The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2020 - Issue 27

bite actor spotlight Tilda co-produced and developed I Am Love and learned Ital- ian for one ravishing and epic romance in which she played a wealthy mother and an interloper in the Milanese aristocracy. Playing a 3000-year-old beatnik vampire, she flexed her comic powers and channelled her inner-animal in Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013) a stylish musing on mortality. She was heavily involved in developing the project with Jim Jar- musch which is littered with personal references. Her hypnotic chemistry with Tom Hiddleston’s jaded musician Adam made it an incredibly charming romance. There will also be a rare chance to see Bong Joon-ho’s masterly Snowpiercer (2013), un- released in the UK, on the big screen. A ‘mild-mannered man in a suit’ was how Bong Joon-ho’s script originally described the bureaucrat quelling an uprising in this post-apocalyptic thriller set on a train; Tilda delighted in transforming the role into a sadistic monster, complete with dentures and furs. The actress was given the Richard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry. In 2013, she was given a special tribute by the Museum of Modern Art. In 2020, Tilda was named as a recipient of the British Film Institute Fellowship, the highest honour presented by the Institute which honours individuals in "recognition of their outstanding contribution to film or television culture.” BFI Fellowship Award On 2 March 2020, Tilda received the BFI Fellowship at the an- nual BFI Chairman’s dinner, hosted by BFI Chair Josh Berger. The award was presented to her at the Rosewood Hotel in Lon- don by Wes Anderson who directed her in many films includ- ing The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and the hotly anticipated The French Dispatch (2020). It also honoured and celebrated her daringly eclectic and striking talents as a performer and filmmaker as well as recognising her great contribution to film culture, independent film exhibition, and philanthropy. Bong Joon-o, Kylie Minogue, Wes Anderson, Hugh Grant, Thom Yorke, Andrea Arnold, Armando Iannucci, Lynne Ramsay, Tim Walker, Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Jeffer- son Hack, Haider Ackerman, Simon Fisher Turner, Luc Roeg, Sally Potter, Sandy Powell and other luminaries were all in at- tendance to celebrate Tilda’s award with her. On presenting the BFI Fellowship to Tilda, Wes Anderson said, “Tilda can perfectly embody the woman behind the bar, and especially a well-read vampire, a Russian who speaks Italian, or a lawyer for a corrupt American agricultural conglomerate; I see her miraculously channel a non-existent being into being. Tilda has already crossed into the territory of being universally admired, legendary, iconic and a national treasure. Tilda loves the cinema, and she loves the world of cinema, and the com- munity of cinema and British cinema, so I’m very happy to be the one to hand her this prize.” BFI Chair Josh Berger said, “I am delighted that Tilda has ac- cepted the BFI Fellowship. Tilda is enjoying the broadest of ca- reers, stretching from her earliest acclaimed work with Derek Jarman through to her dazzling involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is a career full of courageous artistic choices that have earned her the deep respect of her peers, our industry and the admiration and enjoyment of audiences all over the world. Tilda inhabits the characters she portrays most compellingly. Her work is powerful and far-ranging and as such occupies a unique place in our collective film history; it captivates young filmmakers and actors, inspiring them to make bolder, braver and more profound work.” Film - Orlando