TILDA SWINTON
Empire talks to an acting titan.
EMPIRE IS LOOKING through a laptop screen at Tilda Swinton’s empty sofa. Just out of the frame, a small army of spaniels doze peacefully as a few minutes pass by. Swinton is nowhere to be seen.
Then the 60-year-old actor/fashion icon/ all-round legend returns hastily, clambering into sight over the sleeping dogs. “I’m so sorry, that was the fish lady,” she says, momentarily out of breath. “I had to buy some fish because my son’s coming home and I have to make him a fish pie.”
Fresh fish home deliveries aside, Swinton is one of Britain’s most acclaimed actors, with an Oscar win for 2007’s Michael Clayton under her belt, and rolling collaborations with some of the world’s most prestigious and decorated filmmakers. Today, in what will turn out to be a cameo-filled conversation, we will talk about that illustrious career, when Swinton isn’t off buying fish, but we begin with a film from her formative acting years; Peter Wollen’s war-set sci-fi Friendship’s Death, in which Swinton plays an alien, sent down to earth on a peace mission during the Jordanian Civil War in 1970.
Who have we got on the video call with us today?
We are accompanied by [counts aloud] I think five spaniels.
A few of them appeared with you in The
Souvenir, is that right?
Yes, they’ve all had their moment except for
one because she’s a little random. She’s not to be relied upon.
When you look back, what role would you say Friendship’s Death played in your career?
This was the second film I ever made. I knew of Peter Wollen’s work because I was kind of a cine-nerd, so I knew about his book Signs And Meaning In The Cinema and about his work with [filmmaker] Laura Mulvey. When I got to know him, we had all sorts of wonderful times together figuring out how we were going to make the film because it was tiny, and I mean in every way. Not only was it just a two-hander with Bill [Paterson], but it was set in two rooms, it was absolutely miniscule in terms of budget, and I think we shot it in ten days. I remember that we spent a lot of time rehearsing it in this room off Tottenham Court Road.
It’s set against the Jordanian-palestinian conflict. How does it feel to revisit the film today?
In the last 35 years, it’s never felt like there was a wrong time to bring this film to wider attention. I’m horrified to say that it gets even more pertinent as time goes on. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day one could look at it as an arcane, historical artefact? But I’m afraid it’s just as alive.
You’ve had a complicated relationship with acting over your career. Is this still the case?
I came to film as a fan, and I’m still there. I have a limited interest in performance; I never wanted to be an actor, and I still don’t want to be an actor. Having said that, as someone who has been passionate about film from a very, very young age, I know the value of it. I know that the performance by a donkey in
Au Hasard Balthazar is of more use to me than some theatrical folderol. As a performer, this all feels like an elaborate joke. After every film I think, “Well, that’s enough of that. That was a detour, let’s leave that to one side and get on with what I really need to do with
my life.” And that’s what I’ve been doing now for 36 years.
Your first collaborator in film was Derek Jarman. How did your relationship with him begin?
When I left university at Cambridge, I slipped into working in the theatre for a bit, and I learned really early that I was not into it. I was on the verge of telling my very nice agent to just take me off their books. That’s when I was sent to meet Derek, and he asked me to be in Caravaggio, and then this whole thing opened up. He said, “Come and let’s make cinema together, and not just one professional film that you get paid for. Come and be a part of the mix.” I was fortunate enough to be part of the mix until he died.
How would you describe his approach to making films?
It was literally a work in progress. The films themselves weren’t really the thing, and I know that’s a very coy thing to say. But Derek was asking you to bring everything with you. He wasn’t casting you because you’ve got the right-shaped nose or whatever. He cast you because he wanted you around, and he wanted you to do everything. He wanted you to hold the lights, or come to Italy after the film was finished and source the soundtrack.
There are moments in Sally Potter’s Orlando and earlier in Caravaggio when you look directly into the camera. Was this your idea?
I was 24 when we made Caravaggio, and I remember feeling shy, and being aware that you can’t be shy in front of a camera. So I said to Derek, “Can I look back?” He said yes, which was good because I don’t know what I would’ve done if he had said no. So for years, I always looked into the camera. The Deep End was probably the first film when I didn’t.
It was around that time you moved into more mainstream films. What fuelled that choice?
When Derek died in 1994 I was a bit high and dry, because he was literally my day job. I had to ask myself a question: “Are you going to be an actor now?” I realised I didn’t want to be and so for a while, I thought, “Well, that was an adventure.” Then, as it happens, when you get your name on a couple of film posters, people ask you to do things. You don’t even have to be particularly lucky for that to happen. The good thing about working for a certain length of time is that people get to know what you’re interested in, and if they’re into that, then that’s like an in. So I started to have these really quite vibrant relationships with American filmmakers like Spike Jonze and Francis Lawrence.
