Line #35 Creator/TildaSwinton


1	[[quoteright:304:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Tilda_Swinton_3338.jpg]]
2	->''"Usually, with me, the project is always the second thing. The film-maker comes first. Films grow out of the relationship."''
3
4	Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton of Kimmerghame (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress of English and [[UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} Scottish]] descent. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Swinton Her family]] is one of only three in the entire United Kingdom that is able to trace their land ownership in an unbroken line to before [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy the Norman Conquest of 1066]].
5
6	She studied social and political science at Cambridge, and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and later the Scottish Socialist Party. After graduating in 1983, she briefly worked in theater before acting in films. Her initial projects were very [[LeFilmArtistique experimental and artistic]], but the last two decades have seen her move to more mainstream films. She lives in Scotland with her partner Sandro Kopp, and her two children (Xavier and Honor) with ex-partner John Byrne (not Creator/JohnByrne the comic book artist).
7
8	Creator/ConanOBrien would like her to play him one day (she's up for it whenever that happens), and she's also a highly popular choice for any biopic of Music/DavidBowie that might happen.
9	----
10	!!Roles:
11	* ''Egomania - Insel ohne Hoffnung'' (1986) as Sally
12	* ''Zastrozzi: A Romance'' (1986) as Julia
13	* ''Film/{{Caravaggio}}'' (1986) as Lena
14	* ''Film/{{Aria}}'' (1987) as Young Girl
15	* ''Friendship's Death'' (1987) as Friendship
16	* ''The Last of England'' (1988)
17	* ''War Requiem'' (1989) as the nurse
18	* ''Your Cheatin Heart'' (1990) as Cissie Crouch
19	* ''The Garden'' (1990) as Madonna
20	* ''Theatre/EdwardII'' (1991) as Isabella
21	* ''WesternAnimation/ShakespeareTheAnimatedTales'' (1992) as [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} Ophelia]]
22	* ''Film/{{Orlando}}'' (1992) as [[GenderBender Orlando]]
23	* ''Film/{{Wittgenstein}}'' as Lady Ottoline Morrell
24	* ''Blue'' (1993) as a voice
25	* ''Female Perversions'' (1996) as Eve Stephens
26	* ''Conceiving Ada'' (1997) as Ada Augusta Byron King
27	* ''Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon'' (1998) as Muriel Belcher
28	* ''The Protagonists'' (1998) as an actress
29	* ''Film/TheWarZone'' (1999) as Mum
30	* ''Possible Worlds'' (2000) as Joyce
31	* ''Film/TheBeach'' (2000) as Sal
32	* ''Film/VanillaSky'' (2001) as Rebecca Dearborn
33	* ''The Deep End'' (2001) as Margaret Hall
34	* ''Film/{{Adaptation}}'' (2002) as Valerie Thomas
35	* ''Teknolust'' (2002) as Rosetta, Ruby, Marianne, and Olive
36	* ''Young Adam'' (2003) as Ella Gault
37	* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' (2005) as [[IceQueen Jadis the White Witch]]
38	* ''Film/{{Constantine\|2005}}'' (2005) as the ArchangelGabriel
39	* ''The Man From London'' (2007) as Camélia
40	* ''Film/MichaelClayton'' (2007) as Karen Crowder
41	* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Film/PrinceCaspian'' (2007) as [[IceQueen Jadis the White Witch]]
42	* ''Film/BurnAfterReading'' (2008) as Katie Cox
43	* ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'' (2008) as Elizabeth Abbott
44	* ''I Am Love'' (2009) as Emma Recchi
45	* ''Film/TheLimitsOfControl'' (2009) as [[TheCameo Blonde]] (cameo role)
46	* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' (2010) as [[IceQueen Jadis the White Witch]]
47	* ''Film/WeNeedToTalkAboutKevin'' (2011) as Eva Khatchadourian
48	* ''Film/MoonriseKingdom'' (2012) as Social Services
49	* "[[Music/TheNextDay The Stars (Are Out Tonight)]]" (2013), music video with Music/DavidBowie
50	* ''Film/{{Snowpiercer}}'' (2013) as Mason
51	* ''Film/OnlyLoversLeftAlive'' (2013)
52	* ''Film/TheZeroTheorem'' (2013)
53	* ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'' (2014) as Madame D.
54	* ''Film/{{Trainwreck}}'' (2015) as Dianna
55	* ''Film/HailCaesar'' (2016) Thora [[ActingForTwo and]] Thessaly Thacker
56	* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse as The Ancient One
57	** ''Film/{{Doctor Strange\|2016}}'' (2016)
58	** ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (2019)
59	* ''Film/{{Okja}}'' (2017) as [[PlayingTheirOwnTwin Lucy and Nancy Mirando]]
60	* ''WesternAnimation/IsleOfDogs'' (2018) as Oracle
61	* ''Film/{{Suspiria\|2018}}'' (2018) as Madame Blanc, Dr. Jozef Klemperer, [[spoiler:and Helena Markos,]] with Swinton being credited as "Lutz Ebersdorf" for the middle performance.
