Tilda Swinton went to boarding school with Lady Diana Spencer

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These are some photos from yet another magazine shoot and profile of Tilda Swinton, obviously. It’s always difficult to say that the camera “loves” Tilda, but it’s not like the camera hates her either. She’s such an unusual woman, and such an unusual-looking woman – I think she could probably look gorgeous in photos with a little effort, but in her mind, she thinks, “Why put in the effort? I’d rather be unusual and handsome.” Is it wrong that I have sexual fantasies about Tilda? It’s not like my attraction to Sofia Vergara or something – I fantasize about Tilda like she’s a man. Like she’s going to come over and seduce me. I think I would enjoy that, honestly.

By the way, did you know that Tilda is 50 years old? She turns 51 in just a few weeks. She doesn’t seem to age, on top of everything else. She really is an alien, right? RIGHT? Anyway, here are some interview excerpts from some additional press Tilda has been doing for We Need To Talk About Kevin. She references some previous stories, like when she talked about how every mom worries that she’s given birth to a psycho, and how Tilda wanted to kill her baby brother. There’s also a random reference to a schoolmate of Tilda’s – the then Lady Diana Spencer (OMG!).

Tilda on acting: “I’m not really interested in acting. I’ve given up waiting for an epiphany of interest to strike. Acting is a red herring and a major mistake and I’m still trying to get back on track. Every time I’m in a film I’m determined it’s the last I’m in then I’ll fall into a conversation with someone and we’ll cook up a new scheme. Basically it’s gone on for 20 years but I’m hoping to pull it to a close shortly.”

What she would rather be doing: “I would like an opportunity to have a good sleep and get on with some writing.”

Does she ever feel monstrous? “Does one ever feel it,” she says, “or is one simply monstrous? I mean, I’ve been monstrous, I think.”

She talks about wanting to kill her brother again: “I was going to kill him because he was a boy, naturally… and I already had two brothers, and that was just too much to bear.”

On “evil”: “Whenever there are children killing children, or perpetrating great acts of violence, there’s always this word ‘evil’ pulled out of the top drawer. Not even the bottom drawer. It’s a very quick response. And I’m always struck by it, because from the age of four and a half I have known that it ain’t in no drawer. It’s at closer hand. Isn’t that the triumph of civilisation? That we manage not to be monstrous?”

On We Need To Talk About Kevin: “He’s playing out her detachment. His lack of empathy is her detachment. All those early incidents she feels so tortured by, like mocking him through the bars of his – cage, I was going to say – but the bars of his cot, saying, ‘Mummy was happy before little Kevin came along, now Mummy wakes up every morning and wishes she was in France’ … That early image of her holding up the baby, when he’s screaming, and that terrible, inauthentic smile she gives. I mean, wouldn’t you scream if you had a mother doing that? I would! It’s that feeling of inauthenticity, of her having edited out the majority of herself in this relationship; and it’s hard not to sympathise – to use that word – with his, um, efforts to get her attention.”

Does she think the movie will inspire women to NOT have kids? “I don’t see why it would,” she says sunnily. “It’s a fantasy. It’s never going to be that bad … Everybody thinks for one moment when they’re pregnant that they’re actually carrying the spawn of the devil.”

On being sent to boarding school at the age of 10: “So it’s a weird moment to go, ‘OK, we’re going to distract you from all that useful evolutionary work, and lump you together with a lot of people on a desert island called school and leave you to it.'” She was excited at first, “because I was happy to be amongst girls, having been in a family with a bunch of boys. I was going, ‘OK, fine. So now I’m a girl.'” But overall, she really didn’t enjoy boarding school. She was bullied and homesick: “I don’t think I spoke for five years.”

On the idea that she was “groomed” for marriage by her education: Were thehe girls were expected to become wives of the establishment, a notion borne out by the marriage of her classmate, Lady Diana Spencer? I ask if there was a sense of being groomed for marriage, and she bristles. “I’m wondering about the word ‘groomed’. I’m also wondering that we’re sitting talking, for the Guardian, about Diana Spencer. I can’t quite believe it.” We bat this about a bit. I explain I’m interested in the wider idea of women being expected simply to marry. “It was a holding bay,” she says finally. “We managed to survive. Most of us.”

