Tilda Swinton ‘always’ wanted to ‘work’ with Julianne Moore

The actress reminisced during a post-screening discussion, explaining that writer-director Pedro Almodóvar had emailed her the script for the film, which centers on two close friends as one faces the final stages of her life.

When he asked Swinton who she wanted to work alongside, she knew exactly who to suggest.

“There was one face, one name,” Swinton said, talking about Moore.

“I was trepidatious because I thought, ‘What if he has another name or a list of names?’ And I had the nerve to type out a name, press send. And his email crossed with mine and ding…”

Almodóvar, who also attended the premiere with Moore alongside John Turturro, chimed in and said about the past interaction, “It was the best idea.”

Swinton again continued, “It was unimaginable. It could not have been anybody else.”

She seemed to find similar grounds with the characters’ story in the movie, relating it to her own relationship with Moore, saying that the movie revolves around a “beautiful” tale of “friends from a long time ago who haven’t seen each other for a couple of decades who are exactly the same age.”

The actress said, “Julianne and I are pretty much the same age but we’ve only met a couple of times, very much in passing in the corridors of film festivals.” She suggested that, during those interactions, she had “a good hunch that we would likely want to be around each other.”

“I had a slight fantasy of working together once, but how could we imagine this?” she added. “We came together, not as old friends [but] we made up for lost time, I would say. Pedro [Almodóvar] said we never stop talking, it’s true.”