from 1992 to 1998. He is the founder and managing director of Portland Communications in London, England...

, a deputy press secretary of Tony Blair. A BBC News Online
BBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....

 writer praised Morrissey's grasp of Brown's physical tics in a review that criticised the rest of the film. Morrissey's performance won the RTS Programme Award for Best Male Actor the next year, this time beating Nighy. The RTS jury wrote of Morrissey, "The strength of this performance brought to the screen, and to life, all of the characteristics and traits of the man he portrayed in a way that was both credible and convincing." In 2009, Morrissey declined the opportunity to play Brown again in The Special Relationship
The Special Relationship (film)
The Special Relationship is a 2010 American-British political film directed by Richard Loncraine from a screenplay by Peter Morgan. It is the third film in Morgan's informal "Blair trilogy", which dramatizes the political career of British Prime Minister Tony Blair , following The Deal and The...

, Morgan's third Blair film, as he did not want to get into the mindset of playing Brown for just one scene.

Morrissey was eager to play a comic role after starring in these dramas. He subsequently reunited with Peter Bowker for the BBC One musical serial Blackpool
Blackpool (TV serial)
Blackpool is a British television musical comedy drama serial, produced in-house by the BBC. It was screened on BBC One as six one-hour episodes on Thursday nights at 9pm from 11 November to 16 December 2004...

, in which he plays Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...

 arcade owner Ripley Holden. Bowker remembered Morrissey from Out of the Blue and wanted to build off the actor's sense of humour and to cast him against type. Before filming began, Morrissey spent four days in Blackpool talking to the locals and finding out how the arcades worked. His performance was described in The Daily Telegraph as "a powerful mixture of barely suppressed danger and vulnerable, boyish charm." A public poll on bbc.co.uk
Bbc.co.uk
BBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC's UK online service. It is a large network of websites including such high profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer, the pre-school site Cbeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize...

 ranked him the second best actor of 2004. Morrissey reprised the role in 2006 in the one-off sequel Viva Blackpool!. He was pleased to revive Ripley after filming dramatic roles since the original serial.

Mainstream films and period roles

The following years saw Morrissey cast in two high-profile feature films; while filming the Brian Jones biopic Stoned
Stoned (film)
Stoned, also known as The Wild and Wycked World of Brian Jones in the UK, is a 2005 film about Brian Jones, one of the founding members of The Rolling Stones...

(Stephen Woolley
Stephen Woolley
Stephen Woolley is an English film producer and director. He is best known for his work with director Neil Jordan, which has resulted in a number of critically acclaimed films including the Oscar-winning The Crying Game....

, 2005), he got an audition for psychiatrist Dr Michael Glass, the male lead in Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2, also known as Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, is a 2006 German/British/American/Spanish thriller film and the sequel to 1992's Basic Instinct. The film was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and produced by Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, and Andrew G. Vajna. The screenplay was by...

(Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones
Michael Caton-Jones is the director of such films as Scandal, Rob Roy, Memphis Belle and The Jackal...

, 2006). He was flown out to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 for a one-hour screen test with Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...

. Their immediate rapport led to the screen test being extended by another hour and Morrissey's casting in the role. Morrissey had enjoyed the first film
Basic Instinct
Basic Instinct is a 1992 erotic thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, and starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone....

 and liked the script for the sequel. He read up on psychiatry and worked out in a gym for the nudity scenes. The film was a box office and critical failure. The Washington Post criticised the film's focus on Morrissey's character and called the actor "overmatched by Stone" and "a sad sack", and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...

called him "a charisma-challenged non-entity". The same Washington Post critic later wrote in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

that because Morrissey was not a film star, the chemistry between him and Stone had been spoiled. Critic Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin is an American film and music critic. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rabin was the first head writer for The A.V. Club, a position he continues to hold today....

 called Morrissey "a young man with Liam Neeson's bulky frame and the charisma of beige wallpaper," later stating "I don't want to suggest that Morrissey is not a dynamic performer, but I suspect that the producers could have replaced him halfway through shooting with a handsome mahogany coat rack and nobody would be able to tell the difference." The reviews depressed Morrissey, and he briefly considered giving up acting, but instead saw the role as a chance to learn.

Immediately after filming Basic Instinct 2, he began work on The Reaping
The Reaping
The Reaping is an 2007 American horror film, starring Hilary Swank. The film was directed by Stephen Hopkins for Warner Bros. and Dark Castle Entertainment. The music for the film was scored by John Frizzell.-Plot:...

