30 Surprising Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Tilda Swinton

Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton, often referred to as Swilda, famous for her roles as Karen Crowder in "Michael Clayton," and as the White Witch in the "Chronicles of Narnia series," was born on November 5, 1960 in London, England. She is the daughter of Sir John Swinton, a retired major general in the British Army, who served as the Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Here are some interesting songs about the actress:

1. She was the first non-director to have a Film Benefit Gala at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, held in her honor on her 53rd birthday, November 5, 2013.
2. Her performance as Karen Crowder in "Michael Clayton," alongside George Clooney, earned her earned her an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role as well as a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress.
3. She was honored with a 90-minute tribute at the 2008 American Film Institute Festival, held at Arclight Cinemas on November 5, 2008 in Hollywood, California.
4. In the year 1995, she, in collaboration with her friend and producer Joanna Scanlan, developed performance/installation live art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London. She was on display in a glass case, asleep or apparently so, for a week, as a piece of performance art, entitled "The Maybe." The performance was repeated in 1996 at the Museo Barracco in Rome and in 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
5. Before going to the Cambridge, she spent two years in South Africa and Kenya as a voluntary worker in children's schools, with an educational charity called Project Trust.
6. She was the muse and mascot of Fashion Designers Viktor & Rolf. The designers made an entire collection inspired by her, and she was also the focus of their "One Woman Show" in 2003. In the show, every model was made to look like a doppelganger of Swinton.
7. She performed live with Patti Smith on four nights of the 2005 London Meltdown Festival, held from June 11, 2005 to June 26, 2005, by reading texts by Susan Sontag, Bertolt Brecht, William Blake and William S. Burroughs.
8. For her role as Madame D., in the 2014 movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel," she had to spend five hours in the makeup chair to get in to the look of 84-year-old dowager Madame D. Director Wes Anderson, got the most expensive people they can afford to work on the old-age makeup.
9. During the filming of the movie "Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon," in the year 1997, she was heavily pregnant with her twins - Honor and Xavier Swinton Byrne. For all her scenes, she had to be filmed from the waist up.
10. Swinton funded and held her own very successful film festival Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams, in her small Scottish highland home-town. In August 2008, she personally introduced and showed an eclectic mix of classics and rare films from around the world, for eight and a half days. The admission price for the festival was 3 pounds for adults, 2 pounds for children or a plate of home-baked cakes.
11. She went to Queen's Gate School in London, the West Heath Girls' School, and even the Fettes College, for some time. During her study at the West Heath Girls' School, an expensive boarding school, she was a classmate and friend of Princess Diana.
12. According to the original script of the movie "A Bigger Splash," her character Marianne Lane was an English actress. However, it was Swinton suggested that she be a singer, to have a connection with the character Harry, in an effort to stress their closeness as a couple, the legacy of the couple.
13. She often makes it on the International Best Dressed Celebrities list. In the year 2013, she was ranked one among the fifty best-dressed over 50 by The Guardian.
14. In August 2006, Swinton opened the new Screen Academy Scotland production centre in Edinburgh
15. While filming "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," she used to go to the set even on her days off, to offer encouragement to her young co-stars in the movie.
16. In July 2013, she risked getting arrested in Moscow, Russia, for waving a rainbow flag in front of the Kremlin in violation of Russia's new homosexual propaganda bill, and posting it widely in social media.
17. In the movie "A Bigger Splash," her character Marianne Lane's Dior wardrobe was specifically created for Swinton, by the Dior's then-creative director Raf Simmons, all by himself.
18. While at Cambridge University, she began performing in several student productions of plays including "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The Comedy of Errors." She went on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984, through which she appeared in “Measure for Measure,” but soon left it to pursue independent film projects.
19. In May 2013, Swinton was announced as the new face of the Chanel Pre-Fall Paris-Edinbourg collection, inspired by Scottish traditional fashion and fabrics.
20. She was in a relationship with John Byrne, a Scottish playwright and artist, from 1989 to 2003. The duo have two children - twins - Honor Swinton Byrne and Xavier Swinton Byrne, born on October 6, 1997.
21. She collaborated with Patrick Wolf on his 2009 album "The Bachelor," and contributed vocals on four tracks.
22. Initially, she was not interested in accepting the role as Marianne Lane in "A Bigger Splash." In fact, she didn't want to do any role at that time, due to the death of her mother. However, she ended up changing her mind and proposed the idea of this woman unable to speak.
23. She claims that people unfamiliar with her, often refer to her as "Sir," due to her height, and overall appearance. It was reported that she was once searched by a male guard at airport security.
24. In preparation for her role as Emma Recchi in the 2009 movie "I Am Love," learned both Italian and Russian, neither of which she spoke before filming.
25. Her children Honor and Xavier, where part of the crew members on the movie "Doctor Strange," in which she plays the role of The Ancient One. Her daughter was working in the costume department, while son was working in the art department designing planets.
26. In 2012, Swinton made an appearance in Doug Aitken's "SONG 1," an outdoor video installation created for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C.
27. "Doctor Strange" director Scott Derrickson is said to have written the role of The Ancient One, keeping Tilda Swinton in mind. He claims that she was the obvious choice for such a mystical and mysterious role.
28. During the filming of "A Bigger Splash," the four main actors, along with their director and an Italian crew were stuck together for nearly eight weeks. The cast had to wait for a whole week, to replace the underwater camera needed for the climactic scene. Throughout the time, Swinton was so calm and called it later as "an extended family holiday."
29. She is in a relationship with Sandro Kopp, a German visual artist, since 2004. She, along with her kids and her partner, currently reside in Nairn, overlooking the Moray Firth in the Highland region of Scotland.
30. In the 2015 movie "Trainwreck," she was in charge of designing how her character, Dianna, looked and talked throughout the movie. Swinton was very keen in taking the responsibility as the said role was totally different from anything she had done before.
31. Tilda Swinton Net Worth: $10 Million