[From The Guardian & CNN]

I mean, obviously, she’s brilliant and strange and wonderful and weird. Is it wrong to think she would be a great flirt too? I’m seriously having fantasies about her, like she’s coming in second (after Fassbender) in my “dream lover” sweepstakes. What do you think? Tilda Swinton: Would you hit it?

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Photos courtesy of The Room, via The Fashion Spot.

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43 Responses to “Tilda Swinton went to boarding school with Lady Diana Spencer”

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  1. AcornPaste says:

    The same school that was later closed down? Yep.

    I really like the androgynous look on her. And on Stella Tennant too.

  2. izzyvalentine says:

    I really want to like her- because she’s so unusual and a breath of fresh air in the community of female actors. But she just gives me the heebie-jeebies.

  3. gee says:

    I kind of nothing her, but that first pic is A+.

  4. Raven Sparrow says:

    Getting so sick and tired of these actors complaining. OMG they have the hardest, worst paid job on the planet!

    When they started acting classes and accepted their first job, I’m sure they were dreaming of fame and fortune. It’s not like they were forced into it.

    So please, to all of you complaining actors : shut up and thank your lucky stars that you made it – or – just quit and do something else, you have the money to take on a whole new career or better yet, just stay home and do nothing.

  5. Laurabb says:

    She has great skin.

  6. Pfefferminz says:

    She is a very interesting specimen, and it’s great she’s in the showbiz, but no, I wouldn’t hit it. Like, waaay too complicated, and a bit scary.

    Love your posts, Kaiser

  7. Maritza says:

    She is a wonderful actress but as a person she ia kind of intimidating.

  8. Green_Eyes says:

    Morning Kaiser & everyone.. She’s very interesting, think she’s great at her craft (agrees needs to not complain), but no wouldn’t hit it…something about her has always seemed a bit intimidating. She does have gorgeous skin & seems ageless

  9. smh says:

    The David Bowie look is becoming her.

  10. Nonny says:

    I love near her in Bonny Scotland, och aye! If I bumped into her in the freezer aisle in Tesco I’d probably assume, in the words of my 3 year old daughter ‘the aliens have come down mummy. From the moon’!

  11. theotheryael says:

    i would let her seduce me any day.

  12. Sloane Wyatt says:

    I love her haircut. Tilda would have to sweep me off my feet to feel anything for her, but maybe – who knows?

    Shutup, Crybaby.

  13. azurea says:

    What’re you all grousing about? Sounds to me like she’s just being honest, and that she has a love-hate relationship with acting. This seems like one of the better celebrity interviews…usually they are all so bland, you could inject the name of anyone into them, and it would fit. (I’m thinking especially of Vanity Fair interviews.) To me Tilda seems really smart, insightful and with a very dry, pointed sense of humour. And like she really knows who she is.

  14. Lukie says:

    I have loved her since she played Michael the Archangel in that movie w/Keanu Reeves.

    Did you know that she has an open marriage? Her husband is older and unless it ended, she also has a younger lover…

  15. Embee says:

    I don’t want to have sex with her. I want to visit her at 2 am for tea (you know she’s up) and a talk about life. This woman THINKS and is the most authentic person I’ve read interviewed.

    She wasn’t whining about acting, she was saying it was a mistake. There’s a difference. At no point in the quoted language does she complain. I think her experience translates to other careers as well. You commit to a career anticipating that you know what it will be like, and that you will like/love it. You devote time and energy to developing yourself within your profession, taking your lumps and believing that once you have enough skill you’ll enjoy it. Then you get to the place where you say “I don’t want to do this, no matter how skilled I am.” But you cannot just stop…you’ve got commitments and a circle of colleagues and friends, financial commitments, children who rely on you. You don’t want to waste the work you’ve plowed into the current profession…you think “maybe this project will do it.” But it doesn’t. Or it sort-of does, so you hope a little more.

    Clearly I dientify with this a little too well!

  16. texasmom says:

    I so love the idea of the young Diana and the young Tilda together, they would have brought out the existential dread in each other.

    I would love to see a shoot of Tilda with David Bowie. Maybe that would be impossible, like a photo of Superman with Clark Kent!

  17. Mitch Buchanan Rocks says:

    If Tilda wants out she should get out then and stop complaining; she’s got the $$$ from the acting to go work at McDonald’s if that has been her lifelong dream.

  18. Callli Pygian says:

    Can you imagine her as your older sister?

