Tilda Swinton: “I’m lucky – I’m not beautiful”

Milky white skin and light eyebrows and eyelashes do not make her colorless. 180 cm height does not make her tall. Broad shoulders—no matter what she says (“I’m often called “sir,” and at the airport I was inspected by a man once”)—doesn’t hint at masculinity. Her long-legged figure is perfectly proportioned, her blondness is stylish, her deep chesty voice imparts additional significance to what she says. We meet under an umbrella in the press cafe on the beach, a place Swinton herself chose. Although I was afraid that there, among my colleagues, I would have many competitors. But the Oscar and Golden Globe winner is convinced that few people are interested in her. Although in the competition of the Venice Film Festival she has a film – “Big Splash”. And not just another film in her filmography, but a kind of benefit performance: she plays a rock star who has taken a break in her career, but has not lost her talent to always be in the spotlight. Strangely, with Swinton herself in black glasses at the mojito table, the opposite is true. She seems to know how to turn off this property. And it doesn’t really draw attention. She is known for her dressing skills and sympathy for designers who “can do anything other than minimalist waist suits.” And indeed, the white and beige striped dress that opens the lower back is a worthy antithesis of Chanel’s smug femininity. However, to wear this, you need to have the posture of Tilda Swinton and her effortless self-confidence. As if she herself was the least important thing she should think about.

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• Tilda Swinton

Psychologies: They talk about you so often, emphasizing your originality: the appearance of an alien from outer space, absolute beauty, not related to gender. Cosmic detachment. What do you think about it?

Tilda Swinton: I don’t understand what’s so special about this? Doesn’t everyone feel like aliens sometimes? Is not it so? Don’t you ever feel like you’re from another planet?

No. The planet on which we are talking is definitely my homeland.

T.S.: Weird. It seemed to me that everything … I don’t know, maybe because I … I consider my whole life an adventure. Work for me is not a professional occupation, but a special pastime. I have never considered and do not consider myself a professional actress, this is such an adventure for me. My family is the fruit of love, and love is by definition an adventure. Children are a wonderful experience, that is, again, an adventure. But between you and what happened to you, there is some distance, you must agree. Not detachment, but distance. It’s not that I don’t consider my life to be mine. I just feel it not as fate, not as a deed, not as a burden. Ah… adventurous. Maybe that’s why I never tried to achieve something special. I just like doing what I do among the people I do it with. You know, I recently found my childhood diaries here, and among them is my letter to my 80-year-old self, which I wrote at the age of 15. Do you know what’s there? “Dear me, I hope you have lived this long life and have always been surrounded by wonderful dogs and wonderful friends.” And that’s exactly how I live now. Far from your own Hollywood and London business – in the north of Scotland, by the sea, half an hour by car from Inverness. I have four dogs, chickens, a vegetable garden with carrots that some kind of green aphid is always eating, and only beautiful people around.

This, apparently, is called the integrity of the individual.

T.S.: Or – forever act contrary to expectations. Not consciously, but simply by virtue of its nature.

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Do you mean the expectations of your family – aristocratic, firmly established in the social elite of Scotland? Have you rebelled against family settings?

T.S.: No, my parents were wise enough to be satisfied that their children were just happy. But in view of the properties of our family you indicated, there were unshakable foundations. For example, the obligation of a private closed school for children. I hate “Harry Potter” precisely for the fetishization of closed schools. In fact, there is only violence against a person, over a person. Life in a concentration camp of prohibitions. My roommate was Diana Spencer, the future Princess Diana. I assure you, she suffered as much as I did. That is why she did not send her children to any such schools. I myself founded a Waldorf school in Nairn. It educates a person, not a member of the community. A socially responsible person, not a thoughtless fundamentalist. Being human is more important than continuing tradition, I’m sure. But while I was a child, a teenager, in our family it was assumed that I would finish Cambridge and … marry the duke. Not because the parents so passionately desired it, but because it is logical and traditional. But I also entered Cambridge for political science and English philology after two years in Africa – I volunteered as a teacher, and in Cambridge, under the influence of my favorite leftist professors, I joined the Communist Party, and after Cambridge I did not marry the duke. Nobody pressured me, because I am a woman. My dad, of course, has a peerage and is a former Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire. But the main thing is that he is a military man, a major general, all the men of our family in many generations that can be traced back to the XNUMXth century were in one way or another military men. Three of my brothers graduated from the same military school as my father and grandfather. And I was a girl, and it was expected of me – though rather sluggishly – this is the duchy itself. But when it became clear that I was unlikely to make a brilliant game, the family bet on me was cancelled.

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And how did your parents react to your profession … sorry, your studies? Still, the Golden Globe, the Oscar, the British Academy Film Award …

T.S.: Hell, I don’t know… It just didn’t occur to me to be interested. You see, they never made their relationship with us dependent on our social success. In my case, of course, my parents were infinitely far from my hobbies – the Communist Party, avant-garde art, performances, shooting in Derek Jarman’s terribly artistic and innovative films, after all, in eight years I played in seven of his films. Father then looked at Caravaggio and only shrugged his shoulders. I laughed at the expression on his face – puzzled and terribly serious! In general, it was so far from them. I went into a world completely alien to them. Now I’m thinking: what world should my children go to (actually, while they are 18, they are hippies and overthrowers of all foundations), so that I consider it absolutely alien? Probably become accountants by profession and fascists by conviction! I asked myself: how would I feel? And she answered: all the same love. I would continue to love them. And my parents did the same.