Is that why you were cast in Constantine?
Yes, that was the first proper studio film that I made. The fact that Francis was making a big studio film with Keanu Reeves was all the more exciting, because he was a truly inspired and independent and radical filmmaker.
Michael Clayton was a milestone from this phase in your career. How did you come on board?
I was sent this script, which is still one of the finest scripts that I’ve ever read. It was like a Rubik’s Cube. [Director] Tony Gilroy writes people with different voices to each other. Michael Clayton and [Swinton’s character] Karen Crowder, they speak differently, and they’re coming from completely different histories, and that was exhilarating to me.
Denzel Washington turned down the role because he was nervous about working with a first-time director. Did you have any similar anxiety?
I’ve heard people talk about the nerves of working with first-time directors. It’s dreamy, working with first-time directors, because they have a beginner’s mind. They just throw themselves off the parapet, and that’s a very exciting place to be. I mean, look at David Mackenzie on Young Adam. Michael Clayton was just another adventure.
What was the experience of shooting like?
It was thrilling. I think it’s George Clooney’s greatest performance of his life. What I will say about playing my character is that I loved the opportunity to play a baddy who genuinely thinks that she’s doing the right thing. One of my favourite scenes, in fact one of my favourite
moments in screenwriting, is when Karen is on the street with a bag man and she’s trying to find a way of silencing Tom Wilkinson’s character without saying the lines from The Godfather. Psychologically, it’s extraordinary.
Your work’s always been peppered with comedy, but more so now through collaborations with Wes Anderson and Bong Joon-ho. Was it comedy or the collaborators that you pursued?
There was a little moment, and I’m happy to say it’s quite a long time ago now, when people in your position would say, “Have you ever thought of being funny?” And I would say, “But I thought I was always funny?” For example, Orlando is extremely funny, but people somehow thought it was serious because it was all in costume. I’ve been in this glorious position of people getting to know me, and then they write these opportunities for me because they know that I like a laugh. For example with the Coens,
I was very honoured that they had seen that I was up for that kind of malarkey. Then Bong Joon-ho and I became incredibly good friends before we started working together, and now he’s literally making things for me. So I’m happy to say those days are kind of over, when people say, “Are you ever going to do something funny?” We might get to the point now when they say, “Are you ever gonna do anything serious?”
Is there a particular role that you’re often recognised for?
If I go through an X-ray machine at an airport and I’m ever recognised by the people working it, there’s only one movie that they ever mention: Constantine. People working the X-ray machines in all of the airports around the planet have seen Constantine, and love [my character] the Angel Gabriel. Then if I’m in, say, a back street in Rome, people will mention Caravaggio.[pauses] Oh look, the star of The Souvenir is bringing me a cup of tea.
[Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, holding a mug, is beckoned into the frame to be introduced. She waves and chats briefly before carrying on with her day.]
Your collaboration with Joanna Hogg is perhaps your most intimate. How would you describe your relationship now?
I don’t know if you know this, but the third film that we have coming out next year [The Eternal Daughter] ties in to the other two films that we’ve made together [The Souvenir and The Souvenir: Part II]. If you’d asked me about this five years ago, I would’ve told you that this was all crazy. The only people that I’ve known longer than Joanna are my brothers. I’ve known her since I was ten, and for us to be able to work together in this way… I couldn’t even have imagined it. Then if you mix that in with my ongoing relationship with Wes Anderson or Bong Joon-ho, and now with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, because we’re preparing another film together, it feels like I’m in honey right now.
A Bigger Splash
opens with your rockstar persona Marianne Lane addressing a full stadium of fans. People often see you as a rockstar in real life. What is your take on that?
I’ve never thought about it before, but that was really like a watershed moment for me. From that moment onwards, the whole Marianne Lane trajectory was the beginning of this new direction for me into more personal and more autobiographical work, and driving away from this big stadium. That moment in the stadium, that’s been a surprise and a delight. I was never going to do A Bigger Splash because my mother had just died and I really didn’t want to do anything. I certainly didn’t want to talk, so we customised the portrait of Marianne to suit my situation at the time. In doing this, we introduced into my filmography this autobiographical note, which I’ve been following for the last few years. So that moment of her on the stage, that was a crossroads, not only for her, but in terms of how I’m seen. It’s been a party that I’ve been invited to rather than one that I’ve thrown myself.
FRIENDSHIP’S DEATH IS OUT NOW ON DVD AND BLU-RAY