Decades later, as part of National Museums Liverpool's Eight Hundred Lives project, Morrissey wrote that the house had been in his family since at least 1900; his grandmother had been married there and his mother was born there.

[11] He then did Le Cid and Twelfth Night with Cheek by Jowl, and spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), principally with director Deborah Warner for whom he played the Bastard in King John in 1988.

[11] Southerns, a crooked tax inspector, was the first of many "men in turmoil" roles for Morrissey, and it earned him a nomination for the Royal Television Society (RTS) Programme Award for Best Male Actor the next year.

[14] In 1999, Morrissey returned to the theatre for the first and last time in nine years to play Pip and Theo in Three Days of Rain (Robin Lefevre, Donmar Warehouse).

[31] Writing in Time Out, Jane Edwardes suggested that his role as Kiffer in Hilary and Jackie had inspired his casting as Pip in Three Days of Rain as the characters have similarities with each other.

[11] Morrissey returned to television in 2002 playing Franny Rothwell, a factory canteen worker who wants to adopt his dead sister's son, in an episode of Paul Abbott's Clocking Off.

[34] He also played tabloid journalist Dave Dewston in the four-part BBC serial Murder, and prison officer Mike in the part-improvised single drama Out of Control.

[11] Morrissey's next major leading role was as Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Collins in Paul Abbott's BBC serial State of Play (2003).

Unlike his research for the fictional State of Play, Morrissey discovered that no politicians wanted to talk to him for this fact-based drama, so he turned to journalists Jon Snow and Simon Hoggart.

[22] He also travelled to Brown's hometown of Kirkcaldy and immersed himself in numerous biographies of the man, including Ross Wilson's documentary films on New Labour in the year surrounding the 1997 election.

[40][41] His acting in State of Play and The Deal won him considerable acclaim; he was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role as Collins but lost to his co-star Bill Nighy.

[42] His performance in The Deal was acclaimed by Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's former spin doctor, and Tim Allan, a deputy press secretary of Tony Blair.

[46][47] The RTS jury wrote of Morrissey, "The strength of this performance brought to the screen, and to life, all of the characteristics and traits of the man he portrayed in a way that was both credible and convincing.

Club wrote that Morrissey had "the charisma of beige wallpaper" and that "the producers could have replaced him halfway through shooting with a handsome mahogany coat rack and nobody would be able to tell the difference".

[9] Immediately after filming Basic Instinct 2, he began work on The Reaping (2007) in Louisiana, in which he played science teacher Doug Blackwell opposite Hilary Swank.

While there, he was offered the role of father Danny Brogan in Cape Wrath, an Ecosse Films series about a family being moved on a witness protection scheme to a mysterious village.

"[65] Benedict Nightingale of The Times initially believed that Morrissey's acting was "a bit stiff, almost as if he was waiting for his cues rather than reacting instantaneously to their content" but found him more impressive as the play went on.

[67] He approached the character like any other dramatic part, and was influenced in his performance by previous Doctor actors William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker.

[75][76] The following months saw him star as British Transport Police officer Mal Craig in the second series of BBC One's Five Days, Roman soldier Bothos in Neil Marshall's feature Centurion, stalking victim Jan Falkowski in U Be Dead, and Colonel John Arbuthnot in the Agatha Christie's Poirot adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.

[83] Morrissey's performance was commended by Laura Davis in the Liverpool Daily Post, who highlighted his delivery of his lines and portrayal of Macbeth "[shifting] from straight-spined statesman to a fervent slayer".

In the early 1980s, Morrissey developed a filmmaking craft at the Rathbone Theatre Workshop, a Youth Opportunities Programme that taught school-leavers skills for a year.

[99] After his acting career escalated, he started directing because he was aware that, as an actor, he was coming into a project quite late into development and then leaving before post-production, and he wanted to see a film through to the end.

[9] In 2001, Morrissey directed Sweet Revenge, a two-part BBC television film starring Paul McGann that got him a BAFTA nomination for Best New Director (Fiction).

[103] In 2004, Morrissey reunited with Tony Marchant to direct the two-part television film Passer By, about a man (James Nesbitt) who witnesses an attack on a woman (Emily Bruni) but does nothing to stop it.

[104] In the same year, he made his feature debut directing Don't Worry About Me, a film about a London boy falling in love with a Liverpool girl.

The company bought the rights to adapt the Thorne novels and Morrissey was already developing it to pitch to television channels when Sky made an offer to broadcast it.

[108] On his return to England, he set up the Creative Arts School Trust (CAST), a charity for the purpose of training teachers and continuing the workshops in Lebanon and elsewhere.

[77][109] Morrissey is a patron of The SMA Trust (a charity that funds research into spinal muscular atrophy),[110] Liverpool's Unity Theatre,[111] and the human rights organisation Reprieve.

[112] Morrissey was introduced to novelist Esther Freud by actor Danny Webb,[22] and the two dated for around 13 years before marrying in a ceremony on Southwold Pier on 12 August 2006.

[119] In 2014, he was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to an open letter in The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in that year's referendum on the issue.