Samantha Morton on Navigating the Minefield of ‘The Serpent Queen’ Season 2

The Big Picture

• Season 2 of
  The Serpent Queen
  continues to explore Catherine de’ Medici’s complexity and struggles as a female antihero.
• The show delves into Catherine’s vulnerability and loss, showcasing her strength and intelligence as she navigates power struggles.
• Samantha Morton’s performance shines as she portrays the cracks in Catherine’s facade, adding depth and nuance to her character.

Before creator Justin Haythe‘s The Serpent Queen first premiered on Starz, it seemed as though the series would simply be another period drama like any other, especially since it was styled much in the same way as the network’s previous shows about royal women in power. Moments after we’re thrust into the world of 16th-century France, however, it becomes rapidly obvious that this isn’t just any period drama, as we’re brought into the realm (and the confidence) of the complex, complicated, and oft-ruthless Catherine de’ Medici, played by Samantha Morton. Season 1 gave us the story of Catherine in her own words, as she narrated the tale of her marriage into the French court and her eventual ascent to power. Season 2, however, jumps ahead by 10 years; Catherine, now widowed, is still pulling the strings even though her now-adult son, Charles IX (Bill Milner) sits on the throne. (And that’s not even getting into all the behavior she has to deal with from the rest of her children!) Meanwhile, as tensions between the Catholics and Protestants continue to brew, there may be an even bigger threat looming in the distance in the form of the English queen, Elizabeth I (Minnie Driver).

Ahead of the Season 2 premiere at the 2024 Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, Collider had the opportunity to sit down with Morton to discuss the series’ return. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Morton explains whether there’s anything different about Catherine after the 10-year timejump, what she relishes about getting to play in terms of her character, why she thinks audiences have a hard time with female antiheroes, why she had to rewatch her scenes with Driver, and more.

COLLIDER: 10 years have passed between Seasons 1 and 2. How does a timejump like that create another layer to the performance, when you have to take these additional 10 years into account?

SAMANTHA MORTON: It’s just the same; I’m playing the same person, in a different set of circumstances. The children are not fully grown but are certainly getting bigger. It’s fine. It’s not so much of a problem. It’s actually a joy that I get to go back and visit her and think about the dynamics with the family and what’s happening within the court and her position as Regent, so it was wonderful.

It’s not just political and religious tensions that are happening in Season 2, but the familial aspect of it between Catherine and her children. It feels like she has to wrangle cats a lot of the time, with this herd of wayward kids who are always getting into trouble. How does that added element impact her in Season 2, especially when she’s always having to think about her next steps in terms of how much power to grab?

MORTON: As an actor, I relish all the opportunities to get to play the nuances and the different situations and the different scenarios of her at work in the Privy Council to how she is as a mum, and as a single mum, because her husband died, so how she manages the court. I found it all just really interesting. Justin Haythe’s writing is phenomenal, and all of the actors that came on board to play the children just blew my mind. It was a joy, and it was lots of fun, and it was meaty.

Samantha Morton Discusses Playing a Female Antihero in ‘The Serpent Queen’ Season 2

Catherine inhabits this unique position as a female character on television, specifically leaning into the antihero role that we don’t really see a lot of women get to inhabit. When I spoke to Justin, he explained how he wanted to make her every ounce as compelling as those classic male antiheroes. Can you talk about playing a character like this over more than one season, as opposed to a feature film?

MORTON: That’s an interesting question. I think that you’re correct in your analysis of the landscape of television — and cinema, because we struggle when women are bad. We struggle as a society when a woman maybe harms her children or leaves her husband or leaves her husband and children, and those scenarios. That doesn’t happen in The Serpent Queen; however, Catherine’s level of intelligence means that she sees beyond the immediate situation.

