Tilda Swinton has made a career out of playing interesting characters, although her shrewish portrayal of Katie Cox in Burn After Reading probably won’t endear her to many. She plays the epitome of a controlling woman who has her CIA husband Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) sandwiched squarely under her thumb. Or there could be a cadre of career-minded women out there who’d want to use her as a role model, I’m not sure.

The film has been getting mixed reviews ever since its debut at the Venice Film Festival, although they all seem to laud the performances. Swinton performs adequately enough in the film, but she isn’t given much to do, and seeing her with George Clooney just makes me want to watch Michael Clayton all over again. I might even have to pull Orlando off the shelf and watch it again as well.

Find out what she had to say about working with the Coens, going up against Brad Pitt’s blonde hair, and what winning the Oscar did, or rather didn’t, for her career. It’s all waiting after the break.

How tight was the script?  How were the characters written in the script and how much did you get to play and add to them as you went along?

Obviously they are the Coen brothers.  One of the most fantastic things about working with them is that there is a script, which is so rock solid, mean machine, clean thing to work with that playful is what everybody is.  You just all walk up and play with it, then you go home again, the script is absolutely written down on paper.  You love it because they wrote it so well.  How could you possibly improve it?  It feels like the invitation to play with them is exactly that, it’s come and lets all amuse ourselves with this script.

A lot of actors say that working with the Coen Brothers is one of the best experiences of their careers.  They have a hard time articulating what it is that they like about it.  Can you put that into words a bit?

So easy, really short days.  Lots of laughing, uniquely, my experience laughing throughout the takes, but that’s all credits to Peter [Kurland], the sound guy on set.  Especially when you have them honking like donkeys on your own sound track.  That’s fantastic.  I think it’s your confidence that the audience will be laughing when they laugh.

Did winning the Oscar change anything for you?

I must confess. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem to have changed anything for me.  Pretty much everything I’ve done since I was going to do anyway.  Occasionally people remind me that was a peculiar night that happened.  It was sort of a nasty dream.  I’m not so keen on standing up in front of three billion people.  It’s traumatic.  It would be all right if they sent it to you in the post.  No, it’s business as usual for me.

It seems that after Michael Clayton, this film is a continuation of you and George Clooney’s mutual admiration society.  Is it official that you are going to do two or three more movies together?

Swinton:  I’m working on having George Clooney in every contract.  It’s tough but I’m trying.  I’ve gotten the consolation prize of having Brad Pitt in every contract also.  George and I do have the aim one day  to be in a film where we say one nice thing to each other.  Hopefully one day.

Can you talk about the hair thing? Your character in Burn has a very interesting hairdo.

We had a competition on the set going about who had the most ridiculous hair.  I think Brad Pitt might have won that, but we were all going for the Javier Bardem prize.  It had a mind of its own.  It landed there on my head one morning.  It’s gone now.