Embracing the chaos

The acclaimed Nairn-based actress TILDA SWINTON talks to the Arts Journal about her unconventional film career, from her early ground-breaking association with Derek Jarman through to her role in the the forthcoming adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s ‘Chronicles of Narnia’

ARTS JOURNAL: Tilda, you have been filming in New Zealand on a new version of C. S. Lewis’s much-loved ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ – was that a book that played a part in your own childhood?

TILDA SWINTON: Do you know, it seems to me the world is divided between those who know that book really well and those who don’t, and I had just never read it. I don’t know how that happened. I was aware that it is a kind of talisman for so many people, but I only read it when they asked me to do the film, so I came to it completely fresh at that point.

AJ: That is interesting in itself, coming at it with no real preconceptions?

TS: It is. I’m in the business of reading stories to people these days, and my fairy story literacy at the moment is pretty high. It would probably have been on the list for the twins a bit later, and was maybe a little early for them at this stage, but I read it to them anyway and it passed the test!
 
AJ: What was the attraction in this role?

TS: The thing that really sparked my interest in making it was that there is a rather anaemic American cartoon version from the 1970s, which starts off with this little American voice saying “we went to stay with the professor”, and it was just all wrong. First of all they weren’t American, and they didn’t go and stay with the professor, they were evacuated during the blitz. This film establishes that background right from the start – this is a group of children who are sent away to a parent-less place, and find this land behind the back of a wardrobe where they can actually make a difference. I found it moving that the film placed that so iconically at the beginning, and that gave me confidence that it was going to be a responsible adaptation, which I think it will.

Making small films you have to embrace the chaos and really use the energy at that moment, but with big films it’s on a much longer time-scale

AJ: You play the wicked White Witch?

TS: I do, and of course she is the epitome of all evil. The White Witch is not even a human – she is the essence of all evil. It is quite a task to think about what is really incomprehensible to small children, and it occurred to me that what they find most difficult is not anger, because children get angry all the time – it is coldness. We built it around that idea, really. She creates coldness everywhere, a kind of perennial winter, and that was the starting point and also the ending point of my work.

AJ: You also took on the role of a fantasy character in your previous film, ‘Constantine’ – is their much difference in creating a ‘fantasy’ made-up character as against a ‘real’ made-up character?

TS: I don’t think there is any difference at all. Every story that you are part of telling is still a construct – even if you are playing someone in a setting that is very realistic you are still making something up, and you have 90 minutes to get across the idea of someone. If you are only in it for a couple of scenes, you have to work really fast, and the point is that it is never a real person you are playing. In that respect playing the White Witch and playing a housewife washing dishes is pretty similar, really. It actually helps when they are not human – it is more honest somehow.
 
AJ: How did you get on with the director, Andrew Adamson?

TS: Fantastic. He made the ‘Shrek’ films, of course, and they are now among the biggest earning films ever, but he was a first-time filmmaker on our film, because he had never directed a live action film before. He was king of special effects – before he made the ‘Shrek’ films, he was effects supervisor on ‘Batman’, and he is a computer geek through and through.

AJ: That isn’t an obvious point of connection with your own work, is it?

TS: It was really interesting to me that when we started to talk about this he made it very clear that what he wanted to look at was the reality of the story, and I think people will be interested to see how this first Narnia film is much ‘realer’ than effects films like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ have been. You will get a lot of real people in real heads being real monsters, rather than the kind of scaling up of a set of extras to repeat as a huge crowd, as in ‘Lord of the Rings’. In that sense I suppose this film is lower-fi, and it was interesting that he of all people was interested in making it real again, having pioneered so much in the effects world. There are only six human characters, but there is relatively little in the way of computer generated effects. That is interesting, because there is so much of that around now that I wonder how children will react to it.

AJ: One thing it has in common with ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is shooting in New Zealand – how did it work out as a location?

