I recently had the honor of sitting down (among 24 other bloggers) with Tilda Swinton, one of my all time favorite talents, for the upcoming theater release of Doctor Strange. Tilda, known for a mile-long list of films, originally gained my interested when I first saw her in The Beach with Leo DeCaprio. After that, she wowed me again as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia.
I was thrilled when I found out she had been cast as the Ancient One for Doctor Strange, and even more so when I found out I would have the opportunity to meet and interview her. So what did we talk about? Well, everything from spells to horror movies (which was a total nerd bonus for me).
No one’s going to need acid after this….
Doctor Strange can be seen in theaters everywhere November 4th. Go see it in IMAX 3d (you’ll thank me later).
My Interview with Tilda Swinton
The interview took place at the Montage Beverly Hills Hotel. From the moment Tilda walked through the door she exuded elegance. She’s so graceful and down to earth. An absolutely stunning woman, very much like a runway model, she was very easy to converse with and a lot of fun. Here’s what Tilda had to say about working on Doctor Strange and what’s next:
We talked about wardrobe for Doctor Strange and what it was like performing in it on set with all those sweet spellbinding moves, fight scenes and whether or not it was difficult to do any of it.
The costume, oh it’s such a great costume! It’s just like, pajamas. Yeah really, really great. And those beautiful colors… Yeah, really wonderful.
As for being bald, it was my decision – it was my suggestion and we had several months of playing with options, all sorts of weird wig ideas, all sorts of long lobes. I thought it looked really, really ancient, but also kind of modern and rad… it was a nice feeling, as well.
The fighting is fantastic fun, really good fun – and difficult and interesting in fun ways. I set myself the task that the Ancient One would be completely serene through all the fighting. That was— that was something.
One thing that I find very challenging, and I would— I would challenge anybody to do this, is to do the moves (without making fighting noises) like a nine-year-old boy, because we’ve all done that when we were little.
The only other real struggle was casting spells – learning all these amazing things with fingers, and then remembering what to say at the same time. And then they would say, ‘So you have to put your hands there, not there, because the light is going to go like this….
