By now, I'm sure you've heard about Call Me By Your Name [1] director Luca Guadagnino's upcoming reimagining of the iconic horror film Suspiria [2]. This remake has everything: weirdly intense dance numbers รก la Black Swan, blood and suspense [3], vague sexual tension, and seemingly supreme performances from Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson [4]. Oh, and there's an old German man who seems to have materialized out of nowhere and, in actuality, is Tilda Swinton herself.
That's right, if you've watched the unsettling trailer for the film [5], you no doubt noticed the older man who seems to somehow factor into the whole mystery of this strange, witchy dance academy. But how did I figure out it's Tilda Swinton buried under an absolute mountain of prosthetics? I'll give you a few reasons. For one, she's a pretty prominent shape-shifter [6] and has disappeared completely into many different roles over the years. (Remember her spray-tan nightmare woman [7] in Trainwreck?!) And then there's the entirety of the mystery itself, which seems to have unspooled in many bizarre and intriguing ways over the past year and a half. In order to get to the bottom of it, we're going to have to explore every shred of evidence. Suit up, Watson.
The Swintonesque Conclusion
Finally, in a new story from the New York Times [8], we got the final word on the subject. In an email, Swinton admitted that yes, that is her. The semantics of the situation were this: everyone was asking if she played the old man in Suspiria, but she maintains Lutz Ebersdorf played the character. However, Tilda confirms that she played Lutz Ebersdorf. I know, I know. But, I mean, that's the most Tilda Swinton way to say, "Yes, that's me under all those prosthetics." Now we can rest easy.
As an added bonus, I hope you take solace knowing that Tilda had fake male genitalia made for the whole affair. I'm shook.