    Freaking awesome, and scary weird all at once. As in you’d give her your undying admiration, but always fearful she’d kill you for no reason, at any given moment.

    *shudders*

  19. atlantapug says:

    I agree that Tilda is fascinating. She’s not beautiful in the expected way, but she’s far from unattractive.
    She’s just so mesmerizing.

  20. clare says:

    I am seduced by her mind.

  21. Jessica says:

    She’s amazing. A freaking goddess.

  22. Danziger says:

    What an amazing being.

  23. curegirl0421 says:

    I would soooo hit it. She’s gorgeous, yes (really – there is nothing about her that is not beautiful) and those EYES – I feel like she’d be able to enrapture me from across a room like Ka the Snake. Is that a weird reference? Probably, but still.

    Also… 50? Really?? Not that it’s an “old” number, not anymore, but it’s just so surprising. She’s ageless, I guess, and that’s what makes it surprising.

  24. Sebastokratos says:

    Just wondering, as a GREAT admirer of Celebitchy in general, and Kaiser’s writing in particular: do your partners or husbands ever complain of your rather public declarations of lust for Fassdong and Tilda Biscuits (that SHOULD be a brand, no? – sounds cosy and very English and proper)? Are they ever jealous?

  25. bored says:

    I love her. I think she is already gorgeous.

  26. Moi says:

    She is utterly fascinating, both to look at and to read about.

  27. danielle says:

    Holy crap, she’s 50! I think she could pass easily as late 30s, early 40s.

  28. podzol says:

    Echoing people here who find Swinton fascinating. I love her no-bullshit attitude and honest demeanor. My mind shall be blown away when Mia, Fassy, and Tilda star together in Jim Jarmusch’s next project. HELL YEAH.

  29. aloe juice says:

    this post def. opened me up to her. she’s fascinating

  30. Tiffany says:

    Would I hit that. Yes I would. That is all.

  31. harfang says:

    I know she’s stereotypically androgynous-looking, but she is still fully female to me. I would seduce her, or I would certainly be cool with her seducing me. Anywhere on the spectrum of that kind of action she’s a dream.

  32. Reece says:

    Wouldn’t hit it, would LOVE to hang out with it.

  33. Nicky says:

    @Sebastokratos: Yes, I would love to know that too. Kaiser, ever get any attitude from hubby about your secret lovers?

  34. Jackie says:

    i want to be her! she is fabulous.

  35. kieslwoski says:

    I loveTilda so much, I cannot wait to see “We need to talk about Keivn”.

    Wonderful pictures, I cannot believe that she is older than Grandma Kidman.

  36. Runs with Scissors says:

    Yes, I think I would definitely be into HER, if I had the chance!

    And no, I wouldn’t hit “IT.” Nor would I put a ring on “IT.”

    Talking about people as if they are slabs of meat, no matter if it’s in a witty, winning tone, BUGS the shit out of me. Especially towards people who don’t put themselves out there as such.

    Yeah, I should just roll my eyes and let it pass, but thought I’d mention it.

    We direct enough of that crap towards women on every level, constantly, why add to it?

  37. Sassy says:

    Swinton plays many roles in full female garb and makeup – “I am Love” is a favorite. She wore gorgeous Jil Sander dresses and sport clothes and was very feminine. She also was in one with Clooney for which, I believe, she was nominated for an Oscar – “Michael Clayton”, and she sported long brown hair and a feminine look. She is one actress who can play almost any role with ease. Love her.

  38. Dirty Martini says:

    No I would not hit it.

    But I would love to visit her with a bottle of serious liquor to loosen her tongue.

  39. LittleDeadGrrl says:

    She’s David Bowies twin sister. I can’t believe she is 51. I rather like the interview and I LOVED her in Constantine. She was the best angel I’ve ever seen … maybe cause she is an alien so she can play angel so good O_O

  40. Khalesi says:

    Oh Tilda. I loved you in “Orlando” and I have loved you ever since.

  41. lonnie golightly says:

    I’d hit it.

  42. Lady Satan says:

    Oh absolutely – tea and seduction all the way, followed up by hours of conversation.

    She is gorgeous, intelligent, and yes (as some have mentioned) in an open relationship and has both a husband and a lover.

    *sigh* Fabulous woman!

  43. Francesca says:

    She’s like a female Bowie; too cool, otherworldly, smart. Maybe Iman has a brother for her…?