Samantha Morton opened up about her tough childhood in care during Comic Relief's Red Nose Day on Friday. 

The English actress, 47, was in and out of care homes from the age of eight and revealed that being in foster care felt like a 'merry-go-round' experience, where one moment you feel 'safe' and the next 'unsafe'. 

Speaking on BBC Comic Relief, Samantha said: 'My experience of being in care was complex and different at different times. It's like a merry-go-round. You feel safe and then unsafe, safe and then unsafe, alone, frightened. 

She paused for a moment then added: 'Terrified. You're kind of almost always terrified.' 

The Serpent Queen star also revealed that, as a teenager, she once made herself homeless to feel safer.

'I actively made myself homeless as a teenager because I felt that I was safer at certain times, sleeping at the back of a supermarket,' she shared.

The Oscar-nominated actress lived in Nottingham with her coal miner father, who beat her, from the age of three and was in and out of care homes from the age of eight, where she was sexually abused. 

Samantha expressed her anger in 2020 at how society treats women with mental health issues, particularly when discussing her relationship with her mother, Pamela, who died of cancer in 2018.

Speaking on Desert Island Discs, the mother-of-two told host Lauren Laverne: 'People criticised her choices. I just looked at this woman, who was kind, subservient, vulnerable, funny, beautiful and - did I say vulnerable? If I could write that in capital letters I would. She was a saint in a way.'  

Samantha grew up with eight siblings in a three-bedroom council house in Nottingham.

After her parents split up, she lived with her abusive father, while her mother, a factory worker, was in a relationship with another man. 

At the age of eight, Samantha was placed with several foster families, and then in a children’s home, where she was abused by its employees.  

Speaking to Lauren, she explained: 'I always had this thing when people put my mum down.

'My dad had nothing positive to say about her. A lot of other people, the social workers, had nothing positive to say about my mother.

She continued: 'There's something fascinating in what I did get from her, from not getting what I thought I wanted from her. I wouldn't be who I am today without what happened with her, obviously.' 

Samantha also shared her anger about how her mother's health issues were handled, revealing: 'I am fuming with how society today behaves around mental health issues for women.

'My mother had a very, very traumatic childhood and it is fascinating now, as a mother, a grown up, and as a woman to go "wow."

Samantha added: 'I think when I used to go and see her at the occasional weekend, I'd run away to her all the time, my clothes always smelt clean, she'd use comfort and she'd give me bubble baths. I just saw this amazing woman.

'Her name was Pam, she was a pie packer at pork farms, and we used to joke about that. 

'She had many lives did, my mum. She was so loving and the food was always nice, pork chops and roast potatoes.'

Samantha went on to reveal that she admired her mother's strength in facing adversity in her life, continuing: 'She was very zen, her attitude about life and cleaning and being.

'Certainly how she dealt with her terminal cancer was so inspiring but I was not privy to seeing her when she was very poorly when I was very small. 

'With her mental health issues, that's what people were rude and mean about.  Women aren't allowed to be angry if they'd been raped or sexually abused. Things weren't talked about.'  

Elsewhere in the interview, she insisted she had 'the most magical, feral childhood' despite suffering abuse.

She said she has 'absolute forgiveness' for her tormentors and is busy embracing the joys of life.

Samantha explained: 'I had the most magical, feral childhood as well as some of the horrible stuff happening. When I was little… I would do anything for a laugh. The world is tough enough. We have got to smile and invite the light in.' 

In 2019, she starred as a single mum in Channel 4's I Am Kirsty, a role she co-wrote, earning a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.

She has also starred in hit films such as Minority Report with Tom Cruise and the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and played a brothel owner in the BBC2 drama Harlots.