Tilda Swinton - Constantine/The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

THE WITCH, THE ANGEL AND THE MUM: THE MANY SIDES TO TILDA SWINTON.

EXCLUSIVE Constantine, Thumbsucker/Interview by Paul Fischer at the SundanceFilm Festival.

It may be cold during the chilly Sundance Film Festival, but elegant TildaSwinton remains in a perennially chirpy mood. No stranger to this mother ofall Indie festivals in the thick of Utah's Park City, Swinton was here topromote Thumbsucker, one of two films in which she appears with KeanuReeves, the other being Constantine. "Yes, we were talking about having itwritten into our contracts that we will always work together," she says,laughingly.

Though not participating in the print press junket forConstantine, Swinton, who at the time of our interview hadn't seen the film,says she has reason to be optimistic about this latest comic book adaptationwhich is already generating early buzz, having no qualms about setting footinto the world of mainstream Hollywood, but has a blasé attitude when itcomes to worrying whether her films will be widely seen. After all, Swintonis not afraid of doing a Teknolust on the one hand, or a Constantine on theother. "I'm very lazy about people seeing my work. I'm an arrogant believerin the power of films to find itself an audience, and a bad studio film willactually get stumps in a video shop, and is going to reach less people Ihaven't done many studio films to be honest with you, but a Derek Jarmanfilm that runs for 20 or 30 years is going to reach more people so thereaching people is something that I feel very apathetic about." But Swintonsaid she "enjoyed the adventures of both my latest Hollywood films,"referring to Constantine and the upcoming Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobeshe completed for Disney. "In both instances, what was exactly the same wasthat I went into these adventures because of the film makers. FrancisLawrence [Constantine] blew me away when I met him and he was anextraordinary individual. It was fantastic working with him, and bothFrancis Lawrence and Andrew Adamson, are incredibly experienced. Both ofthem are first-time film makers actually, because when you think about itThe Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is Andrew's first live action, soagain, there I was, business as usual, working with a first-time film maker,going on this adventure and with that sort of beginner's mind, and that'swhat I love. I love working with film makers who have that absolute sort ofmad, kamikaze aspect to them," she enthuses.

In both films, Swinton plays extreme fantasy characters, the Arch AngelGabriel in Constantine and the White Witch in Wardrobe. The actress insiststhat she sees no difference in playing those kinds of characters and morerealistic women she has portrayed in the likes of The Deep End orThumbsucker. "It's all about imagination because they don't really exist.Audrey in Thumbsucker doesn't exist and the woman in The Deep End don'texist, because they're all constructs and so what you're doing when you'replaying a character is just making a sort of shadow play for the cameraabout the person because you can't actually follow a person all the time.All you're going to show is a series of details which is going to mean thatthe audience can project onto the screen their idea of who that woman is.So when you're acting, you're not actually doing anything real at all, soit's the same whether you're playing the Angel Gabriel or the White Witch."

Swinton was not keen to give to much away about her Angel Gabriel. "Therereally is so little that I can say about the Angel Gabriel because the AngelGabriel's been kept in this kind of surprise pocket in the film," hence herdecision not to do a lot of press for the film. But working not once, buttwice, with Keanu on two such different projects, was a revelation, shesays. "I don't know that anything exactly surprised me about Keanu when Ifirst met him. I think he just endorsed what I thought he would be which isthat he's like an Angel actually, so open and so up for company, which iswhat I always thought he would be, and that's exactly what he is."Swinton is equally excited about her participation in Disney's The Lion, theWitch and the Wardrobe. The actress spent 5 months in New Zealand shootingthe film "and had a fantastic time." Swinton says she is genuinely convincedthat fans of the classic books won't be disappointed in this big-budgetscreen adaptation. "I'm really convinced that it will be exactly what itshould be, which is a classical, very cinematic adaptation of that book.It's got a really 3D Technicolor, Wizard of Oz feel about it and one of thethings that I think is very radical about what Andrew's done, is he is notinterested in special effects anymore so everything's real, so you have realcreatures. In other words, you don't have, as in Lord of the Rings, 500extras that are doubled up to make 7,000. but actually have all of thosepeople in all of those suits, being all of those mythical creatures."Swinton says "it was really good fun, and I really, really love NewZealand."

All of this is a far cry from her home in Scotland, where she would like tospend some more time working, the last time having worked on Young Adam. "Ofcourse I would like to work more there and constantly am working with avariety of Scottish film makers to make those happen but it's a slowprocess." Dividing her time between making British films and those ofvarious budgets across the Atlantic, Swinton is both star and executiveproducer of Thumbsucker, a critical success at Sundance. A film about anadolescent thumbsucker, petrified of independence, Swinton plays his motherwho has her own thumbsucking issues. Swinton was ferociously drawn to thefilm, she says, because "I saw something really special in director MikeMills, who, for those who don't know, is a very well-regarded graphicartist, who has made documentary films and has made some of the mostbeautiful music videos. So I was aware of his work anyway and was alwaysinterested in his aesthetics but when I met him and he talked about what hewanted to do in the film, the kind of atmosphere he wanted to create, Itotally fell in love with it. It was very difficult to get the film made andwe found it very hard to get people to give money for it." But the film didget made and attracted quite the cast. Swinton sees this as being more thanyour typical coming-of-age story. "I think a lot of coming of age storiesfocus on the impossibility of communicating with parents, the idea that theparents know exactly what they're doing, and that the only person who hasany growing to do is the child. However, in my experience of life, that isjust not the case, and I think that's the most beautiful thing that thisfilm does. I mean, who is the thumb-sucker here? Who is the one who needsto separate? Who needs to grow, who needs to bawl like a baby on someone'sshoulder? I think that it's a coming of age story in as much as a coming ofage for the parents as it is for a coming of age for the boy. It's justthat the crucible of the plot if you like, is around him separating andgoing away to college."

Next up for Swinton, is "a film with a Hungarian master Béla Tarr, calledThe Man from London which is based on a Georges Simenon novel. It's a sortof European co-production - French, German, I think there's some Britishmoney in it. It's about a man who witnesses a murder and it's deeplyexistential. Béla Tarr is quite extraordinary, a sort of Tarkovsky of hisday and I hope he'll forgive me for describing him as that but he's one ofthe great masters working today. We're shooting in March and I'm going tobe developing a variety of things this year."

The 43-year old Ms Swinton is on a roll, it seems, one that takes herliterally to hell and back. It's quite the ride.

CONSTANTINE OPENS ON FEBRUARY 24
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE OPENS LATER THIS YEAR.