We’re All Aboard the Morgan Spector Train

In my afternoon with Spector, while he spoke passionately and articulately about his work and politics, he never lit up more than when he was talking about his wife, Rebecca Hall, the star of films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the brilliant director behind 2021’s Passing.

“She’s an incredible artist and she’s also an incredible intellect,” he tells me. “I’ve seen this happen so many times. She can talk to anybody about what she thinks, and you just see really accomplished people just kind of go, Oh yeah, that’s the truth. She’s just got that thing.”

A few weeks before our interview, Spector was in Spain’s Canary Islands, supporting Hall on a new film she’s making. (“It’s going to be really good,” he says, unabashedly.) He was largely unavailable for the month, because he had made the commitment to support his wife and their young child. I tell Spector that that’s the kind of gallantry that would make his fans swoon, a compliment he firmly brushes off.

“Husbands get a lot of credit when they do just the basic job of husbanding and parenting,” he tells me. “And it’s nice, I appreciate it, but it’s also kind of what you signed up for when you sign up to be a parent. You’ve got to take care of your kid and you’ve got to hold your family together.”

Spector and Hall met at work, while costarring in the 2014 Broadway revival of Machinal, and have been married for a decade now. So far, they’ve worked on two plays and two films together. In the future, Spector dreams of helping his wife produce her films.

“I’m excited about, as we move forward in our lives together, the prospect of me getting more involved in those projects that she makes,” he says. “So that I can help her make those things as good as they can be.”

“[My wife] has got an encyclopedic film knowledge and I don’t really. I watched a lot of movies growing up, not films. I didn’t watch Bergman, I watched Die Hard,” he says, laughing. “She’s films, I’m movies.” (Later, he mentions that he also got into Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky in his teens. “I don’t want to sound like a complete philistine,” he cracks.)

I ask him if he’s seen The Last Movie Stars, the excellent Ethan Hawke–directed docuseries on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, two actors who also met while working on a play and worked together numerous times throughout their lives.

“There’s a scene where Paul Newman’s talking about how Joanne Woodward, she was the real artist,” Spector answers, with a grin. “And I was like, God, I fucking relate to this so strongly. I mean, not that I’m Paul Newman either, but just that sense that your partner is just much more the real deal and you’re not.”

As Spector’s career kicks into a new gear, he’s riding the wave hand in hand with Hall, conquering more mediums and taking more artistic risks. “We’ve really come to understand each other’s tastes and perspective,” he says. “And really trust it.” A united front, a shared audacity.