The peak never seems high enough
For eighteen years, Colin Morgan has quietly built a body of work around the characters history tends to overlook — the unsung, the marginal, the quietly transforming. Now, with a debut novel drawn from deep research into brain injury and family resilience, and a pivot toward comedy-drama on Apple TV, he continues a career defined not by spectacle but by the conviction that the smallest human stories carry the greatest weight. His is a philosophy as much as a practice: that the stories worth telling are the ones nobody else felt compelled to tell.
- A beloved actor steps outside his medium entirely, publishing a debut novel about friendship fractured and rebuilt after traumatic brain injury — territory rarely centered in literary fiction.
- Families living with brain injury told Morgan they had never seen their daily reality reflected in a novel, and that absence became the urgency that drove eight years of handwritten drafts.
- Morgan navigates the vulnerability of releasing characters he has lived with privately for years into a public that knows him primarily as a screen presence.
- A sharp tonal pivot sees him join a warm Apple TV comedy-drama, yet he identifies the same thread — quiet, unseen acts of love and endurance — running through every project he chooses.
- With stage work already on the horizon, Morgan's career continues its deliberate, boundary-testing arc, guided by a simple rule: if he could do it with his eyes closed, it's the wrong reason to do it.
Colin Morgan has spent eighteen years gravitating toward characters nobody else wanted to play — the brooding detective, the tortured recluse, the figure standing quietly at the edge of the frame. It began with Merlin in 2008, where he played a warlock whose greatest power went unrecognized, and something in that premise never left him. From The Fall to The Crown to The Sandman, the roles accumulated: singular portraits of people on the margins, each one demanding a quiet, internal kind of transformation rather than epic spectacle.
That same instinct drove him to write. His debut novel, The Ballad of Ronan McCoy, is a coming-of-age story about two friends who must find each other again after one suffers a severe brain injury. Morgan began the project in 2018 and spent years researching alongside the Child Brain Injury Trust, listening to families describe the everyday heroism of adaptation and care. When people told him no novel had ever placed this subject front and centre, the obligation to finish it only deepened.
Morgan speaks about sending the book into the world with the vulnerability of someone who lived with these characters long before anyone else could meet them. He has no social media, no online presence — he lets the work speak. His inspirations range from Paul Thomas Anderson's endlessly complicated filmography to the personal playlists of collaborators like Anthony Head and Kenneth Branagh, a collection now hundreds of titles long.
His next screen role marks a deliberate tonal shift: he joins Apple TV's Trying for its fifth season, a comedy-drama about the fierce desire to build a family. Where others might see a departure, Morgan sees the same thread — quiet acts of love that the world doesn't always stop to notice. The set, he says, was one of the happiest of his career, and he believes that warmth shows on screen. Stage work is already on his radar. The search for the next character nobody else can quite see continues.
Colin Morgan has spent eighteen years building a career around characters nobody else wants to play. The brooding detective. The tortured recluse. The man standing quietly at the edge of the frame, carrying the weight of a story that doesn't need explosions or fanfare to matter. It started in 2008 with Merlin, a BBC family drama where he played a warlock whose greatest power went unrecognized, and something in that premise stuck with him. He's been chasing versions of it ever since—as DS Thomas Anderson opposite Gillian Anderson in The Fall, as a journalist in both The Crown and The Sandman, as a unionist in The Gray House. The roles pile up, each one a singular, unflinching portrait of someone on the margins.
When we speak, Morgan is between shoots in the South of France, and the question feels inevitable: why does he keep gravitating toward the outsider? "I'm very much drawn towards the unsung hero characters, the ones who go on a transformational journey that doesn't necessarily need to be epic and blockbuster style," he says. "It can be very quiet and very internal." He describes reading these scripts and feeling compelled—not by ambition, but by something closer to obligation. He needs to be the one to tell their story. He needs to earn the trust of the people who created them.
That same impulse led him to write. The Ballad of Ronan McCoy, his debut novel, arrived after years of handwriting drafts in notebooks, a coming-of-age story about two friends, Brendan and Ronan, who must find each other again after the latter suffers a severe brain injury. Morgan began the project in 2018, drawn to the idea of exploring school friendships in all their complexity—the fraught hope of it, the way people grieve for those still living. Before he could write with any authority, he did the work. The Child Brain Injury Trust guided his research. He listened to families describe the quiet feats of power happening inside their homes, the everyday heroism of adaptation and care. "Hearing people say to me how they haven't had a novel that would put this subject matter front and centre really spurred me on," he says. "It felt more important than ever."
