Tilda Swinton has said that had she not met the avant-garde filmmaker Derek Jarman in the 1980s she might never have become an actress. He was unorthodox enough to understand her unusual path...
my first Tilda viewing: Edward II (1991). jaw dropped. never came back up.
He opened the door with a video camera on me. He never turned it off throughout our meeting. It set the tone of our relationship somewhat. Never-ending footage. No frills. A kind of self-conscious über-candour. And something almost gladiatorial – daring – in the level of scrutiny inflicted and invited, like a game of dare between siblings."
-Tilda speaking to Time Out
Happily he 'got' her at that fateful audition for Caravaggio (1986) and knew what to do with her, shaping her into a formidable cinematic muse in the 7 films they made together. The muse far outlived the artist and is still inspiring other filmmakers today.
In her subsequent acting career, now entering its 30th year, she has played just about everything: frightening politicans, amoral lawyers, alcoholic kidnappers, self-replicating biogeneticists, immigrant trophy wives, a woman who becomes a man and then a woman again, soccer moms, wicked witches, intimidating officials, unloved royals, well-read vampires, and so on and so on and so on. There is, quite possibly, no end to her range despite what you'd might imagine was a narrow one given how inimitable and iconoclastic she is as a celebrity.
She's no stranger to ANCIENT ONE characters
So it's perfectly sensible if amusing to hear that she's in talks to take the role of "The Ancient One" in Marvel's Doctor Strange. It's true the Ancient One from the comics is usually a 500 year old man, Tibetan monk and Sorcerer Supreme but, to repeat, Tilda can do anything. She's only 54 years old but this will hardly be her first ancient character. Hell, she played TWO ancient ones last year: an immortal centuries-old vampire, and a dying octogenarian heiress. And let's not forget that her big post-Jarman breakthrough was the starring role as the 400 year old Orlando that turned into quite an arthouse hit in the summer of 1993.
"The Ancient One" isn't so much a stretch as a leaning in; she's already so flexible.
But About Racially Diverse Casting...
There will surely be a bit of push-back about choosing a white actor to play a traditionally Asian role -- if not as much as usual since Marvel gets much more public flak for its treatment of women than its racial parity issues. Casting Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury all those year ago -- a rare case of choosing a black actor for a traditionally white character -- surely paid off and gave them more of a leash than they probably deserved in dragging their feet towards more diversity in their cinematic universe. But I have a perfect solution for them since casting Tilda as the Ancient One is such a masterstroke and too perfect to pass up.
Iron Fist is a white man in the comics. Never should've been. It's so Tarzan / Colonialism Fantasy in originHow about casting an Asian man as Iron Fist in the upcoming Netflix series?
Consider it a trade-off AND an upgrade. And a way to save your asses so that you don't have two new stories simultaneously about the old hoary Tarzan-like dominion over other cultures wherein a white men from America or London or Europe (wherever) travels to the "exotic foreign lands" and gets all their superpowers from foreign mythologies and cultures and becomes basically the king of them and the best there is at what they do. It's so inherently racist if you think about it. Iron Fist was created in the 1970s when martial arts heroes were suddenly popular thanks to Bruce Lee and yet Hollywood didn't seem to realize "hey, if people like Bruce Lee, they'll be okay with Asian leads!" and so we got David Carradine, white man, in Kung Fu. Why not cast an Asian man and do it right for a change?
People might initially say "oh an Asian who knows martial arts? how racist/stereotypical !!!" but people will always complain about something and it would be truly awesome and radical (unfortunately) to have an Asian man headlining a dramatic American television series. From my understanding it has never happened. The only cases of an Asian man leading a cast are in sitcoms and there, as far as I can tell, it's only happened twice in the entire history of American television: The first time was in 1976 when Pat Morita (8 years before his Oscar nomination) starred in the quickly cancelled Mr T and Tina and it's happening again right now in 2015 with Randall Park in Fresh Off the Boat.