Tilda Swinton. One day in New York for her new movie “We Need To Talk About Kevin.” Next day to Madrid “for a friend.” Next day back in New York to do p.r. Next day to London “for another friend.” Today back in New York for the Gotham Awards. Tomorrow “home to Scotland for life . . . but back here in September.”
Between rides to and from airports, she said: “It’s raining in Manhattan. I’m now in a car. And my cellphone’s in and out.” And don’t forget the Brit accent.
“The movie’s a phantasmagoria. About a woman’s mind. Not a social commentary. The prize-winning book had big impact in London. A worst-case scenario nightmare of raising a child with mother and son at dagger’s points. Having a baby half-heartedly, hoping glue kicks in and has its stamp.
“The baby she’s caring for at arm’s length never stops screaming. A self-help baby’s book says, ‘Smile.’ So her face develops a terrifying smile. But if I were a baby and you didn’t hold me close, I’d scream, too. Another chilling moment is she tells the boy, when he’s 8, a second child’s coming. Knowing her feelings he says, ‘Because you’re used to it doesn’t mean you’ll like it.’
“Mothers in the audience align. They recognize the danger. You can see the desperation. We shot in Stamford, but it’s set in an unnamed Connecticut place.”
And Tilda’s own family?
“Twins. Just turned 14. I work at motherhood. Although I travel a lot, I’m never away shooting more than a couple of weeks. Very aware I’m responsible for their safety, my imagination works overtime trying to foresee any eventuality. I fire up. The problems expand in my head and take me to dark stuff. My imagination takes on all disasters.”
Tilda’s lifestyle is interesting. A husband. A longtime live-in lover “who is my sweetheart.” A heritage that traces to the Middle Ages. An Australian Ladyship mother. A major-general father who was Lord Lieutenant someplace. Grandpa, a Scottish politician. She’s born in London.
And, with all that, what would she be if not an actress?
“Truth is I never wanted that. I desperately wanted to train horses, bring up dogs, be a gardener or maybe a gambler. I slipped into this and somehow always intend whatever movie I’m doing to be my last.
“Actually, I consider my lifestyle to be very orthodox, loving and regular.”
NEW Yorker champ swimmer Diana Nyad, 61, who unsuccessfully tried three times to paddle 103 miles, Cuba to Key West, will try again. Also writing a book . . . Dec. 7, St. Luke’s Theater on West 46th, Chazz Palminteri reading “Separations,” two one-act plays. “What the Babe Said” is the story of a baseball manager and his aging center fielder. Producer’s Jeff Britton . . . Must be baseball’s era. In April, Da Capo publishes “Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball Forever.” It’s set in Detroit.
DR. Mehmet Oz: “I refuse to operate on smokers, I tell them: ‘If you stop smoking, it will give you back your soul. Unless they swear they will never touch another cigarette, I won’t do the surgery.” . . . WNBC-TV’s 3 p.m. chick talk-a-thon goes bye-bye come fall . . . Queen Elizabeth allowing handpicked US journalists a shot at meeting semi-queen Catherine this weekend . . . The Piers Morgan show ain’t doing it. Word is even the cameramen aren’t watching.
REMEMBER: Life may be long, hard and tiring, but it’s still shorter than the Country Music Awards.
LAWYER Raoul Lionel Felder clues me to divorcing couples’ newest misery. The overly smartphone, which now trips up trippers. You can plot people on a map like radar tracking an enemy plane. Hubby says he’s on 12th Street? Well, nooo. Per “Find My Friends,” he’s still in bed. A cheating wife says she’s visiting mom downtown? Well, noooo. She’s uptown, and it ain’t her mother. It’s iPhone, iPad, iAm in trouble.
MACY’s Bronx to open 2014 in a mall being built. Three floors, 160,000 square feet with an 1,800-space parking garage.
MARIO Cuomo: “I’m not The Old Governor Cuomo, consider me The Remnant Governor Cuomo.” . . . Julianne Moore fund-raising for “Save the Children” at the Dec. 10 show of her family musical “Freckleface Strawberry” . . . Newt Gingrich pig, this week’s flavor who diddled future wife No. 3 while cancer-stricken wife No. 2 was hospitalized? Worry not. He’ll flame out. Unable to withstand the scrutiny.
GISELE Bundchen, no fan of thong underwear: “I’m not comfortable walking the runway and everybody looking at my ass. I know it makes my father unhappy.” . . . Pink, in “Happy Feet Two,” had near fatal asthma as a child and began singing to strengthen her lungs . . . Nicole Kidman’s next, “My Wild Life,” is about animal advocate Dame Daphne Sheldrick. Anyone hear she keeps her “Virginia Woolf” prosthetic nose? When it wrapped, producers gave her a permanent silver one.
PRAYER heard out on the North Fork: “Dear Father: Please. For this year a thin body and a fat bank account. Don’t mix them up again as you did last year.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.