The iconoclastic gifts of the visually striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton, who was born in London on November 5, 1960, have been appreciated more by an international audience over the years. This may change markedly after her Oscar-winning turn in George Clooney's critically-applauded legal thriller Michael Clayton.

Born into a patrician Scottish military family, she was educated in an English boarding school along with Princess Diana. Tilda subsequently studied at Social and Politcal Science Cambridge University, but changed courses and graduated in 1983 with a degree in English Literature. She performed a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company but, a decided rebel when it comes to the arts, she left abruptly after a year as her approach shifted dramatically. Her taste for the unique and bizarre led her to some genuinely fascinating gender-bending roles such as her stage portrayal of the composer Mozart in Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", and as a working class woman impersonating her dead husband during World War II, in the Karges play "Man to Man", a role she would later commit to film in 1991.

In 1985 the tall, slim young hopeful with the dramatic alabaster-skin and carrot-cropped hair began a professional association with director/mentor Derek Jarman. This quirky alliance would produce such stark turns in Caravaggio, Aria, The Last of England, The Garden Edward II, and Wittgenstein, while feeding this voracity for playing the unique and unusual. Tilda provided a voice in his final film, an inventive documentary entitled Blue, which used only a blue screen and interweaving vocal soundtrack to drive home its themes of dying and death. Jarman succumbed to complications from AIDS shortly after its completion. His untimely demise left a devastating void in Tilda's life for quite some time.

Ironically, Tilda's most notable film role may come from a non-Jarman film. For the title role in the Sally Potter-directed stunner Orlando (for which she won a Venice Film Festival Award), her nobleman character actually lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman. Over the years she has preferred to sacrifice celebrity for art, opening herself to experimental projects with new and untried directors and mediums. Consistently off-centered roles in Female Perversions, Conceiving Ada, Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon, and Possible Worlds have only added to her mystique. Hollywood too has picked up on this notoriety, but not nearly as well. With the exception of the thriller The Deep End, which earned her a number of critic's awards, such mainstream U.S. pictures as The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanilla Sky starring Tom Cruise and the Keanu Reeves horror epic Constantine have tended to undermine her seemingly boundless abilities until her stunning work as a corrupt corporate lawyer in Michael Clayton. Her natural instincts have her gravitating toward the work of the similarly offbeat (and now-hot) Coen brothers.

Tilda has twins via her relationship with Scots writer/director John Byrne, known for his work in the film The Slab Boys and who had a bit acting part in one of Tilda's films Orlando.
Lives an hour north of Inverness in Scotland, with John Byrne and their 2 children, Xavier and Honor. Mother is Australian. Has three brothers. Daughter of Major-General Sir John Swinton, whose ancestral home has been within the family since the 9th century. Functioned as the muse and mascot of Dutch fashion designers Viktor and Rolf, who made an entire collection inspired by her (2003). Her family is one of the oldest in Scotland. Does not always play women; she has played Mozart on stage, an Elizabethan nobleman in Orlando and an androgynous angel, Gabriel, in Constantine. The father of her children, John Byrne, is a Scottish artist and writer. While at Cambridge University, she appeared in student productions of plays such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The Comedy of Errors". Won the Venice Film Festival award for Edward II. Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004 Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival 1988. Attended West Heath Girls' School, with Princess Diana as one of her classmates, and later Fettes College. Since 2004, she has been in a relationship with Sandro Kopp, a painter from New Zealand. She continues to live, platonically, with John Byrne, with whom she brings up their two children. Lived in Germany when she was a child because her father was posted there. Spent two years in South Africa and Kenya as a voluntary worker in children's schools, before studying at Cambridge. On her days off from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she could be seen on-set, offering encouragement to her young co-stars. Member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1998. Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003. Reached great artistic acclaim through her art installation/performance piece "The Maybe", for which she lay sleeping in a glass case on public display for a week, once at the Sepentine Gallery in London and once at the Museo Barracco in Rome. The piece is often erroneously credited to artist Cornelia Parker, whom Swinton invited to collaborate for the installation in London (1995). Gave birth to twins, a daughter named Honor Byrne and a son named Xavier Byrne, in 1997. Was declared one of the ten best dressed women in the world by Vanity Fair in 2007. Delivered the seminal State of Cinema Address in 2006 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, discussing the relationship of dreams, inarticulacy and film. Can trace her paternal ancestry back 35 generations, to the ninth century. Her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, is the former head of The Queen's Household Division and Lord-Lieutenant of Berwickshire. In her acceptance speech, she said she would give the Oscar she won for Michael Clayton to her agent Brian Swardstrom.