Tilda Swinton has always considered herself queer: ‘It’s my world’
Tilda Swinton walks the red carpet ahead of the movie “The Human Voice” at the 77th Venice Film Festival at on 3 September, 2020 in Venice, Italy. (WireImage/ Dominique Charriau)
Legendary actor Tilda Swinton has revealed that she has “always felt queer“, and is surrounded by a close, queer, creative “family”.
In an interview for British Vogue’s February 2021 issue, Swinton discussed who made up her creative circle, which she described as a “queer circus”.
After describing her “beautiful connection” with the late queer fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, and close friendship with the late LGBT+ director Derek Jarman, Swinton revealed that she also considered herself queer.
She said: “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.
“Now I have a family with Wes Anderson, I have a family with Bong Joon-ho, I have a family with Jim Jarmusch, I have a family with Luca Guadagnino, with Lynne Ramsay, with Joanna Hogg.”
Queer actor Tilda Swinton previously said she is ‘probably’ a woman
Tilda Swinton has often played with gender in her roles, playing both a man and a woman in the 1992 film Orlando, and portraying androgynous angel Gabriel in the 2005 horror Constantine.
Discussing gender in 2009, she said: “My idea of identity is that I’m not sure it really exists.
“I’ve examined this idea laterally since Orlando and other pieces of work that I’ve made, when I’ve played with the idea of transformative gender… That whole idea of transformation is at the heart of what I’m interested in as a performer and not least through the idea of gender. It’s a very personal matter.
“I can categorically say that as Orlando does in the film: Yes, I’m probably a woman.”
She added: “I don’t know if I could ever really say that I was a girl – I was kind of a boy for a long time. I don’t know, who knows? It changes.”