What I found really fascinating, certainly in today’s society, is [that] we have so many men running such powerful countries and economies. I often think, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if when you look at a photograph — and they’re all men — there was an equal balance of the female energy in there, and the wisdom?” This is why I’m so proud of Starz, Lionsgate, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Justin and [executive producer] Erwin [Stoff] for deciding to make a show that celebrates a real person from history who was a phenomenally intelligent negotiator, this female in power who ruled France for over 60 years and often made decisions that probably looked very, very tough and horrific. She had huge decisions to make.

In Season 1, we see her when she was younger. You see her as a child and becoming a princess and then a queen, and then a Regent. Now, we get to see who she is, who the Serpent Queen is, and how she manages to navigate the minefield that is everybody trying to kill her, everybody wanting to take that power away from her. Everybody. Because A., she’s a woman, B., she’s a commoner — she was not of royal blood, and C., she’s Italian. She’s not even French-born! [Laughs]

Despite her toughness, in Season 2, we see her experience loss and see her vulnerability a little bit more than in Season 1, as she explores those different facets.

MORTON: What Justin did really brilliantly in Season 2, which I was really excited by, was that it’s not all her winning all the time. She suffers tremendous loss, and it’s about how she’s then going to navigate the situation in order to protect her family for human survival, because it was a brutal time then. I’m super proud.

From an acting standpoint, what do you enjoy about really getting to show the cracks in the veneer that she puts up?

MORTON: It’s not two-dimensional. You’re not just playing the wife, the girlfriend, the doctor, the nurse; you’re getting to play the nuances in the human being. We’re lucky because we get to tell this story over eight episodes, so you do get to go on those journeys. We have a lot of long-form television in that way, but sometimes, where a lot of shows fail, I think, is they just scratch the surface. You think you’re gonna get more, and you tune in the next week, and you’re like, “Oh, it’s kind of the same as it was before. Where’s it going?” The stories sometimes don’t always feel satisfactory at the end, and you’ve invested eight hours of your life. What I’m really proud of with The Serpent Queen is you get your, “Ah, right!” I feel that certain storylines are very, very heavily invested in — everybody’s story. It’s obviously Catherine being the Serpent Queen, but there are characters around her that are very complex and incredibly well-written.

Samantha Morton Had to Rewatch Her Scenes With Minnie Driver in ‘The Serpent Queen’ Season 2

I have to ask you about working with Minnie Driver as Elizabeth. The show teases out that confrontation. We see these women in their own spheres, initially, and then it builds to this inevitable thing. What was it like getting to go toe-to-toe with her this season?

MORTON: In Season 1, I got to work with Ludivine [Sagnier], who’s a phenomenal, phenomenal actress, and likewise with Rupert [Everett] playing the Holy Roman Emperor, so I was really hopeful that the producers and directors would find a formidable actor/actress to play the role. When I heard it was Minnie Driver, I was like, “Yes!” I’ve been a huge fan of hers for years. She’s remarkable and brilliant.

I also thought what was clever about that was that in so many depictions of Elizabeth, there’s a seriousness to the role, and I’ve often struggled with certain depictions of women in power, even in private. It’s like, “Oh, come on. I get it. We’re all serious!” Even behind closed doors, they might get all the characters relaxing now because they’re not in a corset, but there’s something with the way the actors portray costume dramas that I’ve often had issues with — some phenomenal actors, but I just said, “I don’t get it.” What Minnie did was, like what we tried to do in the show, she’s contemporized [Elizabeth] in a way that’s so funny and so dark and so quick.

I saw the show recently because, obviously, we’re coming to talk about it, and I don’t like watching myself, but I just wanted to rewind and watch what Minnie was doing again. I was like, “She’s awesome!” So, it was great to get to do that with a woman. I often have to do that with brilliant men, but I don’t often get to do it with brilliant women.

She said the exact same thing: it’s always about going toe-to-toe with men. You never get to see two women, really.

MORTON: Also, just the way Justin’s written her is really interesting. He did that brilliantly with Mary, Queen of Scots in Season 1.

The Serpent Queen Season 2 is available to stream on Starz, with new episodes premiering Fridays.

Watch on Starz