(Stephen Hopkins
Stephen Hopkins (director)
Stephen Hopkins is a Jamaican-born film director and producer. He is best-known for his continuation of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and the Predator franchise with Predator 2...

, 2007) in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, in which he played science teacher Doug Blackwell opposite Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank
Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress. Swank's film career began with a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then a major part in The Next Karate Kid , as Julie Pierce, the first female protégé of sensei Mr. Miyagi...

. The role had been offered to him quite late in pre-production, and he flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

 the Monday after Basic Instinct 2 wrapped. He took the role because he was a fan of Swank, and Hopkins' film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a 2004 film about the life of English comic actor Peter Sellers, based on Roger Lewis' book of the same name...

(2004), and he preferred the thriller aspect of the Reaping script above the horror aspect. After a week of filming, production had to be suspended when Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 hit the state. He found the filming schedule quite demanding, particularly the three weeks of night filming and a scene in which his character is attacked by a plague of locusts, most of which were computer-generated
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...

 in post-production but some were real on camera. The Reaping was released in 2007 and performed badly in cinemas. Despite the failures of both films, Morrissey was grateful that they opened him up to more film offers from Hollywood.

In March 2006, Morrissey filmed a role in The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Jay Russell
Jay Russell
Jay Russell , is a film director and also executive producer and director of the film My Dog Skip.His other directing credits include Tuck Everlasting, Ladder 49 and The Water Horse...

, 2007) in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. While there, he was offered the role of father Danny Brogan in Cape Wrath
Cape Wrath (TV series)
Cape Wrath is a British drama television series produced by Ecosse Films which focuses on a family trying to escape its past while confronting an even more uncertain future...

, an Ecosse Films
Ecosse Films
Ecosse Films is a British film and television production company based in London. Ecosse Films is a multi award-winning company, specialising in high-quality drama for film and television, producing 11 films and over 300 hours of network television for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Showtime, Starz Channel...

 series about a family being relocated on a witness protection
Witness protection
Witness protection is protection of a threatened witness or any person involved in the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during and after a trial, usually by police...

 scheme to a mysterious village. He signed on to the seven-part series in September 2006 and filmed the series until the end of the year. He relished working on the character's back story as it confounded the expectations of both him and the audience. The series was broadcast in Britain and America in 2007. The following year, he played the part of Colonel Brandon in Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...

' serial Sense and Sensibility. When he first got the script in 2007, he was unsure if British television needed another Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

 adaptation but he took the role when he saw how Davies had given more screen time to the male characters than they get in the 1995 film adaptation
Sense and Sensibility (1995 film)
Sense and Sensibility is a 1995 British drama film directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by Emma Thompson is based on the 1811 novel of the same name by English author Jane Austen...

. He also appeared as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk in The Other Boleyn Girl (Justin Chadwick
Justin Chadwick
Justin Chadwick is an English actor and television and film director.Chadwick began acting at the age of eleven. He graduated from the University of Leicester and in 1991 made his screen debut in London Kills Me...

, 2008). He compared Norfolk to bassist Lemmy from Motörhead and researched the role by reading history books and literature from the 16th century.

Stage return, Doctor Who, crime dramas

From November 2008 to January 2009, Morrissey returned to the theatre for the first time in nine years to appear in the Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...

's British premiere of Neil LaBute
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...

's In a Dark Dark House
In A Dark Dark House
In A Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. It had its world premiere at the Lucille Lortel Theater on May 16. It ran through June 23, 2007, under the direction of Carolyn Cantor, produced by the MCC Theater in New York City...

. He played Terry, one of two brothers who had been abused as a child, opposite Steven Mackintosh
Steven Mackintosh
-Personal life:Mackintosh was born in Cambridge, the son of Dorothy and Malcolm Mackintosh. He has a sister, Lynda Ellingham .He is married to the actress Lisa Jacobs and the couple have two children, Martha and Blythe.-Film:...

 and Kira Sternbach. He took the role because he liked LaBute's previous play, The Mercy Seat
The Mercy Seat (play)
The Mercy Seat is a 2002 play by Neil LaBute that was among the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Set on September 12, it concerns Ben, a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack, with his mistress, Abby, who is also...