The novel hits shelves June 18, and Morgan speaks about sending it into the world with the vulnerability of someone who lived with these characters for years before inviting anyone else to meet them. He's not bound by genre or medium—he's worked across fantasy, period drama, contemporary thrillers, and now literary fiction. His industry inspirations include Paul Thomas Anderson, the filmmaker, whose "enriching, complicated, diversified stories" suggest that the peak never comes, that there's always another edge to test. Morgan has been surrounded by acting greats throughout his career, from Anthony Head in Merlin to Kenneth Branagh on Belfast, and he's developed a habit of collecting the books, films, and songs that inspired his collaborators to become storytellers. The playlist, he says, is probably hundreds long by now.
Despite the fanbase that accumulated over eighteen years, Morgan remains fiercely private. He has no social media, no online presence. He lets his work speak. "I just stick to the thing that I'm good at, or the thing that I feel drawn to, which is sending those stories out into the world," he explains. "If there's anything that gets in the way of that, it's not my business to put it there." Still, he's moved by anyone his work has touched. "That's the only reason why you do something, isn't it, to make someone feel something." He's become a thriller junkie—The Fall, The Killing Kind, The Boy That Never Was, Dead and Buried—drawn to dark projects precisely because they're challenges, because he doesn't know how to solve them yet. If he could do something with his eyes closed, he says, it's probably the wrong reason to do it.
Which makes his next move surprising: he's joining Apple TV's Trying for its fifth season, a comedy-drama about a couple navigating adoption and the desire to build a family. It's a 180-degree turn from the thrillers, but Morgan saw the same thread running through it. "I get drawn to these quiet acts of power that are happening every day around us, that we don't always see," he says. "This incredible desire to be parents, to be loving, to be supportive, to be a family." Working with Esther Smith, who plays Nikki, felt immediate and easy. The set became home. "It's one of the happiest experiences I've had, which I think shows on screen," he says. "When there's a happy set and a happy crew and a happy team, that heart definitely beats on the screen." As for what comes next, Morgan has already set his sights on returning to the stage. It's very much on his radar. The work continues, the search for the next character nobody else can quite see.
Notable Quotes
I'm very much drawn towards the unsung hero characters, the ones who go on a transformational journey that doesn't necessarily need to be epic and blockbuster style. It can be very quiet and very internal.— Colin Morgan
If I feel like I could do it standing on my head or with my eyes closed, it's probably the wrong reason to do something.— Colin Morgan, on his approach to selecting challenging projects
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You've been playing outsiders for nearly two decades now. Is that a conscious choice, or does it just keep happening?
It's both, I think. I read a script and something in it calls to me—usually it's a character who's been overlooked, who's carrying something quietly. I feel like I need to be the one to tell their story. It's not a strategy. It's more like an instinct.
Your novel is about a brain injury. That's not a subject most debut novelists tackle. Why that?
I wanted to write about the kind of grief that happens while someone's still here. And I wanted to do it honestly. So I spent time with the Child Brain Injury Trust, listened to families talk about their lives. Once I understood what they were living through, I couldn't not write it.
You have no social media, no online presence at all. How do you navigate being recognized, being a public figure?
I don't think of myself as a public figure. I think of myself as someone who makes things. The rest of it—the attention, the fanbase—that's a consequence of the work, not the point of it. I just stay focused on what I'm actually good at.
But people do feel connected to you. Does that matter?
Of course it does. If someone tells me a character I played moved them, or that my novel made them cry, that's everything. That's why you do this work. You're trying to make people feel something true.
You're joining Trying, which is quite different from the thrillers you usually do. What drew you to it?
The same thing, actually. It's about quiet acts of power—the desire to be a parent, to build a family, to love someone. Those stakes are as high as anything I've ever played. And the set felt like home immediately. That matters more than people realize.
What's next for you?
I'd love to get back on stage soon. That's very much on my radar. I've spent a lot of time in front of cameras. There's something about live performance that I'm hungry for again.