蜜芽传媒

1. Morgan grew up in the theatre

Morgan was born in Cardiff in 1968. Her dad was a director and her mother an actress, so she was in the showbiz world almost from birth. “Probably my earliest memory is being shoved at the back of a theatre somewhere to sleep,” she says. Being in the theatre was the only real way to spend time with her dad. “When my father was working, his career dominated… I think my mother used to bring us to the rehearsal room just so he could be reminded he had children.”

Morgan briefly considered going on stage herself. “I was a truly terrible actress. I knew it really early on,” she says, “but I had the ultimate humiliation in my second year at university, when I invited my mum and sister to see me in a production… I remember afterwards going, ‘So what did you think?’ And they said, ‘No, darling.’”

2. She didn’t really write until university

“I wasn’t one of those kids who was brilliant at writing poetry or who wrote plays at school,” says Morgan. “I was totally beige.” It wasn’t until she was in her second year at university, studying drama, that she realised she might have a talent for writing. “I wrote a monologue and someone said, ‘That’s quite good.’”

Morgan earned her first professional writing credits at the age of 30, in 1998, with the play Skinned and, on TV, an episode of Peak Practice.

3. She got the idea for The Split on the school playground

The Split is one of the biggest hits of Morgan’s career, running for four series from 2018. Morgan thought of it while chatting in the playground. “It came out of a meeting with a female divorce lawyer at my kids’ school,” she says. “I realised within an hour of standing by the hockey pitch that there was a great show here.” The show follows a family of divorce lawyers dealing with their own fractures.

“I was always exploring the idea of a literal split, but I also wanted to look at the internal split that creates within yourself,” says Morgan. “We can love someone but desire another. We can have huge ambition in ourselves but feel conflict when we see it in others.”

6. Eric came out of a bizarre New York encounter

The 2024 Netflix show Eric centres on a puppeteer whose son goes missing in New York. The idea was inspired by a shocking real-life story.

Morgan was in New York in the 1980s, working as a nanny. “I was sitting on the steps of a very run-down hostel/hotel on Times Square and a young woman… went, ‘Hold this for me’ and dumped this toddler in my lap,” says Morgan. “It was about 2am… and she just disappeared into the crowd… I remember thinking, 'This is really weird'… Within two minutes, two guys came up to me… and said, ‘How much do you want for the kid?’” The mother returned but Morgan was left with the thought, “What if that mother had never come back? How do people get lost in a city like this?” Over time, the thought evolved into Eric.

7. She wants to build an industry for women

Morgan says she writes ensembles of women because that’s how careers grow, by going from small parts to leads. “I want to build the business for [women]. There have been ensembles of men for centuries. Within theatre, but also within filmmaking… [A male] actor coming up could be the third lead, then second lead, then the lead. What I love is creating ensembles of women that will give actors jobs… which means they can build their currency. They’re seen and someone will say, ‘God, I loved her in that. Let’s get her in.’”