(2002). After accepting the part, he researched the character by reading case studies of adults who were abused when they were children. He learned about how they coped with the shame of their abuse, and incorporated those feelings into his acting. He was also able to consult LaBute during rehearsals but avoided asking him exactly how to play Terry. In a Daily Telegraph review that criticised the play, Charles Spencer
Charles Spencer (journalist)
Charles Spencer is a British journalist. He has been the drama critic of The Daily Telegraph since 1991. In 2006, Compton Miller of The Independent wrote in a profile: "This convivial ex-alcoholic is best remembered for his description of Nicole Kidman's nude scene in The Blue Room as 'pure...

 wrote that Morrissey's was the best performance "as the blue-collar older brother who reveals extraordinary depths of grief, damage and forgiveness that finally light up this dark, flawed play." Benedict Nightingale
Benedict Nightingale
Benedict Nightingale is a British journalist and a regular theatre critic for The Times newspaper. He was born in 1939 and educated at Charterhouse and Magdalene College, Cambridge...

 of The Times initially believed that Morrissey's acting was "a bit stiff, almost as if he was waiting for his cues rather than reacting instantaneously to their content" but found him more impressive as the play went on.

In December 2008 he appeared alongside his Blackpool co-star David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...

 in "The Next Doctor", the 2008 Christmas special of Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, playing Jackson Lake—a man who believes he is the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....

 after his mind is affected by alien technology. Morrissey had been asked to appear in the series before but had to turn down the offers due to other commitments. He approached the character like any other dramatic part, and was influenced in his performance by previous Doctor actors William Hartnell
William Hartnell
William Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...

, Patrick Troughton
Patrick Troughton
Patrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...

 and Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...

. Secrecy surrounded the exact details of Morrissey's role in the episode; until the day of broadcast his character was referred to only as "the other Doctor". This prompted media speculation that Morrissey would be taking over the lead role after Tennant quit, and in October 2008 he was reported as a favourite of bookmakers. He was pleased that the episode was a "decoy" for the truth that actor Matt Smith had actually been chosen for the part of the Eleventh Doctor
Eleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor is the eleventh incarnation of the protagonist of the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Matt Smith plays this incarnation, replacing David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the 2010 episode "The End of Time, Part Two"...

. In September 2009, he told entertainment website Digital Spy
Digital Spy
Digital Spy is a British entertainment and media news website. According to Alexa Internet traffic statistics, as of February 2011, Digital Spy is the 93rd most popular website in the United Kingdom, with an overall Alexa ranking of 2,088....

 that he would gladly return to the show if asked.

In March 2009, Morrissey appeared as corrupt police detective Maurice Jobson in Red Riding
Red Riding
Red Riding is a television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. Published between 1999 and 2002, the quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four , Nineteen Seventy-Seven , Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three...

, the Channel 4 adaptation of David Peace
David Peace
David Peace is an English author. Known for his novels GB84, The Damned Utd, and Red Riding Quartet, Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta in their 2003 list...

's Red Riding novels. Morrissey already knew the directors of the films, enjoyed reading the script and had either worked with his co-stars on other projects, or wanted to work with them. He liked the flaws in the Jobson character and that he differs from typical vigilante police officers portrayed on television. Morrissey said of Jobson, "I think he sets out to be a good cop, he tries to do his job well but he gets involved in some corruption and realises that being a 'bit' corrupt is like being a 'bit' pregnant. You either are or you're not." He received a Best Actor nomination from the Broadcasting Press Guild
Broadcasting Press Guild
The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally....

 for the role. At the end of the year, Morrissey played Bobby Dykins in the John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 biopic Nowhere Boy
Nowhere Boy
Nowhere Boy is a 2009 British biopic about John Lennon's adolescence, his relationships with his guardian aunt and his birth mother, the creation of his first band, the Quarrymen, and its evolution into the Beatles. The film is based on a biography written by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird...

(Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...

, 2009). As a self-confessed "Beatles geek", Morrissey relished the opportunity to star in the film about Lennon's childhood.

Morrissey was active on screen throughout 2010. He starred as Theunis Swanepoel, the interrogator of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is a South African politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Women's League. She is currently a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee...

 (played by Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo, OBE is a British actress, who has starred both in successful British and American productions. In 1991, she made her acting debut in the British critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama, Young Soul Rebels...

