{"id":453296,"date":"2026-05-21T18:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/453296\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T18:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:37:12","slug":"tilda-swinton-gives-takes-on-ai-and-cannes-red-carpet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/453296\/","title":{"rendered":"Tilda Swinton Gives Takes On AI and Cannes Red Carpet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTilda Swinton<\/a> warned that cinema needs to avoid \u201cformulaic\u201d work and privilege \u201cmessy, adventurous experiences\u201d to survive in the age of AI<\/a> in an onstage conversation at the Cannes<\/a> Film Festival on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs long as what we\u2019re producing is not formulaic and in some way tiring for the audience, AI doesn\u2019t have a chance, but as long as we continue to do that, then we have to watch out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat we need to do is what only humans can do: make messy, adventurous experiences so that an audience does not know what\u2019s coming next and enjoys that experience. I think that going personal is always a good way to start\u2026 ending up on the top of a medieval mountain with a dragon can still be a personal story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tilda Swinton gives take on AI in #Cannes<\/a>: \u201cWhat we need to do is what only humans can do: make messy, adventurous experiences so that an audience does not know what\u2019s coming next and enjoys that experience\u201d pic.twitter.com\/nRZjZ1Zaau<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Deadline (@DEADLINE) May 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tCannes regular Swinton was speaking as a guest of the festival\u2019s \u201cRendez-Vous With\u201d strand. The Oscar winner reiterated her long held assertion that she never intended to be an actor and still does not consider herself to be one to this day.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI still can\u2019t describe myself as an actor. I get as far as describing myself as a performer, but I know some actors, and I\u2019ve read, like you all have, actors talking about acting and talking about their lives, and I read them, and I hear them talking, and I think you\u2019re describing a life that\u2019s not mine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation trace her early trajectory from acting in student productions written by friends, who she then followed to the London stage, to the life-changing experience of working with UK director Derek Jarman, to appear in all his films from 1985 until his death in 1994.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe made filmmakers of all of us, made us responsible for our work, and that was beyond rubies,\u201d she said of his impact on her career and others who are now confirmed professionals such as Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell (Shakespeare in Love) and composer and actor Simon Fisher-Turner (Mudlarking, With Hasan In Gaza).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe all started on Caravaggio. We were kids. I was 24 and that was our first film. Derek would say to Sandy Powell, \u2018We\u2019re doing this scene, just dress the papal clergy, you know what to do, Sandy\u2019. I don\u2019t know, she\u2019d get 500 pounds, just go away and do it and take responsibility for that department. The same with Simon, who came into the project in fact to cast extras. He was the guy who had to go down to the East End of London and go into all the Greek cafes and pulled people out of the tables, because they had good faces, like Pasolini used to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe admitted to feeling adrift for a time after Jarman\u2019s death in 1994, having spent the first decade of her cinematic career with him. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was really high and dry, because not only had I lost my best friend, but also I lost my way of working\u2026 this crazy, completely unformulated way of working, which was very co-authored. That\u2019s the other thing I was there as a co-author. When he died, I thought, \u2018Okay, what am I now? I\u2019ve been working for nine years. Am I an actor? What do I do? Do I play parts in other people\u2019s films?\u2019,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI did think that it was going to be a tall to continue as a performer but then the miracle is that I found these other families, the other people who want to work in this, with a very close way of communication and building things together, so I now have a number of families, I have family with Bong Joon Ho, who I\u2019m going to see next week in Seoul, and I have a family with Jim Jarmusch, and I have a family with Luca Guadagnino and with Joanna Hogg, and it goes on. I\u2019m so privileged, because you know, lightning struck once with Derek, but it seems to have gone striking for me, and I can\u2019t even begin to count those blessings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSwinton, who has attended Cannes with close to 20 Official Selection films including Love Is The Devil, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Only Lovers Left Alive, Okja and most recently Asteroid City in 2023, touched on various markers in her career that happened at the festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe recalled how she had attended the festival in 1989 with Sally Potter to help raise the budget for Orlando, which would go on to be her breakthrough film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we started putting it together, nobody made costume films really, or they certainly didn\u2019t make political costume films. They made more conformist essays on class within costume dramas\u2026 this kind of transgressive take on history through a costume film was really new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe came to Cannes trying to raise money for a film for that film\u2026 we had no money at all. \u00a0We ate once a day and shared a room, all three of us, Sally Potter, our producer, Christopher Shepherd, and me. We got nowhere, unsurprisingly, but it\u2019s a great experience to do that, to come and frankly beg, it\u2019s all a good experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwinton, who is known for dramatic red carpet appearances, was asked her opinion on this aspect of attending the festival.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s like a massive wedding, every other person is a bridesmaid and everybody gets to choose their own dress. It\u2019s a fiesta, sometimes it\u2019s a fiasco, but the glamor is not there. Let\u2019s be clear, this is not the glamor, the glamor is the moment, specifically in the Grand Palais with the Saint-Saens, the Aquarium, the dark. That\u2019s the glamor,\u201d she said. referring to the bars of music from Saint-Saens\u2019s \u2018Carnival of the Animals\u2019 that precedes every festival screening.<\/p>\n