Tilda Swinton Is Happy To See More Gender-Neutral Awards Categories.
The ‘Doctor Strange’ star has spoken out in support of Berlin film festival’s decision to remove gender categories in the awards handed out.
Speaking in a masterclass at Venice Film Festival, she said: ”Humans are so interested in division and compartmentalising ourselves … As we’re really getting to understand now, this is not the way to go – dividing people up and prescribing a path for them, whether gender or race or class. It’s just such a waste of life. Life is too short for all of this.
I’m really happy to hear that about Berlin and I think it’s pretty much inevitable that everybody will follow … The whole idea of gender being fixed in any way, it just makes me claustrophobic. It just makes me sad to call yourself definitively heterosexual, definitively homosexual, definitively male, definitively female. It makes me want to go to sleep. So bravo, Berlin.”
Meanwhile, Tilda previously insisted she isn’t ”remotely insulted” when she is mistaken for a man because she is comfortable with herself.
The actress said: ”Oh, I think they’re very tired, those people, they see somebody nearly six feet tall coming toward them with short hair, and they just say, ‘Male assist.’ So I’m not even remotely insulted. I have never been particularly hung up on what I look like.
I was this height when I was 13, and you know, there’s only so much I can do with myself … Ageing is not something to be feared. I’m interested in wrinkles appearing – I think it’s kind of fascinating. I wouldn’t want to be 23 again. And I wouldn’t want to be 53 again! I live with the reality that my life just gets better.”