), in the BBC single drama Mrs Mandela. His performance was praised by Guardian and Independent critics. The following months saw him star as British Transport Police
British Transport Police
The British Transport Police is a special police force that polices those railways and light-rail systems in Great Britain for which it has entered into an agreement to provide such services...

 officer Mal Craig in the second series of BBC One's Five Days
Five Days
Five Days is a British dramatic television series produced by the BBC in association with Home Box Office . The first series was first broadcast on BBC One from 23 January to 1 February 2007, and repeated on BBC Four from 9 April to 13 April 2007....

, Roman soldier Bothos in Neil Marshall
Neil Marshall
Neil Marshall is an English film director, editor and screenwriter. Marshall began his career in editing and in 2002 directed his first feature film Dog Soldiers, which became a cult film. He followed up with the critically acclaimed horror film The Descent in 2005...

's feature Centurion
Centurion (film)
Centurion is a 2010 British action thriller film directed by Neil Marshall, loosely based on the supposed disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion in Caledonia in the second century CE. The film stars Michael Fassbender, Olga Kurylenko and Dominic West....

, stalking victim Jan Falkowski in U Be Dead
U Be Dead
U Be Dead is a British TV movie first broadcast in New Zealand in 2009. The film is based on a true story. The film was shown in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2010 on ITV1, and released in France on 2 July 2010 on television Arte HD, and in Australia premiered as a telemovie on the ABC in...

, and Colonel John Arbuthnot in the Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...

adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express
Murder on the Orient Express
Murder on the Orient Express is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on January 1, 1934 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of...

.

Thorne and return to Shakespeare

Morrissey returned to a weekly television role at the end of 2010 playing police detective Tom Thorne in Thorne
Thorne (TV series)
Thorne is a television drama series which debuted on Sky1 in the UK on October 10, 2010. It stars David Morrissey who plays the title role of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne created by crime writer Mark Billingham. The supporting cast includes Aidan Gillen, Eddie Marsan and Natascha McElhone...

, a six-part television series for Sky1 that was adapted from Mark Billingham
Mark Billingham
Mark Philip David Billingham is an English novelist whose series of "Tom Thorne" crime novels are best-sellers in that particular genre. He is also a television screenwriter and has become a familiar face as an actor and comic....

's novels Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat. After reading Lifeless during his time filming The Water Horse in New Zealand, Morrissey searched the Internet for more information. He found an interview in which Billingham stated his preference for Morrissey to play Thorne should a screen adaptation ever be made. When he returned to England, Morrissey arranged a meeting with Billingham and the two began developing the TV series. Morrissey shadowed officers in the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

's murder unit during their duties to learn about their jobs. He discovered that the officers felt undervalued in their jobs, and he incorporated these feelings into the series. Sky first broadcast the series on 10 October. Morrissey received approval for the role; Andrea Mullaney wrote in The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

, "Morrissey is never less than watchable and he brings a brooding presence to the role of Thorne." and Adam Sweeting for The Arts Desk called him "authentic as the phlegmatic, low-key Thorne."

In 2011, Morrissey starred as Robert Carne in South Riding
South Riding (2011 miniseries)
South Riding is a BBC serial in three parts from 2011, based on the 1936 novel South Riding by Winifred Holtby. It is directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and written by Andrew Davies...

, and played Dunlop in the Lionsgate crime drama feature Blitz
Blitz (film)
Blitz is a 2011 crime film directed by Elliott Lester and starring Jason Statham, Paddy Considine, Aidan Gillen and David Morrissey. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ken Bruen, which features his recurring characters Detective Sergeant Tom Brant and Chief Inspector James...

. In May 2011, he returned to the Everyman Theatre to play the eponymous king
Macbeth (character)
Macbeth is the title character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth . The character is based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland, and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles , a history of Britain. Macbeth is a Scottish noble and a valiant military man. He is portrayed...

 in Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

. The production reunited him with Julia Ford
Julia Ford
Julia Ford is a British actress who has appeared in a variety of theatre, film, radio and television productions, including Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, Midsomer Murders and All About George, The Street, Red Riding, Coming Down The Mountain, In A Land of Plenty, Insiders, Island at War...

 (as Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth may refer to:*Lady Macbeth, from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth**Queen Gruoch of Scotland, the real-life Queen on whom Shakespeare based the character...

