No working actor better articulates acting an act of authorship than Tilda Swinton. Beyond her work with Lynne Ramsay, Wes Anderson, and a constellation of distinctive artists, her presence is a kind co-writing; to watch her work––or better, to watch her work at work via any making-of footage––in the films of Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, and Derek Jarman is to witness a kind of live discovery function of acting. “It’s like working with my DP,” Guadagnino told Screen Daily. “It’s like working with someone who is actually contributing to the movie itself, not just adding her voice as a performer only, but adding her voice as a filmmaker.”
Swinton confirmed this spirit (as well as a few future projects) via Les Inrockuptibles: “The Eternal Daughter is the beginning of a new era for me, yes. And my next films, those with Julio [Torres] and Joshua [Oppenheimer], but also the one directed by Apichatpong as well as the next project by Pedro Almodóvar––which I am not allowed to talk about––are in this line.”
Swinton has also confirmed, via Página 12, that the Almodóvar film in question is set to begin filming in New York in March 2024 and will be titled The Room Next Door, which will be “in the language of Shakespeare” and “center on the friendship between three women, played by two British actresses and an American.” On the heels of Strange Way of Life, Almodóvar revealed his trepidation working on an English-language film. “I didn’t feel comfortable making a film in English, that’s why I refused,” the director told La Presse, of being approached to make Brokeback Mountain all those years ago. “But now I feel capable of doing it,” in no small part perhaps, due to Swinton’s collaboration on The Human Voice.
As she alludes, Swinton’s part in Apichatpong’s next film is less-known than even her turn for Almodóvar. Details remain cagey and it’s unclear if the project Swinton mentions above is the same one that Apichatpong has admitted to planning, but with both mentioning the Sri Lanka location, hopefully it’s his Arthur C. Clarke-inspired feature. His hope that it might be “more free”, however, finds a ready partner in Swinton, whose collaboration helped make Memoria one of the great liberated and liberating works of this (or any) decade.