Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Wendy Morgan Is Helping To Change Our World

Once something is known it can never be unknown, and so seeds are sewn. Mercy I hope, raises questions about the planet, what we are doing to the planet, about the people on the planet, about the complexities and the resistances. If only transition of work can be helped to be made, so people might have a choice not to do the work that is so harmful, not only to other beings and the planet but to themselves. Surely a more joyful solution awaits us. I live in hope.

As a part of our series about pop culture’s rising stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Wendy Morgan.

Award-winning actress Wendy Morgan’s international career spans 43 years, working alongside some of the most renowned names in the industry. Her film work includes the role of Mollie in John Schlesinger’s Yanks (Richard Gere) for which she received the Evening Standard Most Promising Newcomer Award; Mrs. Lowry and Son (Vanessa Redgrave); The Reverend and Mrs. Simpson (Julian Glover, Game of Thrones — set for release in 2022); 84 Charing X Road (Anthony Hopkins); Edie (Dame Sheila Hancock); The Mirror Crack’d (Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Landsbury, Tony Curtis); and Birth of the Beatles. Wendy’s TV work includes The Jewel in the Crown (Charles Dance); Fingersmith (Sally Hawkins); Pictures; Shine on Harvey Moon; The Commander; Midsomer Murders; Doctors, Emmerdale; Wire in the Blood; The Other Wife (Rupert Everett); and Full Stretch. Her theatre work includes The National Theatre: Streetcar Named Desire (Glenn Close); Phedre (Dame Helen Mirren); N.T. Sir Peter Hall Company: Coriolanus (Sir Ian Mckellen); Yonadab (Sir Patrick Stewart; Anthony Head; Sir Alan Bates); Martine (Laurence Olivier & Standard Best Actress Nominations); Animal Farm; Hatched and Dispatched (Best Supporting Actress, The Offies); and Henry IV (parts I & II). Recent online Shakespearean work includes Puck in Jenny Hall’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens); and TSMGO’s: Queen Margaret in Richard III (Best Supporting Actress Online Awards.) Wendy is represented by London agents Jo Hole Associates. Mercy, the powerful docudrama that unveils the devastation caused by animal agriculture, is Wendy’s directorial debut.

Thank you so much for doing this interview with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you share your “backstory” that brought you to this career?

My absolute pleasure, thank you for speaking with me.

Wow!!! How long do you have haha! Well, I have loved all creatures great and small since a tiny girl…saving insects from drowning in ponds, so that was in my nature, but then I think we all have that nature. I have always loved acting since I was a little girl too, that’s all I ever wanted to do so in a way it was easy just knowing that as I just kept working towards that. I auditioned for drama school and got into four but was offered a job in a touring tent theatre in London called the Bubble so — I went on the road and learned on the job. I had been up all night crying over some boyfriend or other when I had my headshots done in the morning. There was clearly something in those photos for I put one on the ‘Actor’s Spotlight’ which was that time in a book and not online. Shortly after, I got a call from John Schlesinger’s casting director to screen test for Yanks. I was being seen for the lead. But when John met me, he found a cheekiness in me that he felt was better suited to the part of Molly. I was driven for the test to Twickenham studio with Jane Seymour who was so lovely to such a young novice. I was 18. I heard I got the job on my 19th birthday. What a present. We filmed for nine months and my love for all things film and all things American was born that year. Working with Richard Gere and Chick Venerra. I remember sitting talking with Vanessa in one of the big sound studios and then we got up to walk back to set and she has these fantastic legs that go on forever and as she strode with purpose to shoot our next scene, I trotted behind her with my little legs moving fast to keep up. What great energy and dynamism Vanessa has. Rachel Roberts laughed on set and immediately used that energy to move into the required tears for the scene on “action’. My dear friend Tom who played the drummer in the movie lives in L.A. and every time I visit, we meet up as if no years have gone by. Sadly, we lost Chick Venerra last year. But Yanks was the job that lifted me to work with so many incredible people, and that gladly is still the joy, wondering who I shall be working with next.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your filmmaking career?

