Tilda Swinton hails that special ‘something’ gay people have
By Nick Levine
Tilda Swinton has hailed that special “something” that gay people have because of the transitions they go through when coming out.
Last year (2013), a photograph of the Oscar-winning actress holding a rainbow flag in front of the Kremlin in Russia went viral – and the issue of the country’s anti-gays came up in her recent interview with The Daily Beast.
“Well, Russia has the gayest president ever,” Swinton said. “No, that’s an offensive thing to say —not to him, but to the gay community.”
During the interview, Swinton also explained why she thinks straight people are sometimes less “thoroughly thought-through” than gay people.
“Well, I think there’s something that gay people have,” she said. “It is true that to pass through the transitions that gay people have to in order to come out to themselves, to their families when they’re quite young, it’s a grow-bag, isn’t it? And I think that very often, heterosexual people miss out on that.”
She continued: “There’s a feeling of development and sometimes, heterosexual people have never had to go through that self-examination and just knowing themselves, and that sense of coming out, coming to your own defence, and being your own best advocate, and going, ‘No! I’m going to stand by myself and say this is who I am and you can all fuck off.”
“That is a wonderful transition to go through,” she added, “and I suppose a lot of straight people miss out on that, and then maybe their relationship choices are potentially less examined. They could be lazier or less thoroughly thought-through.”
Swinton’s latest film, vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, in which she stars opposite Tom Hiddleston, opened in UK cinemas on February 21.