Sammy Sheldon Differ (Samantha Howarth) was born in Oldham, North Manchester. She is married to editor Ian Differ, they have a daughter, Elsa.
Making her own clothes from an early age, Sammy fell in love with film, watching westerns, Hammer Horror movies and, most influentially, Star Wars.
Leaving school at 16 to study Art & Design at Rochdale College of Art, she found the perfect outlet for her creativity. After realising there were no costume design degree courses, she approached the Royal Exchange Theatre for work experience and there began her career as an assistant costume maker, under the helm of Ginnie O’Brien. Learning from some of the most amazing costume designers and makers during the late 80’s, Sammy also completed 2 national tours with the Royal Exchanges’ touring theatre and one with the Royal Shakespeare Company as their wardrobe mistress. With much support and encouragement from Ginnie and the wonderful Costume Designer David Short, she applied to Wimbledon school of art to study Costume Design from 1990 to 1993. After graduating, she began work as an assistant designer to David Blight on various theatre productions, going on to design costumes for numerous pop videos and TV advertisements. Artists she worked with include Pulp, Jamiroquai, Jamelia, Beverly Knight, Eternal, Franz Ferdinand and many more. Sammy then became an assistant designer to Janty Yates on films including Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Jake Scott’s Plunkett & Macleane. She went on to design costumes for Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
Other film credits include The Green Zone (Paul Greengrass), Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (Guillermo Del Toro), Stardust (Matthew Vaughn), Kinky Boots (Julian Jarrold) and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Garth Jennings) among many others. Television work included the Wall to Wall TV series and Ancient Egyptians.
Sammy has received BAFTA Film nominations for her work on Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley and Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. She’s also received a BAFTA TV nomination for the BBC’s modern adaptation of The Canterbury Tales: The wife of Bath as well as Costume Designers Guild Awards nominations for The Imitation Game and Ex Machina, X-Men: First Class and V for Vendetta. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films have nominated her for Eternals, Stardust and V for Vendetta, she also has a nomination from the CinEuphoria Awards for Annihilation.
Sammy has turned her hand to various genres, from period and fantasy to war and superhero movies. Her more recent film credits include Assassin’s Creed, by Justin Kurzel, Marvel’s Ant-Man, Eternals and Ant-Man: Qunatumania, Annihilation Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice and the yet-to-be-released Kraven The Hunter directed by JC Chandor.