"Usually, with me, the project is always the second thing. The film-maker comes first. Films grow out of the relationship."
Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton of Kimmerghame (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress of English and Scottish descent. 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 the Norman Conquest of 1066.
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 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 John Byrne the comic book artist).
Conan O'Brien 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 David Bowie that might happen.
Roles:
- Egomania - Insel ohne Hoffnung (1986) as Sally
- Zastrozzi: A Romance (1986) as Julia
- Caravaggio (1986) as Lena
- Aria (1987) as Young Girl
- Friendship's Death (1987) as Friendship
- The Last of England (1988)
- War Requiem (1989) as the nurse
- Your Cheatin Heart (1990) as Cissie Crouch
- The Garden (1990) as Madonna
- Edward II (1991) as Isabella
- Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992) as Ophelia
- Orlando (1992) as Orlando
- Wittgenstein as Lady Ottoline Morrell
- Blue (1993) as a voice
- Female Perversions (1996) as Eve Stephens
- Conceiving Ada (1997) as Ada Augusta Byron King
- Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998) as Muriel Belcher
- The Protagonists (1998) as an actress
- The War Zone (1999) as Mum
- Possible Worlds (2000) as Joyce
- The Beach (2000) as Sal
- Vanilla Sky (2001) as Rebecca Dearborn
- The Deep End (2001) as Margaret Hall
- Adaptation. (2002) as Valerie Thomas
- Teknolust (2002) as Rosetta, Ruby, Marianne, and Olive
- Young Adam (2003) as Ella Gault
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005) as Jadis the White Witch
- Constantine (2005) as the Archangel Gabriel
- The Man From London (2007) as Camélia
- Michael Clayton (2007) as Karen Crowder
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2007) as Jadis the White Witch
- Burn After Reading (2008) as Katie Cox
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) as Elizabeth Abbott
- I Am Love (2009) as Emma Recchi
- The Limits of Control (2009) as Blonde (cameo role)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) as Jadis the White Witch
- We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) as Eva Khatchadourian
- Moonrise Kingdom (2012) as Social Services
- "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" (2013), music video with David Bowie
- Snowpiercer (2013) as Mason
- Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
- The Zero Theorem (2013)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) as Madame D.
- Trainwreck (2015) as Dianna
- Hail, Caesar! (2016) Thora and Thessaly Thacker
- Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Ancient One
- Doctor Strange (2016)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Okja (2017) as Lucy and Nancy Mirando
- Isle of Dogs (2018) as Oracle
- Suspiria (2018) as Madame Blanc, Dr. Jozef Klemperer, and Helena Markos, with Swinton being credited as "Lutz Ebersdorf" for the middle performance.
- The Souvenir (2019) as Rosalind
- The Souvenir Part II (2021) as Rosalind
- The Eternal Daughter (2022) as Julienote and Rosalind
- The Dead Don't Die (2019) as Zelda Winston
- Uncut Gems (2019) as the auction house manager
- The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020) as Aunty Betsey
- The French Dispatch (2021) as J.K.L. Berensen
- Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) as Alithea Binnie
- Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) as the Wood Sprite and Death
- Asteroid City (2023)
This actress's work provides examples of:
- Acting for Two: In Teknolust, Hail, Caesar!, Okja, Suspiria, which is an example of Acting For Three and The Eternal Daughter.
- Actor-Inspired Element: For the film A Bigger Splash, she suggested the character not being able to speak - drawing inspiration from the recent death of her mother.
- Ambiguous Gender: Has many roles like this, such as the archangel Gabriel. She was also up for the role of Pennywise in It (2017)
- Awesome, Dear Boy: She loved playing Jadis in The Chronicles of Narnia and came back for the films on Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (when Jadis didn't appear in the books) because she enjoys playing her that much. She's greatly looking forward to an adaptation of The Magician's Nephew.
- Bifauxnen:
- Many of her roles have her dress in a fairly masculine way, which emphasizes her androgynous appearance. This is taken to its extreme in Constantine, where she plays an Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous archangel.
- She's been often compared to David Bowie 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 The Next Day (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).
- Dyeing for Your Art: For Michael Clayton she gained about twenty pounds.
- Ice Queen: Many of her roles. She's literally an ice queen in Narnia.
- Gender Bender: In Orlando she plays a man who was transformed into a woman.
- In Suspiria, she not only plays Dr. Jozef Klemperer, but going as far as to play the role under the pseudonym of "Lutz Ebersdorf".
- Hide Your Pregnancy: For Love is the Devil, she was filmed from the chest up in a lot of scenes.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Will only have long hair in a film if she's playing a non-androgynous character.
- Method Acting: She learned Russian and Italian for I Am Love. No, seriously, she learned two languages.
- Mystical White Hair: 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 an alien.
- Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: She plays the archangel Gabriel in Constantine, who is usually thought of as male and dresses in male clothing.
- Playing Against Type: In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button she plays a Shrinking Violet. In Trainwreck, she plays an Alpha Bitch magazine editor who looks traditionally feminine; thanks to make-up and a wig, Swinton is nearly unrecognizable in the film. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, she's barely recognizable◊ in a small but striking comedic role as a makeup-slathered elderly Upper-Class Twit.
- Playing Their Own Twin: She plays twins Thora and Thessaly in Hail, Caesar! and Lucy and Nancy Mirando in Okja.
- Production Posse: A favorite of Derek Jarman, Jim Jarmusch, Luca Guadagnino, Wes Anderson and Bong Joon-ho.
- Star-Making Role: While Orlando brought her to attention, she started appearing in a lot of critically acclaimed films after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
- Statuesque Stunner: Stands at 5'11".
- Typecasting: As a cold androgyne.
