Watching Abi Morgan’s career go stratospheric over the last 12 months has given all of us at Handbag Towers itchy feet. If this mum-of-two can be hitting such high points in such a short period of time we should all be getting a move on with our life plans, surely? Or at least start writing one.
Abi is the proud writer of two of the biggest films from the past twelve months, The Iron Lady, a biopic about Margaret Thatcher’s life starring Meryl Streep, and Shame, which she co-wrote with Steve McQueen about a sex addict (Michael Fassbender) facing his demons when his younger sister comes to stay. We got a case of the green-eyed monster as we watched her sitting next to Michael Fassbender at the Shame screening at the Venice Film Festival.
While all of that lovely stuff has been occurring, Abi has also been busy at work on our TV screens. The Hour, her BBC drama about the Seuz Crisis in 1956 and its effect on a BBC newsroom was a huge hit and reached an average of 2.1 million viewers. Next she wrote a two part-adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ much-loved novel Birdsong starring Eddie Redmayne (who earnt his acting stripes with a lead opposite Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn earlier in 2011).
Abi started writing after considering going into acting while studying English and drama at Exeter. After a university performance, she asked her mother if she was any good and her reply was ‘no darling’. Abi says she felt incredibly relieved and so began to focus more on her writing instead. And how lucky we are that she did.
Aside from being utterly brilliant Morgan also appears to be incredibly self-deprecating. She recently told GQ magazine, “Co-writing I find very difficult. I’ve co-written a couple of times and it’s nothing to do with the writers, they’re absolutely brilliant, but I find that quite difficult. They’re always more talented and brilliant than me and you don’t want them in the same room as you at the same time! I tend to shrivel.”
But how does she manage it all? “I am a short tenacious woman running around trying to fit in a haircut,” Abi recently told the Observer about juggling her life. “I don’t look back. I don’t look forward. I am totally now. I think, ‘God is someone going to pay me this week? That is totally amazing.’”
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