'Every film is my last'

If any other actor sat down and opened with "I never wanted to be an actor" I would have considered getting up and walking out. But there's something so believable in everything Tilda Swinton says, I just knew there would be a good reason. There was.

"I'm really not interested in acting. Still not," she said, her flawless skin without a trace of make-up. "Every film is my last."

With her striking looks and boyish figure, Swinton is honest, frank and full of visual metaphors.

"I'm a farmer who's had a huge harvest," she continued. "I spent 12 years each time making what I call my last film because I truly believe it. There were some films," she pauses to count how many, "I think just seven, where I was approached, signed and paid at the end. The rest have been as a result of dialogue. It's all about a conversation which takes off and becomes so much more than you ever expected. Now I'm back at the seeding stages and it feels good."

After years of doing the theatre rounds and starring in arthouse films, Swinton burst into the mainstream in style after appearing in Danny Boyle's The Beach in 2000, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by her chilling role as the White Witch in The Chronicles Of Narnia.

The British actress picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Michael Clayton in 2008, opposite George Clooney, and now the 50-year-old is making waves, for the last time if it's up to her, with her role in the gripping drama We Need To Talk About Kevin.

Starring alongside fellow Oscar winner John C. Reilly and newcomer Ezra Miller in the title role, the actress plays stoic and troubled mother Eva Katchadourian in Lynne Ramsay's big-screen adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel of the same name, looking at the lead-up to a teenage boy committing a high school massacre.

A successful travel journalist, Eva is forced to give up her globetrotting dreams after giving birth to her first child, something she never quite forgives him for.

"The whole business of adapting a novel in a script is a pretty torturous one," she said. "Particularly with a good book. I've heard that it's easier with bad books.

"We all tried to forget the book as much as possible. At the very beginning I wasn't even going to be in it. The adaptation of a book you really admire is almost a process of trying to forget it and catch it in your peripheral vision. What are the traces of the book? This film is not an adaptation of this book, it's a film inspired by the book. It's a cover version with different instruments by a different band."

When asked how she prepared for the character, Swinton is momentarily silenced. "It's really not social commentary. It's a nightmare. It's a fantasy," she said. "So the only thing I was left with was my imagination. I used my imagination," she repeated thoughtfully.

"We have no idea how much of this is true. She's an unreliable narrator. We don't know how much of what she's showing us is really true.

"I'm always careful when talking about a real situation, especially in relation to a film, as one doesn't want to take liberties, but what was interesting about the killings in Norway was I tracked how long it would take people to start asking questions about his mother and his upbringing and it was within an hour.

"So I tried to consider the questions my character must be asking herself. Is it my fault? Was it something I did when he was one, when he was three, five?

"It's one way to really feel grateful about your children is to make a film like this."

Shine

Many conclude Swinton's played the waiting game for the past three decades, preferring to let her work shine in its own time, but the truth of the matter is she simply follows whatever feels right at the time. Even if it means dragging a heavy portable cinema around the Scottish Highlands.

The mother of two teenagers, son Xavier and daughter Honor, Swinton and her husband wanted to "bring Luc Besson" to the villages.

"Our festival is the best," she said, the smile growing on her face by the second. "An independent film festival - Ballerina Ballroom Cinema Of Dreams. We live in a remote part of Scotland and the small cinemas have slowly closed down and been replaced by these multiplex ones which only show Pirates of the Caribbean."

So Swinton, her long-time partner Sandro Kopp, a German-New Zealand artist, and her twin children by Scottish painter John Byrne, took to the road to bring film to the villages. "We screened Scottish films and if you wore a kilt you got in for free. If you baked something you got in for free so we ended up with this fantastic café. It was all about the audience. That's what a festival should be about. Nobody else."

While Swinton admits to "getting her hands dirty", she says the director's chair has never been something she has ever felt truly comfortable with.

"I've kind of picked it up and shaken it and then put it down again," she said. "Something just doesn't feel right."

And if there's one thing we've learnt about Swinton it's that things have to be just so.

Stars walked the red carpet one last time for the closing night at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival Friday night.

Major British film talents Tilda Swinton and Rupert Friend caused a media frenzy along with stars from the GCC countries including Tarek Al Ali, Zyna Karam and Ahmad Iraj.

The guest list also included a new generation of Arab cinema including Lotfi Abdelli, Suhir Ben Amarer, Fahd Benchemsi, Salah Ben Salah, Mouhcine Malzi and Maher Salibi.

Established Arab film personalities Nidal Al Achkar, Faris Al Hilo and Sami Kaftan were in good spirits, while Majid Al Kedwani, Saba Mubarak, Houda Rihani, Bushra and Hind Sabry provided the glamour of the evening.

Directors, producers and actors from across the globe took their seats at the awards ceremony at Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in the hope of picking up a coveted Black Pearl Award.

Best Narrative Film, with a prize of $100,000 (Dh367,310), went to Marjane Satrapi for her film Chicken with Plums.

Featuring 16 films from 11 countries the jury, comprising Nabeel Maleh of Syria, French actress Marianne Denicourt, UK producer Lucinda Englehart, Egyptian actress Laila Aloui and George Sluizer, a director from the Netherlands, awarded the special jury prize of $50,000 to Asghar Farhadi for film, A Separation.

$50,000 was scooped by Esmail Ferroukhi for Free Men in the Best Arab Director category. Best Producer from the Arab World ($25,000) went to Ziad Hamzeh and Ridha Behi for Always Brando.

Woody Harrelson took the prize for Best Actor in Rampart, directed by Oren Moverman, while the best Actress award went to Jayashree Basavaraj for her role in South African film Lucky, directed by Avie Luthra.