62	* ''The Souvenir'' (2019) as Rosalind
63	** ''The Souvenir Part II'' (2021) as Rosalind
64	** ''The Eternal Daughter'' (2022) as Julie[[note]] Replacing her daughter Honor Swinton Byrne, who played a younger Julie in the prior ''Souvenir'' films. [[/note]] and Rosalind
65	* ''Film/TheDeadDontDie'' (2019) as Zelda Winston
66	* ''Film/UncutGems'' (2019) as [[TheCameo the auction house manager]]
67	* ''Film/ThePersonalHistoryOfDavidCopperfield'' (2020) as Aunty Betsey
68	* ''Film/TheFrenchDispatch'' (2021) as J.K.L. Berensen
69	* ''Film/ThreeThousandYearsOfLonging'' (2022) as Alithea Binnie
70	* ''WesternAnimation/GuillermoDelTorosPinocchio'' (2022) as the Wood Sprite and Death
71	* ''Film/AsteroidCity'' (2023) as Dr. Hickenlooper
72	* ''Film/TheKiller2023'' as The Expert
73
74	!!This actress's work provides examples of:
75	* ActingForTwo: In ''Teknolust'', ''Hail, Caesar!'', ''Okja'', ''Suspiria'', [[spoiler:which is an example of Acting For ''Three'']] and ''The Eternal Daughter''.
76	* ActorInspiredElement: For the film ''A Bigger Splash'', she suggested the character not being able to speak - drawing inspiration from the recent death of her mother.
77	* AmbiguousGender: Has many roles like this, such as the archangel Gabriel. She was also up for the role of Pennywise in ''Film/{{It 2017}}''
78	* AwesomeDearBoy: She loved playing Jadis in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' and came back for the films on ''Film/PrinceCaspian'' and ''Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' (when Jadis didn't appear in the books) because she enjoys playing her that much. She's greatly looking forward to an adaptation of ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew''.
79	* {{Bifauxnen}}:
80	** Many of her roles have her dress in a fairly masculine way, which emphasizes her androgynous appearance. This is taken to its extreme in ''Film/{{Constantine}}'', where she plays an OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous archangel.
81	** She's been often compared to Music/DavidBowie in this regard, and it all came full circle when she played with him in the music video "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" for his 2013 album ''Music/TheNextDay'' (though as a fairly normal wife). At one point in it, there is an androgynous singer and it's difficult to tell if said singer is meant to represent her or Bowie (or both).
82	* DyeingForYourArt: For ''Film/MichaelClayton'' she gained about twenty pounds.
83	* IceQueen: Many of her roles. She's ''literally'' an ice queen in ''[[Film/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]]''.
84	* GenderBender: In ''Film/{{Orlando}}'' she plays a man who was transformed into a woman.
85	** In ''Suspiria'', she not only plays Dr. Jozef Klemperer, but going as far as to play the role under the pseudonym of "Lutz Ebersdorf".
86	* HideYourPregnancy: For ''Love is the Devil'', she was filmed from the chest up in a lot of scenes.
87	* LongHairIsFeminine: Will only have long hair in a film if she's playing a non-androgynous character.
88	* MethodActing: She learned Russian and Italian for ''I Am Love.'' No, seriously, she ''learned two languages''.
89	* MysticalWhiteHair: She's naturally blonde and often plays supernatural characters. Many of them emphasize it by giving her purely white hair. This is the case in ''The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe'', where she plays the White Witch, ''Constantine'', where she plays the Archangel Gabriel, ''Only Lovers Left Alive'', where she plays a vampire, and ''The Dead Don't Die,'' where she plays [[spoiler:an alien]].
90	* OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous: She plays the archangel Gabriel in ''Constantine'', who is usually thought of as male and dresses in male clothing.
91	* PlayingAgainstType: In ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'' she plays a ShrinkingViolet. In ''Film/{{Trainwreck}}'', she plays an AlphaBitch magazine editor who looks traditionally feminine; thanks to make-up and a wig, [[https://peopledotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/tilda-swinton-800.jpg?w=800&h=600&crop=1 Swinton is nearly unrecognizable in the film.]] In ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'', she's [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/madamed.jpg barely recognizable]] in a small but striking comedic role as a makeup-slathered elderly UpperClassTwit.
92	* PlayingTheirOwnTwin: She plays twins Thora and Thessaly in ''Film/HailCaesar'' and Lucy and Nancy Mirando in ''Film/{{Okja}}''.
93	* ProductionPosse: A favorite of Derek Jarman, Creator/JimJarmusch, Creator/LucaGuadagnino, Creator/WesAnderson and Creator/BongJoonHo.
94	* StarMakingRole: While ''{{Film/Orlando}}'' brought her to attention, she started appearing in a lot of critically acclaimed films after ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''.
95	* StatuesqueStunner: Stands at 5'11".
96	* {{Typecasting}}: As a cold androgyne.

Context Creator / TildaSwinton