Have you ever had to take advantage of your background?

T.S.: I did, yes. I thought about becoming a professional horse racer. It would be very much in our tradition. You smile, but I’m serious. I have hereditary knowledge about horses. My grandfather had an old gardener, Bert. I was friends with him when I was a teenager. He really knew horses. And taught me to recognize winners. Become, the style of the move, how the horse holds its head – according to different parameters. And when I ended up in London, for two years I did not earn at all except at the races. No, I actively starred with Jarman and did something in the theater, but horse racing was the income. Once, on a horse named Unclean Power, I won so much that I lived on this for a year. And I always thought to live like this – horses, experimental theater, cinema for a penny, but great.

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And didn’t make any plans?

T.S.: What are the plans? I didn’t feel like an actress, I thought I was just a participant in performances, performances, whatever you call them – a play, a film … I have a special appearance – I don’t look like a person in a movie, I look like a person from a picture. This, apparently, attracted Derek (Derek Jarman was the first to entrust Swinton with significant roles in his films. – Approx. Ed.), After all, he was first an artist, and only then a director … I was never a beauty and considered it luck. Beauty is a lot of pressure, it will definitely force itself to be used, manipulated. I liked the idea of ​​turning off any sexuality in yourself. I am a person who can become an art object. I couldn’t have any guarantees. Yes, I don’t need them. At twenty-five, I dreamed of being 40. Something told me: after forty and my time will come. And until forty she tried not to stick her head out, avoided the main and especially romantic roles. Yeah, I don’t plan at all. I’m not making a career, I’m living. I have a whole life instead of a career. I do not aspire to any professional heights. On the contrary, I try not to get tired of me. I am grateful to Disney for choosing me to play the role of the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia and showing it around the world for 700 million. But solely because there is no better advertisement for Caravaggio, There’s Something Wrong with Kevin, Only Lovers Left Alive than a Disney fantasy blockbuster. My Hollywood is a big advertising campaign for my real films.

Speaking of “Something Wrong with Kevin.” You play a mother there, which is easy to call bad. Anyway, a special mother. You generally have many roles of mothers. It even seems that this is your separate topic. Has your motherhood affected your relationship with your mother?

T.S.: No, it’s not because I have children. Because yes, I had a mother. We had a normal relationship. But over the years, I want to understand it more and more. That’s why I like to put myself in different “motherly” situations – to save my son, perhaps the killer, as in “The Deep Down”, to forgive the son – the murderer of your family, as in “Kevin”, to understand what kind of world it is, in which your child-dreamer lives, as in “Bad Habit”, to betray a mother’s duty, as in “I am love” … Over the years, I feel more and more connected with my parents, with my family, with all generations of this warlike Scottish clan. I used to deny it. I am me. She answered for herself, did not nod at the origin and heredity …

Are you nodding now?

T.S.: I don’t nod. But I feel the connection and respect it. You know, I starred in Only Lovers Left Alive, a film about those who live forever, about vampires. At the same time, my mother was dying. I filmed for 3 days, jumped on a plane and rushed to Scotland, then again for 5 days and the plane … I saw how my mother was dying, and could not do anything. Not for her to live. To stop dying painfully. It is good to wish the elderly long life when you are young or at least able. And old age, deep old age is such a burden that it is unbearable to drag. I looked at my mother and kept thinking: what kind of death police should I call in order to end all this horror for her? And then I realized that the highland Scottish vitality speaks in me, my clan, who chose a quick death on the battlefield. It was then that I felt the power of genes in myself.

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And it seemed to me that in such cases we think more about what is after death. And we hope that dying loved ones will be better, easier there …

T.S.: We are not those who are still somewhat communist, and therefore an atheist. And not those who feel like a Scot, a Highlander, a Highlander to the marrow of their bones. Don’t try to ask me about faith. God… My god makes cartoons. His name is Hayao Miyazaki. He is almost a god in our house. Because it proves that art is stronger than physics. Because it creates an incredible world. Not ideal, it has death, and deprivation, and suffering, but so complete, as if it were a world alternative to our real one. If I’m in a coma, just play for me the music from “My Neighbor Totoro” … Blue sky, clouds and this music … Or from “The Wind Rises” … Kimono and umbrella are moving away along the alley – the artist is dying of tuberculosis … music … And I immediately wake up.

Four of her reincarnations

Tilda Swinton is convinced: “Any story, shot even in a realistic environment, is still artificial.” Is that why she likes to play characters unlike herself? The Minister in the dystopia Snowpiercer (2013) Bong Joon-Ho turned out to be eerily genderless. In Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Swinton played an 80-year-old aristocrat who is in love with a concierge. Jim Jarmusch’s blonde in Limit of Control (2009) is a counterbalance to the black hero, and the bleached face and bright red lips are a reference to the image of pop king Michael Jackson. Swinton’s contempt for pop culture was also expressed in The Girl Without Complexes (2015) by Judda Apatow: her editor of the glossy magazine is unscrupulous in means of increasing its circulation.