Although the posters claimed otherwise and the press agents surrounding 'Suspiria' denied the truth, Tilda Swinton has come out and admitted what pretty much everyone already knew - she was playing a double role as an elderly man in the movie.
The precise reasoning behind the ruse hasn't been made clear, but by all accounts, both Tilda Swinton and director Luca Guadagnino took the thing pretty far. For one, an entire persona was built around the actor that claimed to be playing the role, giving the fictitious Lutz Ebersdorf a profile on IMDB and crediting him on posters and marketing material, too.
According to an interview with the New York Times, Swinton underwent four hours of makeup in order to become Ebersdorf and even had a prosthetic penis made to help get her into the role. According to Oscar-winning makeup artist Mark Coulier, Swinton specifically requested a set of penis and balls. "She had this nice, weighty set of genitalia so that she could feel it dangling between her legs, and she managed to get it out on set on a couple of occasions."
Most men who'd do that would probably end up in jail, but considering this is a prosthetic penis, the rules don't apply. For Swinton, there was a simple reason for playing Lutz Ebersdorf. "Undeniably, I would have to say, for the sheer sake of fun above all," she told the New York Times. "“As my grandmother would have it — a motto to live and die by — ‘Dull Not To.’”
Not only that, Swinton actually wrote the conspicuously detailed description for Lutz Ebersdorf's IMDB profile, which now correctly redirects to Tilda Swinton's profile.
'Suspiria' arrives in Irish cinemas on November 16th.
