Tilda Swinton
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.[1]
Tilda Swinton
5 November 1960
Actress
1984–present
- John Byrne (1989–2003)
- Sandro Kopp (2004–present)
2, including Honor Swinton Byrne
- Sir John Swinton of Kimmerghame (father)
Swinton began her career by appearing in Derek Jarman's experimental films Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1988), War Requiem (1989), and The Garden (1990). Swinton won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Isabella of France in Edward II (1991). She next starred in Sally Potter's Orlando (1992), for which she was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Deep End (2001), followed with appearances in Vanilla Sky (2001) and Adaptation (2002). For the film Young Adam (2003), Swinton won the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Actress.
Swinton's performance in Michael Clayton (2007) won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Prior to this, she appeared in the film Constantine (2005), and subsequently had roles in Julia (2008) and I Am Love (2009). She gained acclaim for her performance in Lynne Ramsay's
psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) for which she received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Swinton gained wider recognition for her portrayals as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia series (2005–2010) and the Ancient One in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. She is also known for her roles in the Wes Anderson films Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018), The French Dispatch (2021), and Asteroid City (2023).
In 2006, Swinton was awarded an honorary degree by the Edinburgh Napier University for her services to performing arts.[2] She was awarded the Richard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry. In 2013, she was given a special tribute by the Museum of Modern Art.[3] In 2020, Swinton was awarded the British Film Institute Fellowship for her "daringly eclectic and striking talents as a performer and filmmaker and recognises her great contribution to film culture, independent film exhibition and philanthropy."[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Katherine Matilda Swinton was born on 5 November 1960 in London, the daughter of Judith Balfour (née Killen; 1929–2012) and Sir John Swinton (1925–2018), the Laird of Kimmerghame House. She has three brothers.[5] Her father was a retired major-general in the British Army, and was Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Her mother was Australian.[6][7][8] Her paternal great-grandfather was a Scottish politician and herald, George Swinton, and her maternal great-great-grandfather was the Scottish botanist John Hutton Balfour.[9] The Swintons are an ancient Scots family who can trace their lineage to the 9th Century.[10] Swinton considers herself "first and foremost" a Scot.[11]
Swinton attended three independent schools: Queen's Gate School in London, the West Heath Girls' School, and also Fettes College for a brief period.[12] West Heath was a boarding school, where she was a classmate and friend of Lady Diana Spencer, the future Princess of Wales.[7] As an adult, Swinton has spoken out against boarding schools, stating that West Heath was "a very lonely and isolating environment" and that she thinks boarding schools "are a very cruel setting in which to grow up and I don't feel children benefit from that type of education. Children need their parents and the love parents can provide."[13] Swinton spent two years as a volunteer in South Africa and Kenya before university.[14]
In 1983, Swinton graduated from New Hall at the University of Cambridge with a degree in social and political sciences. While at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party;[15] she later joined the Scottish Socialist Party. It was in college that Swinton began performing on stage.[a][17]
Career[edit]
1984–2004: Rise to prominence[edit]
Swinton joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984, appearing in Measure for Measure.[18] She also worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, starring in Mann ist Mann by Manfred Karge in 1987.[19][20] On television, she appeared as Julia in the 1986 mini-series Zastrozzi: A Romance based on the Gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her first film was Caravaggio in 1986, directed by Derek Jarman. In 1987, Swinton starred along Bill Paterson in Peter Wollen's Friendship's Death, she played a female extraterrestrial robot on a peace mission to Earth.[21][22] In 1988, Swinton was a member of the jury at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.[23]
Swinton went on to star in several Jarman films, including The Last of England (1987),[24] War Requiem (1989)[24] opposite Laurence Olivier, and Edward II (1991),[24] for which she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 1991 Venice Film Festival.[25] She performed in the performance art piece Volcano Saga by Joan Jonas in 1989. The 28-minute video art piece is based on a 13th-century Icelandic Laxdæla Saga, and it tells a mythological story of a young woman whose dreams tell of the future.
Swinton played the title role in Orlando (1992), Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf. The part allowed Swinton to explore matters of gender presentation onscreen, which reflected her lifelong interest in androgynous style. Swinton later reflected on the role in an interview accompanied by a striking photo shoot. "People talk about androgyny in all sorts of dull ways," said Swinton, noting that the recent rerelease of Orlando had her thinking again about its pliancy. She referred to 1920s playful, androgynous French artist Claude Cahun: "Cahun looked at the limitlessness of an androgynous gesture, which I've always been interested in."[26]
In 1993, she was a member of the jury at the 18th Moscow International Film Festival.[27] In 1995, with producer Joanna Scanlan, Swinton developed a performance/installation live art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London, where 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 incorrectly credited to Cornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to collaborate for the installation in London. The performance, titled The Maybe, was repeated in 1996 at the Museo Barracco in Rome and in 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[28] In 1996, she appeared in the music video for Orbital's "The Box".
Recent years have seen Swinton move toward mainstream projects, including the leading role in the American film The Deep End (2001), in which she played the mother of a gay son she suspects of killing his boyfriend. For this performance, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She appeared as a supporting character in the films The Beach (2000),[24] featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanilla Sky (2001), and as the archangel Gabriel in Constantine. Swinton appeared in the British films The Statement (2003) and Young Adam (2003). For her performance in the latter film, she received the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Actress.[29][30]
Personal life[edit]
Although born in London and having attended various schools in England, Swinton describes her nationality as Scottish,[62] citing her childhood, growing up in Scotland and Scottish aristocratic family background.[63] In 1997, Swinton gave birth to twins, Honor and Xavier Swinton Byrne, with John Byrne, a Scottish artist and playwright.[64] She moved to Scotland in 1997,[65][66] and as of 2023 she lives in Nairn,[67] overlooking the Moray Firth in the Highland region of Scotland, with her children and partner Sandro Kopp, a German painter, with whom she has been in a relationship since 2004.[68][69] In 2018, Swinton stated her support for Scottish independence.[63]
Swinton signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely" and that the arresting of film makers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[70][71]
In a 2021 interview with Vogue, Swinton mentioned that she identifies as queer. She was quoted as saying, "I'm very clear that queer is actually, for me anyway, to do with sensibility. I always felt I was queer – I was just looking for my queer circus, and I found it. And having found it, it's my world." She said that her collaborations with several creative visionaries helped her to find a sense of familiar belonging.[72] In a 2022 profile by The Guardian, she stated, "It just so happened I'd also been a queer kid – not in terms of my sexual life, just odd."[73]
In January 2022, Swinton revealed she is recovering from long COVID, with symptoms including having trouble getting out of bed, a bad cough, vertigo, and memory loss; she is also considering quitting acting to "retrain as a palliative carer", informed both by the trauma of living through the AIDS epidemic in the UK – Swinton mentions feeling a similarity between her experiences and those of the characters in Russell T Davies' 2021 TV drama miniseries It's a Sin – and "witnessing the loving support her parents received from professional carers at the end of their lives, and the impact it had on her."[73]