Is there any role thatTildaSwintoncan’t play? By now, through a series of eclectic performances, Swinton has proven herself time and time again to be one of the most consistently impressive actors of the 21st Century. A woman of seemingly boundless talent, she’s landed roles in small arthouse pictures likeWe Need to Talk About KevinandLimits of Controlas well as international smashes like the billion-dollar-grossingAvengers: Endgame.Of course, an artist of such skill is bound to acquire a cavalcade of fans and esteemed collaborators, which is made clear by the fact that Swinton has become a personal favorite of auteurs likeWesAnderson,Bong Joon-Ho,JoannaHogg, among others. It isn’tjustthat Tilda Swinton is one of the greatest performers of her time (she is) or that she earns herself roles in a long train of noteworthy releases (she does), but what’s evenmoreimpressive is how damn versatile the woman is. She’s got the tendency to awe with deeply transformative performances that traverse across genres, tones, and styles without misstepping in the process.
She’s conquered cinema and has dabbled in television, guesting on a Season 1 episode ofWhat We Do in the Shadowsas a fictionalized version of herself that leads the Vampiric Council. Swinton has even appeared as an alien-like traveler eerily prowling through the East London night in the music video for glitchy-electronic actOrbital’s song “The Box”, as well as starring asDavid Bowie’s wife in the late rock-star’s video for “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”. No stranger to eccentric musicians, Swinton also lends her voice to narrateWhen Björk Met Attenborough,a BBC documentary on when the mononymous Icelandic star metDavid Attenboroughto discuss her 2011 albumBiophilia.
Swinton’s filmography feels like a roulette wheel of possibilities, with each next project the actor takes on being as impossible to predict as the last. While no actor’s oeuvre is completely bulletproof and without the occasional dud, Swinton has at least proven to be of refined taste. The projects she takes on are exciting, the roles bold, and the majority of the works that she appears in range fromgoodtoexcellent. Regardless of the role in question—whether the budget be massive or minimal—Swinton can always be counted on to bring her A-game.
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Tilda Swinton’s Career Began with a Bold Start
In the earliest days of her acting career, Swinton starred as a wide-eyed fashion enthusiast that gets sucked (literally) into the shallow world of style magazines inCaprice, a thirty-minute short by her future frequent collaboratorJoanna Hogg. InCaprice,Swinton exudes the vulnerability of an awe-struck youth and the jaded disillusionment of one coming to terms with reality in the same single bound. Around the same time as her first of several collaborations with Hogg, Swinton pursued her interest in art and provocation through performance and found the ideal collaborator in queer activist and experimental filmmakerDerek Jarman(and Swinton would go on to narrate a documentary on the late filmmaker, titledDerek). Jarman’s works were daring, bold, and inventive, and they frequently focused on subjects of gender non-conformity, androgyny, and queerness. Exploring lead roles in Jarman films likeEdward IIandThe Gardenconvinced Swinton to continue acting (thank you), and proved to be an accurate representation of the slightly-off-center path that she has continued through her career.
Tilda Swinton Takes Risks
It may sound cliché, even pretentious, to suggest that Swinton is an artist rather thanmerely an actor, but it’s a point that’s hard to argue against. She’s expressed disinterest—even dismay—at the thought of being an “industrial actor”.AvengersandNarniaaside, Swinton has been particularly skillful at circumventing traditional star-making roles in favor of the proverbial path less traveled. After breaking through with starring roles in excellent movies likeOrlandoandThe Deep End,the actress has worked on some fascinating arthouse films from some of the most acclaimed international filmmakers. She starred in the glacially-paced and beautifully bleak filmThe Man from London(directed by Hungarian masterBéla Tarr), played front-and-center inAlmodóvar’s short filmThe Human Voice, appeared in villainous roles in each of Bong Joon-Ho’s English-language movies, and ledApichatpong Weeresethakul’s lyrical opusMemoria. Through it all, Swinton has taken far more risks in her selective and artistically-oriented performances than average.
Tilda Swinton Can Shape-Shift Across Tones
What’s most impressive about Tilda Swinton as a performer, though, is her complete ability to shape-shift from one tone to another without skipping a beat. She can do uproarious comedy (look no further than her brilliant dual role as the Thacker twins in theCoen Brothers’Hail, Caesar!), psychological drama (I can’t possibly sellWe Need To Talk About Kevin-era Swinton enough), and horror (she’s electrifying in Luca Guadagnino’sSuspiriareimagining, but more about that later) all with equal effectivity. She’s even played twins on more than one occasion, and each time she’s able to walk the line between the two by distinguishing the subtle differences that make each sister an individual, while sharing mannerisms to show their uncanny relation. In other words, no genre is a hurdle Swinton can’t clear.
It would be easy but unfair to categorize Swinton as a purely esoteric performer. While it’s true that it’s the strangeness of many of her roles that make them so memorable, it’s Swinton’s skill and devotion to these characters that make them so believable. 2018’sSuspiriafinds her in a triple-pronged role, one of which rendered her utterly unrecognizable. It was initially intended to be a secret that the role of Dr. Klemperer, the school’s psychotherapist, was played by Swinton. The role is credited to one Lutz Ebersdorf, a nonexistent actor that nobody would recognize, even though the name is merely a pseudonym for Swinton. In the role as a elderly spectacled man, the actress is transformed and unidentifiable, which can be contributed in equal parts to exceptional costuming and make-up, as well as Swinton’s transformative acting. So devoted to actuallybecomingEbersforf was Swinton that she actually insisted on integrating a “weighty set of genitalia”into her costume.