Oh goodness… so many wonderful stories. So let me pull one from the air… On a mountain in Simla, with some of the Jewel in The Crown actors…walking up what was called Monkey Mountain to see the monkeys. When at the top, we were given little bags of colored popcorn to feed them. We waited. There were no monkeys. One of the director’s children and myself sat in the shade under the people tree… and relaxed. Then one of the other actors (no names no pack drill (title of my autobiography lol) took a cheeky banana from their bag and broke it up and threw it around. Suddenly monkey faces appeared above the edge of the mountain all around. Grizzled and fight scarred. It was quite some moment. There was a silent, still, calm. All of a sudden there was a flurry. A fast flurry of fur racing toward me punching me in the back. One monkey. Then another, who clung on with his or her teeth to the small arm of the director’s son, leaving an imprint of two teeth like Dracula. We walked the young and shivering boy back down the mountain. Me talking to him of small things with a coat draped around his shoulders. He was in shock. As were all were Charlie, Tim, Shreela. A million light-years later we reached civilization and the bottom of the mountain and son was reunited with worried director father — the very dear Jim O Brien — and the small boy underwent rabies jabs in a private room — to cries that reverberated through the hills, as we stood outside, bowed by this overwhelming moment and place. I should write a book about just being in India with the Jewel in The Crown team. It would be something.

Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?

I find everyone interesting! I love all the actors and all the crews, all the production designers… every single person working on a film is just the best. If I could only ever do one kind of job it would be on set. Nothing like it. I have so many magical memories, sitting on a wall in Simla running lines with Dame Peggy Ashcroft in India filming Jewel in The Crown. Or being on set with Elizabeth Taylor in The Mirror Crack’d, walking up fake steps that went nowhere, take after take, as it was a carefully choreographed scene with lots of actors and getting to chat with her there at the top of the stairs and seeing her beautiful sparkling violet eyes. The fabulous Rock Hudson, doing needlepoint between takes, so relaxed and chatting to everyone. Tony Curtis striding along in a long white overcoat and hat to his huge trailer. Stars in my eyes. Sir Anthony Hopkins greeting me for the first time for 84 Charing X Road, with a big warm handshake looking me direct in the eyes, “Hello Wendy, I’m Tony.” He knew my name!! I knew his but he didn’t assume, let me know what to call him. A simple thing but divine. Saturday night parties in hotel rooms, hosted by the wonderful songstress Annie Ross, after long weeks of shooting Too many wonderful people to name.

Which people in history inspire you the most? Why?

Buddha. The simplicity. The middle way. The philosophy. Martin Luther King speaking out for right. Ghandi — fasting for peace. John Lennon — for his views and music. Marilyn Monroe for her genius, for her wit, for her beauty and talent, her fragility, her aching humanity.

Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview, how are you using your success to bring goodness to the world?

The world is so troubled. I guess by trying to make myself the best version of me that I can, to be peace, to emanate peace and light and love. Going vegan was huge in that journey. I could only begin to align with myself by not just realizing the equality of all living beings on earth, but actualizing that, by going vegan. Treating everyone how I would like to be treated, with care and kindness and understanding.

Can you share with us the meaningful or exciting social impact causes you are working on right now?

Mercy has taken the last ten years to bring to this point, and the journey with it has intensified right now if anything, so by talking about all the issues raised in the film, I think it is raising awareness not just for others as we talk but for me, as I have to dig even deeper into my learning. For example, about not only the animals within factory farming but the humans that work there and the consumers — so it’s a huge topic encompassing not just one element, but everything. Every thing. Every thing is connected, everyone is connected. I think when that is realized things get better and actualizing the realization is the drama. The moment when everything changes. Even for just one person. Realizing the horror of factory farming for me was an inner drama of epic proportions. It wasn’t comfortable to realize what I didn’t want to look at. Actualizing my knowledge took, is taking time. A lifetime. It is a journey sometimes a slow journey but at least if there is a movement towards discovering, then it is going in the right direction so a conversation, however it is raised has to be a good thing. I hope even if nothing else, Mercy will have begun some conversations that might shift a pattern or a habit of thinking.

