Tilda Swinton

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Tilda Swinton
Birth name	Katherine Mathilda Swinton
Born	November 5, 1960
Spouse(s)	John Byrne (? - present)
Notable roles	White Witch, The Chronicles of Narnia, Gabriel, Constantine

Katherine Mathilda Swinton (born November 5, 1960), better known as Tilda Swinton, is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Film career 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 External links 5.1 Interviews

[edit] Early life

Swinton was born in London to Judith (an Australian) and Sir John Swinton (a Scottish major-general in the Scots Guards). She also has relatives in the town of Monkseaton and Newcastle. The Swinton family is an aged Anglo-Scots family.

She attended West Heath Girls' School (the same school as Diana, Princess of Wales), and also Fettes College for a brief period. In 1983, she graduated from New Hall at Cambridge University with a degree in the social and political sciences.

[edit] Film career

Carving out an international reputation as a risk taker, she has always eschewed conventional leading lady roles. She worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, and the Royal Shakespeare Company before embarking on a career in film in the mid-1980s.

Her early film work included several film roles for director Derek Jarman, and also the title role in Orlando, Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf.

Swinton became notorious for a brief period in 1995 when she appeared 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 by Cornelia Parker. The following year, the performance, entitled The Maybe, was repeated at a gallery in Rome. She appeared in the music video for Orbital's "The Box."

Recent years have seen her move towards more mainstream projects, including the leading role in the well-reviewed American film The Deep End (2001), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She appeared as the scheming archangel Gabriel in Constantine with Keanu Reeves, as a supporting character in films such as Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, and The Beach, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. Swinton has also appeared in British films: The Statement (2003) and Young Adam (2004), and sat on the jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2005, her performance as the sinister, seductive villainess, the White Witch Jadis, in the film version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe garnered critical praise as did her portrayal of Audrey Cobb in the Mike Mills film adaptation of the novel Thumbsucker.

[edit] Personal life

• She lives in Nairn in the north of Scotland with her husband John Byrne, an artist.
• Has two children, Xavier Byrne and Honor Byrne.
• Tilda is 5' 11" (1.80 m).

[edit] Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1986	Egomania - Insel ohne Hoffnung	Sally
	"Zastrozzi: A Romance"	Julia	Mini TV series
	Caravaggio	Lena
1987	Aria	Young Girl (segment "Depuis le jour")
	Friendship's Death	Friendship
1988	The Last of England
	Das Andere Ende der Welt
	Degrees of Blindness
	L' Ispirazione
1990	"Your Cheatin' Heart"	Cissie Crouch	TV series
	The Garden	Madonna
1989	Play Me Something	Hairdresser	TV
	War Requiem	Nurse
1991	Edward II	Isabella
	The Party: Nature Morte	Queenie
1992	"Shakespeare: The Animated Tales"	Ophelia	Mini TV series; voice
	Orlando	Orlando
	Man to Man	Ella/Max Gericke
1993	Blue		Voice
	Das Offene Universum	Carla	TV
	Wittgenstein	Lady Ottoline Morrell
1994	Remembrance of Things Fast: True Stories Visual Lies
	Visions of Heaven and Hell	Narrator	TV
1996	Female Perversions	Eve Stephens
1997	Conceiving Ada	Ada Augusta Byron King, Countess of Lovelace
1998	Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon	Muriel Belcher
1999	The War Zone	Mum
2000	Possible Worlds	Joyce
	The Beach	Sal
2001	Vanilla Sky	Rebecca Dearborn
	The Deep End	Margaret Hall
2002	Adaptation.	Valerie Thomas
	Teknolust	Rosetta/Ruby/Marinne/Olive
2003	The Statement	Annemarie Livi
	Young Adam	Ella Gault
2005	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Jadis, the White Witch
	Broken Flowers	Penny
	Constantine	Angel Gabriel
	Thumbsucker	Audrey Cobb
2006	Michael Clayton	Karen Hauer	Post-production
	Stephanie Daley	Lydie Crane
2007	The Man from London		Pre-production
	Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll		Filming
	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2008	Come Like Shadows	Lady Macbeth	Pre-production

[edit] External links

• Tilda Swinton at the Internet Movie Database
• BFI: Tilda Swinton

[edit] Interviews

• From The Guardian
• From BBC (2004)
• From NarniaWeb (2005)
• From Dark Horizons (2005)
• From SPLICEDwire (2005)
• From JoBlo (2005)
• Speech at SF filmfest 2006