She’s Also Dabbled in Villainy
The cold and restrained Madame Blanc actuallylookslike Swinton, as she chain-smokes and judges her students from afar. Mother Markos, on the other hand, is as unrecognizable as Klemperer, with Swinton once again essentially disappearing into the role behind leathery wrinkles and dark-lensed sunglasses. Much likePeter SellersinDr.Strangelove(or, to look more recently, like Swinton’sSuspiriaco-starMia Gothin the movieX), Swinton acts the hell out of the roles, making each equally captivating.
Her two chilling turns inSuspiriaproved to many that she could be bad (and scary), but to many others, it’s a fact already that was already made abundantly clear when she played the psychopathic Archangel Gabriel inConstantineand the iconic White Witch inThe Chronicles of Narniaseries. Each of these roles show Swinton as a legitimately terrifying presence of evil. InConstantine, she oozes menace and cruelty from her pores, and inThe Chronicles of Narnia, she commands attention through a theatricality that almost feels Shakespearean.
She’s continued her streak of villainy in each of the Bong Joon-Ho movies she appeared in so far. InSnowpiercer, Swinton is Minister mason, the big-toothed second-in-command of the titular train, whileOkjafeatures her as the treacherous Miranda twins. Bong’s shown himself to be so goddamn good at blurring comedy with horror and thrills, and Swinton is his willing accomplice. Her characters in Bong’s films are larger-than-life and utterly absurd, and that’s what makes them so great. Through crooked dentures that are practically leaping out of her mouth, Swinton spits out meticulous monologues tinged with a Yorkshire accent. She’s at once ridiculous and intimidating, encapsulating the sort of theatrical preposterousness that clownish dictators indulge in daily. Both films feature performances that are entirely their own, but each is distinctively Swinton.
InOnly Lovers Left Alive, Swinton plays a centuries-old vampire named Eve, who, with her husband Adam (Tom Hiddleston), struggles to adapt to the alienating modern world in which the human blood that they feast upon is often contaminated and deadly. It’s a multi-layered role that requires the cruel, aloofness of the inhuman dead as well as the tenderness of an age-old romantic. Eve is brilliantly educated and well-spoken, wandering along Tangiers and Detroit with hundreds of years of knowledge packed inside her cold-blooded head. She and Adam both are cultural gourmands who appreciate the many genius human minds that have come (and some that have gone) over the long sweep of time, likeCervantes,NikolaTesla,Kafka, and many others. It’s a role of tremendous brooding that proves to be another slam dunk.
Then She’ll Find Herself in a Comedy
Comparethatto Swinton’s role in anotherJim Jarmuschfilm,The Dead Don’t Die. A dry-humored comedy about a zombie uprising, the movie features an unforgettable Swinton performance as a sword-wielding, zombie-decapitating Scottish woman who purchases a funeral home (whodoesn’twant to own a funeral home, right?). InMoonrise Kingdom, she bridges the gap between villain and comedian by playing the cold and unreasonably cruel Social Services. Here’s a character that’s uptight and devoted to her work with such severity that she doesn’t seem to realize that she’s ruining the lives of innocent children.
And Even Still, Tilda Swinton’s Only Won One Oscar
Consideringhow transformative Swinton tends to be, it’s kind of insane that she’s only won a single Oscar.Yes,she was great inMichael Clayton, andyes,she absolutely deserved the award, but goddammit, need I remind you once again aboutWe Need to Talk About Kevin? It’s a role of unbearable weight, but one that Swinton succeeds at with immaculate precision. Never quite overstated nor melodramatic, she manages to be completely gut-wrenching.
Tilda Swinton Also Does Voiceover Work
Swinton has also lent her recognizable voice to a number of projects, namely the previously mentionedDerekandWhen Björk Met Attenborough, as well as some BBC nature specials andJóhann Jóhannsson’s sole directorial workLast and First Men. you’re able to hear her inIsle of Dogsas the profoundly wise pug Oracle, or the short-tempered auction manager who has little patience for Howie Ratner (Adam Sandler) inUncut Gems. Each time, it’s easy to recognize Swinton’s unique voice, and it’s a joy to do so.
There are little to no roles that Swinton can’t play, and if there out there somewhere, she hasn’t taken them yet. Her dramatic range is baffling, and she’s got the talent of being able to transform into somebody else entirely and become lost in the role. Her recent movie,Three Thousand Years of Longingcontinues the tradition of excellent Swinton performances, though this time around, she’s particularly nuanced. She plays a lonely intellectual that speaks quietly and stares longingly while awaiting for passion to come toher.
With her recent streak of movies, namely the film festival favorite (and really quite excellent)Memoria, Swinton continues to make exciting risks in her role selection. Her branching out to newer international art house filmmakers like Bong and Apichatpong is nothing new. She’s always been an artist. What we can hope for is that she continue on her path, linking up with the world’s great filmmakers and making some singular, truly unforgettable characters along the way.