TS: It has this fantastic landscape, and it is perfect for Narnia. It was quite extraordinarily apt for us – I suspect people may assume some of the landscapes are actually computer generated images, but that isn’t the case. It looks a bit like a mythical Scotland, actually, and it is quite an extraordinary place. Andrew is a Kiwi himself, and for sure it must have made financial sense, but it was a wonderful place to go and work.

For me the film-making is everything. To be part of the team and to know which way the whole ship is sailing is crucial for me.

AJ: The two films we have already mentioned have been a bit of a transition for you from the world of independent cinema to the high-rolling world of Hollywood movies with Warner Bros and now Disney – how have you found that transition?

TS: It’s been really interesting for me – I feel like a spy. These two big films have really informed me about why it is such a different business to the one I came up in. I have always made films because I thought I could take myself into it, whatever it was, and because I have had a good conversation with the film-maker. ‘Constantine’ was another enormous film, and that was similarly thrilling because its director, Francis Lawrence, was also a first time feature film-maker, although he was very experienced in other ways through music videos and commercials and so on.
 
AJ: What differences did you notice?

TS: The thing about making big films, I realise, is that it is as if the creativity is in another time. Making small films you have to embrace the chaos and really use the energy at that moment, but with big films it’s on a much longer time-scale – decisions are made far in advance, everything is planned in detail, and there can be little room for doubt and no room for chaos. I see it as like an enormous jigsaw being put together by very slow giants, which doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be great at the end, but with low-budget film-making there is only so much planning you can do. If it rains on a day you have scripted to shoot in sunlight, you often just have to change and shoot it, because you may not be able to come back, while on a big budget film you can wait. It’s a bit like the difference between a sprint and a long distance race, and it is fascinating to see the differences.

AJ: Does your job within that remain the same?

TS: Pretty much. There are more people around, that’s for sure. But it’s a little bit like working in the kitchen of a hotel, say – it doesn’t matter if it is a little boutique hotel or the Ritz, you still come to the kitchen and do the same job.

AJ: What kind of criteria do you apply in your selection of roles?

TS: I am never looking for roles, and not particularly even looking for films – I am always looking for colleagues. The film-maker is always the first point of connection for me. Making a film you have a relationship with people for years, at least on the kind of films I make. It’s not an in-and-out industrial process for me. On the smaller films I am often involved very early on, and I am often involved in raising money and so on, and that can take literally years – ‘Orlando’ took five years, for example, and you have to know that you want to have this film-maker in your life.

AJ: What about the film itself?

TS: That is the next question – what is the film about? Is it a film I would want to see or be involved with? And the next question after that is how could I help them, what could I bring to it? If I agree it is a good idea for me to play the part, then I’ll do it, and if not, I won’t, but I may try and help in other ways. It’s very unorthodox, I know, but that is how I am.

AJ: It is quite unusual, certainly – actors are often very role-fixated indeed, often to the exclusion of any other considerations.

TS: I gather that actors who have a real sense of their craft do concern themselves with what they can contribute as actors and don’t necessarily get involved in other aspects of the film-making, but for me the film-making is everything. To be part of the team and to know which way the whole ship is sailing is crucial for me.

AJ: Do you have aspirations to direct?

TS: To be honest, I feel I always am on the other side of the camera in some capacity anyway, generally as an official or unofficial producer, at least on the smaller ones. I am developing a number of projects, and I hope that I am always going to be provided with enough fantastic directors that I don’t have to get into that side of it. I am very interested in film performance, and as long as I can find people I can work with I will tend to be in front of the camera rather than behind it, I think.
 
AJ: You had a brief dabble with theatre before focusing on film acting – why did you chose to go down that route?

TS: It was more that I discovered film rather than rejected theatre, and finding the kind of cinema I did find with Derek Jarman was so much more up my street than theatre. It is a very different business, though. The theatre is very actor-centric, and I love the nuts and bolts and smoke and mirrors of putting films together. It just suits me more – I’m wired that way.

