Nov 5, 1960

London, England, UK

She 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, and also the title role in Orlando, Sally Potter's film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf.

Swinton became notorious for a brief period in 1995 when she appeared as a live exhibit in the Serpentine Gallery, London. She was on display to the public for a week, asleep or appar... ... (read more...) ently so, in a glass case, as a piece of performance art by Cornelia Parker. The following year, the performance, entitled The Maybe, was repeated at a gallery in Rome. She appeared in the music video for Orbital's The Box.

Recent years have seen her move towards more mainstream projects, including the leading role in the well-reviewed American film The Deep End (2001). She appeared as a scheming angel 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 British films: The Statement (2003) and Young Adam (2004), and sat on the jury of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2005, her performance as the sinister, seductive and mildly psychotic 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.She lives in Nairn in the north of Scotland with her husband John Byrne, an artist, and their two children, Xavier Byrne and Honor Byrne.