REVERSE SHOT: Many of the roles you have chosen must have seemed very risky on paper. Is risk something you’re attracted to in a project?

TILDA SWINTON: I don’t really go for risk per se. At least it doesn’t feel like risk to me because what I’m choosing is the conversation. And that all began with Derek Jarman; he set the tone for everyone after—Sally Potter and so forth—and I just feel so spoiled. Because of him, I know how good it can be. So if the conversation is interesting I’ll go there, even if it’s somebody like Francis Lawrence making his first film, and it’s huge, like Constantine, which cost however many dollars, but it was great because the conversation was there. And the truth is I would have worked with Francis if he’d made a $200,000 film about a chair.

RS: You seem to have a knack for finding gender-ambiguous or gender-neutral characters.

TS: I can’t take credit for that because that’s the result of people coming to me. Francis Lawrence approached me with the idea of Gabriel. That’s the great advantage of having worked for a while now is that these people are starting to come in my direction, and Francis Lawrence, for example, had this idea for Gabriel, and I agreed with him. And all credit goes to Warner Brothers for going along with it.

RS: What attracted you to Audrey in Mike Mills’s Thumbsucker?

TS: What I was attracted to was Mike Mills. He may be a new entity in the film community, but he’s a known quantity as an artist. Even though this is his first feature, I knew of his work in graphic art and music videos. He asked me to meet with him about this film he wanted to make and for which he’d already written the script. We didn’t even talk about the narrative—we talked about the emotional terrain of this family, and of human inquiry in general, which is something that interests me a great deal. And we clicked. We wanted to explore the same things, so it was a real meeting of minds. We’re also interested in making a new film together, hopefully next year, an original script that doesn’t have a name yet.

Anyway, so Mike and I both had this interest in showing how hard it is for humans to communicate, particularly in families. There’s this myth in fiction filmmaking, especially in drama—I don’t know if it has something to do with the relationship of film to theater, or something to do with television—but there’s this notion that humans are able to communicate what they really mean to say, and that they have the words to do this. And also that people are able to hear and respond. Neither Mike nor I believe that reflects actual human experience. What’s really difficult in life—and I’m trying to do it right now—is to successfully say what’s in your head. Most of the time we don’t mange it, but that’s life; communication is a difficult business.

RS: Even if you’re not afraid and have nothing to lose.

TS: Exactly! It’s tricky under the best of conditions. We’re all lonely, and connecting is the stuff of life, and it’s not something we should take for granted. So Mike and I started talking about making films about this topic in general before we even discussed the specific project of Thumbsucker.

RS: How much did you rely on Walter Kirn’s novel?

TS: The book and the film are related, of course, but they’re not identical. They’re more like distant cousins. Walter was a real godfather to the project and a benign presence in general, and we tried to capture the book’s emotional flavor about how frayed and unfinished life is, and how one never grows up. Where are you supposed to grow up to?

RS: I think it’s a very American notion that perfection is attainable and that normalcy is definable. And these ideas inform a lot of American film.

TS: Also, let’s not forget, fear of failure. There’s no value placed in failure as a place you learn from. A lot of films would have you believe you only learn from success.

RS: The scene where you remove drugs from Benjamin Bratt’s anus is surprisingly graphic. Were you prepared for that?

TS: Yes! It’s a very important scene, in the book as well, and we shot all sorts of stuff that we ultimately didn’t use. So it’s hard for me even to remember what’s been left in that scene. But it’s also a great high point for Audrey, it bursts a fantasy bubble, and it tells her something about addiction—including her own addiction to fantasy. So we always knew that was going to be a major point in the film.

RS: A powerful theme in the film is that Justin is holding the family together. Not simply that he’s connecting the mother and father but also that he’s a repository for everyone’s needs—for his father’s ambition, and even, in a sense, for Audrey’s matrimonial needs. He knows this but can’t articulate it. And it’s almost as if his thumb is in his mouth to stop him speaking, as if he’s afraid of what he might say.

TS: That’s beautiful. And think about how anxious that would make you. I think a lot of first children—especially the oldest child of fairly young parents—know they’re the reason the family exists in the first place, and when they have to leave it must make them terribly anxious. It gives me a chill just thinking about it. I’m not in that position—I was the third child, but I can imagine the stress of that and of always being the responsible one.

One theme in the film that moved me is this idea of being seen. True love is not about distracting someone from their loneliness or even participating in a fantasy of oneness; that’s a red herring and a problematic romantic notion that stops people actually growing into themselves. Real love is a witnessing of the other’s loneliness—a kind of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” a kind of mutual seeing. At one point Audrey says to Mike, her husband [Vincent D’Onofrio]:

“It’s very important to be seen.” She’s talking about Justin being seen as a debater, but she’s really talking about herself.

And then there’s that amazing moment at the end where she actually manages to say something of significance to Justin: “I’ve been watching you your whole life.” And he goes, “You have?” There’s this feeling children have about not being seen by one’s parent, so it seems to me the most important thing you can say to your child is “I see you.” That’s all.