AJ: How significant was working with Derek Jarman for you?

TS: Jarman was completely formative for me, and I can readily imagine that if I hadn’t met him I might well not be making films at all. I am lucky in that my experience of industrial film-making now has come after a long experience of making a different kind of film, and people now know what they want when they ask me to come and work with them on a film – they know what I am, and they tend to have good ideas about placing me in their film. I felt that specifically about both ‘Constantine’ and ‘Narnia’. If I had gone into that side of the business when I was young, I suspect I wouldn’t still be doing it. I think I would be doing something completely different.

AJ: What might that have been?

TS: I think it would be writing. I am always creeping up upon that anyway – I started out writing, and I am coming back to that again now. I think I’d probably have been a journalist, Kenny!

AJ: I’m sure something much more respectable than that … of course, you have a writer in the house anyway, don’t you?

TS: We have several writers in the house, in fact – my daughter was asked at the age of six what she was going to be when she grew up, and she said ‘I am a poet’. So there you are.

AJ: Did you and John meet on ‘My Cheating Heart’?

TS: Actually, the very first time was in 1985, when he designed a play that I was in at the Traverse Theatre. He came up in the night and painted this wonderful set and disappeared again in very mysterious fashion, and as usual he was doing about three different jobs at the same time.

I am quite clear that Scottish film and culture is very different to English, and I don’t really recognise the idea of British.

AJ: We have mentioned your two children a number of times already – how have you coped with the demands of both family and career?

TS: It’s a double life, undoubtedly, but it feels to me quite organic and quite healthy, really. I actually recommend a double life to all mothers – it’s a good system. It means that you can check in with yourself occasionally. We are really fortunate that we are able to live where we do here in Nairn, and not in the heart of a big hubbub that is more similar to the hubbub of work. The two lives are quite different in texture, and I can feel restored by both of them in turn.

AJ: You don’t see it as a problem, then?

TS: I really don’t. No one likes it when I go away, and generally we have all gone together in a claque, but now that the children have started school I have to go off myself. No one likes that, but there are so many other advantages, as I frequently remind them when I am home.

AJ: You picked up a Scottish BAFTA for ‘Young Adam’ – how was the experience on that film?

TS: It was wonderful, and it was so wonderful to make a film in Scotland. That was one of the films I was helping to edge into existence for a while, I think for a couple of years at least, and it had a very difficult birth. It folded a couple of times, and I was around through all of that, so it was not only great that we got to make it in the end, but that we got to make exactly the film we wanted to make, just as we wanted it to be. It was a very satisfying experience all round.

AJ: How do you see the possibilities for film-making in Scotland?

TS: I think there is really a possibility for film-makers here to pick up the baton, and that has always been there. We have a very distinct culture in Scotland. I am quite clear that Scottish film and culture is very different to English, and I don’t really recognise the idea of British. That is a convenience for export, I think, and obviously a political term as well, but I don’t recognise it on a cultural level. There is such a thing as an English
film and a Scottish film, and they are not the same.

AJ: Where does the difference lie?

TS: For years Scottish film – and I’m thinking back to Bill Douglas as well as the likes of Lynne Ramsey and David MacKenzie and Peter Mullen – has had its roots in a more European tradition, I think. It feels more akin to Italian Neo-Realism, for example, and the themes are much more European, about sex and death and growing up rather than how one is positioned in society. I feel quite confident about it, and as long as Scottish Screen keep supporting a culture of film rather than a business of film we should be in good shape.

Tilda Swinton was born in London and grew up in the Scottish Borders. Her acclaimed work on screen includes eight films with Derek Jarman, Sally Potter’s ‘Orlando’, and David MacKenzie’s ‘Young Adam’, among many others. Recent films include ‘The Statement’, ‘Thumbsucker’, and ‘Constantine’. She lives in Nairn with her husband, artist and writer John Byrne, and their two children.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2005