Katherine Mathilda "Tilda"
Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British
actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films.
Early life
Swinton
was born in London,
England
. Her mother, Judith Balfour (née Killen), was Australian, and her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton of Kimmerghame,
Berwickshire
, KCVO, is
Scottish. The
Swinton family is an ancient
Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to
the ninth century.
Swinton
attended West Heath Girls'
School (the same class as Diana, Princess of Wales), and also
Fettes
College
for a brief period. In 1983, she graduated
from New Hall
(now known as Murray Edwards
College) at Cambridge University
with a degree in Social and Political
Sciences. She has two Honorary Doctorates: one from
Napier University in Edinburgh, received
in August 2006 and one from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and
Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow, received July 2006. She was a
contributing editor to the literary magazine
Zembla.
Career
Arthouse work
Swinton
worked with the Traverse
Theatre
in Edinburgh
, starring in Mann ist Mann by Manfred
Karge, and the Royal
Shakespeare Company before embarking on a career in film in the
mid-1980s. She appeared as Julia in the 1986 television
mini-series
Zastrozzi: A Romance based on the Gothic novel
by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her early film work included several film
roles for director
Derek Jarman,
notably
War Requiem
(1989) playing a nurse opposite
Laurence Olivier as an old soldier. In
1991, Swinton won the
Volpi Cup Best
Actress award for her role in the postmodern film
Edward II. Swinton also played the title role
in
Orlando,
Sally Potter's film version of the
novel by
Virginia
Woolf.
In 1995,
with producer and friend Joanna
Scanlan, Swinton developed a performance/installation art piece
in which as a live exhibit in the Serpentine Gallery
, London
, she was on
display to the public for a week, asleep or apparently so, in a
glass case, as a piece of performance
art. The piece is sometimes credited to
Cornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to
collaborate for the installation in London.
The following year,
the performance, entitled The Maybe, was repeated at the
Museo Barracco in
Rome
. She also appeared in the
music video for
Orbital's "
The Box". She has collaborated with
the fashion designers
Viktor &
Rolf. She was the focus of their 'One Woman Show' 2003, in
which they made all the models look like copies of Swinton, and she
read a poem (of her own) that included the line:
"There is only one you. Only one".
Mainstream films
Recent years have seen Swinton move towards more mainstream
projects, including the leading role in the American film
The Deep End (2001),
for which she was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award. She appeared as a
supporting character in films such as
The Beach (2000), featuring
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Vanilla Sky (2001) with
Tom Cruise and, as the archangel
Gabriel in
Constantine (2005) with
Keanu Reeves.
Swinton has also appeared in the British films The
Statement (2003) and Young Adam (2003), and sat on the
jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival
.
In 2005, Swinton performed as the
White
Witch Jadis, in the film version of
The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, and as Audrey Cobb in the
Mike Mills film adaptation of the
novel
Thumbsucker.
Swinton later had a cameo in
Narnia's sequel.
In 2007, Swinton's performance as Karen Crowder in
Michael Clayton earned her both
a
BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress as
well as the
Oscar for
Best Performance by an
Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2008
80th Academy Awards, the film's sole
win. Swinton's appearance at the Oscars was remarkable in that she
chose to wear very little makeup, though she did wear a silk Lanvin
gown. Of Swinton's au naturel appearance, friend and sometimes
stylist Jerry Stafford remarked, “
This is skin born of the
Scottish highlands, so why hide it? Why the hell put
foundation on it and all this garish lipstick?”
Swinton next appeared in the newest
Coen
Brothers film,
Burn After
Reading. Swinton said of the film, in which she plays
opposite
George Clooney, "I don’t
know if it will make anybody else laugh, but it really made us
laugh while making it." She was cast for the role of Elizabeth
Abbott in
The Curious Case of
Benjamin Button, alongside
Burn After Reading co-star Brad
Pitt. She is due to star in the upcoming film adaptation of
We Need to Talk About
Kevin.
Other projects
Swinton has recently collaborated with artist
Patrick Wolf on his 2009 album
The
Bachelor, contributing four spoken word pieces.
Swinton appeared at the 2009
81st
Academy Awards helping to present the 2009 Best Supporting
Actress Awards. She was announced and appeared along with
Eva Marie Saint,
Goldie Hawn,
Anjelica
Huston and
Whoopi Goldberg, all
past Best Supporting Actress award winners. Swinton was the one who
announced the winner for Best Supporting Actress, which
Penelope Cruz won.
In August 2006 she opened the new
Screen Academy Scotland production
centre in Edinburgh.
On July 2008 she founded the film festival
Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of
Dreams.
The event took place in a ballroom in
Nairn
in the Scottish Highlands in August.
Personal life
Swinton
lives in Nairn, in the
Highland
area of Scotland
, near Scottish painter John Byrne. With
Byrne she has her twin son and daughter, Xavier and Honor.
She
travels with her partner Sandro Kopp, a German/New
Zealand
painter. She has been with Kopp since 2004
and the relationship has Byrne's blessing. In an interview, Swinton
commented on her domestic situation: "It’s the way we have been for
nearly four years. I’m very fortunate. It takes some extraordinary
men to make a situation like that work."
Filmography
References
- Dewar, Peter Beauclerk, Burke's Landed Gentry of Great
Britain - The Kingdom in Scotland, 19th edition, vol.1,
Wilmington, Delaware,
2001, p.1317. ISBN 0-9711966-0-5
- Tilda Swinton Biography
- "SWINTON: Chart 2B, Sheet 2." Swinton Family
Society.org.
- Tilda Swinton, one of our most unique actors, talks
to Gaby Wood | Magazine | The Observer
- Elle 'the muses' Tilda Swinton
- 'Tilda Swinton to appear on Wolf's new
album
- Ballerina Ballroom | Home
- About Sandro Kopp
- Daily Express: The World's Greatest Newspaper ::
Day & Night :: Proud parents but not partners
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