Once something is known it can never be unknown, and so seeds are sewn. Mercy I hope, raises questions about the planet, what we are doing to the planet, about the people on the planet, about the complexities and the resistances. If only transition of work can be helped to be made, so people might have a choice not to do the work that is so harmful, not only to other beings and the planet but to themselves. Surely a more joyful solution awaits us. I live in hope.

Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and take action for this cause? What was that final trigger?

It was a hard and brutal moment. A shocking series of moments — jolting discoveries about the way things are done and what goes on behind farm and slaughterhouse walls. I was shown footage and went to a slaughterhouse and saw pigs in trucks and looking into the eyes of another creature, helpless and frightened moments from death, is a powerful and disturbing experience. Making the connection with a piteous being — and thinking — “imagine that was me”? I met a pig amongst many pigs. I named the pig Mercy. I took some film of the pig. Just on my phone. This dear, dear creature who you see in the film. Looking into his or her eyes, made such an impact on me. I had to do something. So, I made a film. Film is what I know. Not to make but to be in. I felt this was the way I could “do” something.

Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?

Mark Wingett who plays the Slaughterman, is an old friend and acting colleague of mine. I chose him for the role as I thought as a meat-eater he could be close to understanding the kind of thing I needed him to act — and then not long after he told me, that being in the film, and seeing the footage, made him decide to go vegan — and he did, just like that. He isn’t the only one connected to the film that made this decision during it. They said that it made them realize something that they hadn’t really thought about before.

Are there three things that individuals, society or the government can do to support you in this effort?

1. Think about what factory farming is doing to the climate. I won’t bore you with the facts, they are all out there, but methane produced by the animals on such a mass scale is incredibly harmful to the ozone; the land being used for all this could be used for arable farming and nurture the world instead of harming it.

2. Think about what food is going into your body. Animals living that closely are pumped with antibiotics — and we are eating that. (Well, not me anymore, I have been vegan now for 11 years). When you eat a plant-based diet it is more peaceful to your psyche. Non harm. I can’t walk in the ‘meat’ aisle of a supermarket without hearing the screams from the animals going into slaughter. Their living conditions are dire and their dying conditions are Hell. There is no other word for what they experience.

3. No animal wants to die. The end is always terrible, hideous, never peaceful. It is violence. This cannot be good for the humans who have to do this job. So, help

those that do these jobs; or run these farms — transition into arable farming. Help is needed in this area so that it can be changed. How can people change their whole livelihoods unless they are helped?

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. Trust yourself and your instincts. Be confident. We are never going to be perfect. We can only just get better each day. So be nice to yourself and don’t be afraid to do it anyway even if you are afraid. I waited a long time to find my voice, I never thought it was good enough. But that doesn’t matter, because it can only ever get better if you practice. So, start. Be bad. Be less bad. Get better. Practice.

2. How to raise money. Mercy took so long largely because I didn’t know how to raise money so it had to be done in starts and bursts after each crowdfunding. Raising money is a very clever skill. To be acquired soon as possible. I still don’t know the best way!

3. If anxiety rises listen, but don’t act on your anxiety. You are not your anxiety.

4. Take up Jiu jitsu and cold water swimming. They are everything. Don’t take my word for it.

5. Be confident. Trust in yourself. Don’t worry about ANYTHING. Just do it all. Everything that fires and inspires you. No matter what. One life. Make your mark.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

If you consider making a positive impact on the environment or society — it will be something you will never regret. It will attract good people around you, bring you good energy and be totally worthwhile. It will be one of your legacies, on your life C.V. and that can only be a good thing to have done and will make everyone feel good.

We are very blessed that many other Social Impact Heroes read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would like to collaborate with, and why? He or she might see this. :-)

Joaquin Phoenix. I admire his acting. I admire his activism. I admire his views. I would love to collaborate.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The tide turns at the lowest ebb. Once when I was very down, and almost giving up any hope of things being better, the tide did turn. It really does. So don’t give up, ever. Hold on, because the tide WILL turn.

How can our readers follow you online?

@Wendy Morgan

FB https://www.facebook.com/wendy.morgan.7330/

IG wendymorganactor

I will be happy to connect with you.

This was great, thank you so much for sharing your story and doing this with us. We wish you continued success!