Tilda Swinton

Katherine Matilda "Tilda" Swinton (born November 5, 1960) is an Academy Award, BAFTA, BAFTA Scotland, and Coppa Volpi winning British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films.

Swinton worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, and the Royal Shakespeare Company before embarking on a career in film in the mid-1980s. Her early film work included several film roles for director Derek Jarman, notably War Requiem (1989) playing a nurse opposite Sir Laurence Olivier as an old soldier. In 1991, Swinton won the Volpi Cup Best Actress award for her role in the postmodern film Edward II. Swinton also played the title role in Orlando, Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf.

Swinton gained great artistic acclaim for a period in 1995 when she developed a performance/installation art piece in which as a live exhibit in the Serpentine Gallery, London, she was on display to the public for a week, asleep or apparently so, in a glass case, as a piece of performance art. The piece is often erroneously credited to Cornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to collaborate for the installation in London. The following year, the performance, entitled The Maybe, was repeated at the Museo Barracco in Rome. She also appeared in the music video for Orbital's "The Box".

Recent years have seen Swinton move towards more mainstream projects, including the leading role in the well-reviewed American film The Deep End (2001), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She appeared as the scheming archangel Gabriel in Constantine with Keanu Reeves, as a supporting character in films such as Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, and The Beach, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. Swinton has also appeared in the British films The Statement (2003) and Young Adam (2004), and sat on the jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2005, Swinton's performance as the sinister, seductive villainess, the White Witch Jadis, in the film version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe garnered critical praise as did her portrayal of Audrey Cobb in the Mike Mills film adaptation of the novel Thumbsucker.

Swinton's performance as Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton also drew favorable reviews, for which she earned her second Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. After winning a BAFTA award in the same category at the 61st British Academy Film Awards, Swinton won an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role at the 80th Academy Awards, the film's sole win.567

Swinton lives in Nairn, in the Highland area of Scotland, with Scottish painter John Byrne, the father of her twins, Xavier and Honor. She has recently been in the news for her relationship with Sandro Kopp,8 a New Zealand9 painter, while continuing her live-in relationship with Byrne platonically. She has been with Kopp since 2004 and the relationship has Byrne's blessing. In August 2006 she opened the new Screen Academy Scotland production centre in Edinburgh.