Tilda: I was inspired by panto pair
SHE is an Oscar-winning actress known for weighty dramatic performances.
But it was a piece of panto slapstick featuring two of Scotland’s greatest comedy talents that inspired Tilda Swinton to tread the boards.
When she was aged six, her parents, Sir John Swinton of Kimmerghame and his wife Judith, took her to see Cinderella at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh
The actress, now 55, recalled: The first live performances I ever saw were the great Scottish comics Stanley Baxter and Ronnie Corbett as the Ugly Sisters in pantomime. This experience, I have to confess, stole my heart and has been, clearly, profoundly influential.’
Miss Swinton, who has had a love of slapstick theatre ever since, told Out magazine: ‘I suppose my taste in performance was always more naked, open, sometimes blanker, often wilder and more raucous than tasteful thespianism. ‘I have a love of mess and awkwardness and inexpressible nonsense.’
Miss Swinton, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2008, lives in Nairn with her twin teenage children. She is due to start filming her first horror film, Suspiria, with Chloe Moretz and Shades of Grey’s Dakota Johnson.