), who he acted alongside at the RSC and in Red Riding. Morrissey talked about the role to criminologists, to draw parallels with real-life serial killers, and focused on Macbeth's status as a war hero and his childless relationship with Lady Macbeth. Morrissey's performance was commended by Laura Davis in the Liverpool Daily Post
Liverpool Daily Post
The Liverpool Daily Post is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Friday and is published in Merseyside, Cheshire, and North Wales editions, and is a morning paper...

, who highlighted his delivery of his lines and portrayal of Macbeth "[shifting] from straight-spined statesman to a fervent slayer". Clare Brenan of The Observer offered similar praise but noted that Morrissey's vocal inflections were sometimes "flat and rushed". Continuing his roles in Shakespeare productions, Morrissey was cast in a BBC Two production of Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...

, to be broadcast in 2012.

Filmmaking career

In the early 1980s, Morrissey developed a filmmaking craft at the Rathbone Theatre Workshop, a Youth Opportunities Programme
Youth Opportunities Programme
The Youth Opportunities Programme was a UK government scheme for helping 16 to 18 year olds into employment. It was introduced in 1978 under the government of James Callaghan, was expanded in 1980 by Margaret Thatcher's government, and ran until 1983 when it was replaced by the Youth Training...

 that taught school-leavers skills for a year. With the workshop, Morrissey shot short silent films on Super 8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....

, and watched foreign films for the first time. Although the scheme paid £23.50 a week and took young people off unemployment benefits, Morrissey reflected in 2009 that many of the participants were just used as lackeys. After his acting career escalated, he started directing because he was aware that, as an actor, he was coming into a project quite late into development and then leaving before post-production, and he wanted to see a film through to the end. Morrissey has said that he prefers to keep acting and directing separate, and would not direct anything he is acting in.

His first major project was Something for the Weekend (1996), which he wrote and produced. Initially called The Barber Shop, the title was changed to avoid a clash with another film. His directorial debut, the short A Secret Audience, centres on a meeting between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...

. His second short, Bring Me Your Love, was based on the short story by Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...

, and stars Ian Hart as a journalist bringing flowers to his wife in a mental hospital. It was screened in front of Some Voices. An Independent critic wrote that Bring Me Your Love "holds out great promise" for Morrissey and an Observer reviewer wrote that it was worth seeing but was not as impressive as A Secret Audience. Bring Me Your Love was produced by Tubedale Films, a studio Morrissey formed with his brother Paul and wife Esther Freud
Esther Freud
Esther Freud is a British novelist.-Life and career:Born in London, Freud is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud and Bernadine Coverley and is a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, and returned to London at the age of sixteen to train as an...

. In 2001, Morrissey directed Sweet Revenge
Sweet Revenge (2001 TV film)
Sweet Revenge is a 2001 British television film that aired in two parts on BBC One on 15 and 16 October 2001. It stars Sophie Okonedo, Paul McGann and Pam Ferris....

, a two-part BBC television film starring Paul McGann that got him a BAFTA nomination for Best New Director (Fiction). In 2004, Morrissey reunited with Tony Marchant to direct the two-part television film Passer By
Passer By (TV film)
Passer By is a British television film broadcast on BBC One in two parts on 28 and 29 March 2004. It was directed by David Morrissey from a script by Tony Marchant and stars James Nesbitt as Joe Keyes, a man who sees Alice, a young woman played by Emily Bruni, accosted by some men on a train one...

, about a man (James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...

) who witnesses an attack on a woman (Emily Bruni
Emily Bruni
Emily Bruni , is an English actress.Born to an Italian father who is an academic at Exeter University, Bruni was educated at St Peter's school. Bruni was a member of the Devon Youth Theatre and Exeter Children's Orchestra before training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.Bruni...

) but does nothing to stop it. Morrissey was brought onto the project after reading the first draft of Marchant's script. The script went through five more drafts before being filmed over 30 days. Morrissey developed his directing techniques by watching the directors on films and television series that he acted in; he took the minor role of Tom Keylock in Stoned so that he could watch Stephen Woolley at work.

In 2007, Morrissey made his feature debut directing Don't Worry About Me, a film about a London boy falling in love with a Liverpool girl. The film was shot on a budget of £100,000 on location in Liverpool in September and October 2007 and has its world premiere at the 2009 London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

. Joseph Galliano wrote in The Times that Don't Worry About Me is "a very understated film and feels more like European Art Cinema." The film was broadcast on BBC Two on 7 March 2010 and released on DVD the next day.

Morrissey and Mark Billingham launched the production company Sleepyhead in 2009, which produced the Thorne television series. The company was a part of Stagereel, a production house previously set up by Morrissey's brother Paul. The company bought the rights to adapt the Thorne novels and Morrissey was already developing it to pitch to television channels when Sky made an offer to broadcast it. As of 2010, Morrissey and Tubedale Films were developing two feature films with financing from the UK Film Council
UK Film Council
The UK Film Council was set up in 2000 by the Labour Government as a non-departmental public body to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee governed by a board of 15 directors and was funded through sources including the...

. Morrissey was critical of the government's
United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present)
The ConservativeLiberal Democrat coalition is the present Government of the United Kingdom, formed after the 2010 general election. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats entered into discussions which culminated in the 2010 coalition agreement, setting out a programme for government...

 decision to close the UK Film Council, as he believed it was an asset to first-time filmmakers. The organisation's funding role was taken over by the British Film Institute in 2011.

Personal life

Morrissey married his partner of over 13 years, novelist Esther Freud
Esther Freud
Esther Freud is a British novelist.-Life and career:Born in London, Freud is the daughter of painter Lucian Freud and Bernadine Coverley and is a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, and returned to London at the age of sixteen to train as an...

, on 12 August 2006 in a ceremony on Southwold Pier
Southwold Pier
Southwold Pier is a pier in Southwold, Suffolk, East Anglia, England.Whilst many English seaside piers are in decline, Southwold Pier is enjoying renewed popularity...

. They met when they were set up at a dinner party held by Morrissey's Robin Hood co-star Danny Webb
Danny Webb (actor)
Danny Webb is a British television and film actor. He may be best known for his role as the prisoner Morse in Alien 3. He has appeared in many famous British television programmes including The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Emmerdale Farm, Our Friends in the North, A Touch of Frost, Agatha...

, and have since had three children; Albie, Anna and Gene. His sisters-in-law are Bella Freud
Bella Freud
Bella Freud is a London-based fashion designer with a number of celebrity clients.-Life and career:Freud was born in London, England. She is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and artist Lucian Freud and great granddaughter of the inventor of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. Her father Lucian Freud...

 and Susie Boyt
Susie Boyt
Susie Boyt is a British novelist.The daughter of Suzy Boyt and artist Lucian Freud, and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. Susie Boyt was educated at Channing and at Camden School for Girls and read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford, graduating in 1992...

 and his father-in-law was the painter Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

.

In 2009, Morrissey and a team of filmmakers ran a series of drama workshops for Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 refugee children in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, in conjunction with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to 5 million Palestine refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza...

 (UNWRA). On his return to Britain, Morrissey set up the Creative Arts School Trust (CAST), a charity for the purpose of training teachers and continuing the workshops in Lebanon and elsewhere. In November 2010, he became a patron of The SMA Trust, a UK based charity that funds medical research into the children's disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Spinal muscular atrophy
Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a neuromuscular disease characterized by degeneration of motor neurons, resulting in progressive muscular atrophy and weakness. The clinical spectrum of SMA ranges from early infant death to normal adult life with only mild weakness...

.

Filmography and awards

Year Award Category Title Result
1997 Royal Television Society Programme Award
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

Best Male Actor Holding On Nominated
2001 British Academy Television Craft Award
British Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

New Director (Fiction) Sweet Revenge
Sweet Revenge (2001 TV film)
Sweet Revenge is a 2001 British television film that aired in two parts on BBC One on 15 and 16 October 2001. It stars Sophie Okonedo, Paul McGann and Pam Ferris....

Nominated
2003 Royal Television Society Programme Award
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

Best Male Actor The Deal Won
2003 British Academy Television Award Best Actor
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
- 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —...

State of Play Nominated
2010 Broadcasting Press Guild Award
Broadcasting Press Guild
The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally....

Best Actor Red Riding
Red Riding
Red Riding is a television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. Published between 1999 and 2002, the quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four , Nineteen Seventy-Seven , Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three...

Nominated


Academic Honours
  • Honorary Fellowship for contributions to performing arts, Liverpool John Moores University
    Liverpool John Moores University
    Liverpool John Moores University is a British 'modern' university located in the city of Liverpool, England. The university is named after John Moores and was previously called Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and later Liverpool Polytechnic before gaining university status in 1992, thus...

     (20 July 2007).

External links



Video
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