Tilda Swinton Says “Room Next Door” May Be the 'Last Film I Make': 'Let's See If Anything Else Happens'
"I’ve always intended that each film would be my final one," said the Oscar winner
For Tilda Swinton, retirement might be on the horizon.
In an interview for ELLE's 2024 Women in Hollywood issue, the Oscar-winning actress, 64, said her new drama with Julianne Moore, The Room Next Door, might be her last.
"I’ve always intended that each film would be my final one," said Swinton. "It was not wanting to jinx anything because I have had such fun from start to finish. I always thought, 'Well, that’s a good one to go out on. Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.' And I feel it today."
"I feel The Room Next Door is the last film I make. Let’s see if anything else happens," she said.
Swinton has at least one movie already in the works: The Ballad of a Small Player, from the director of Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front, and also starring Colin Farrell. Per a synopsis from Netflix, the movie is about "a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau [who] encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The Room Next Door, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
The drama follows Ingrid and Martha, "who were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life," a synopsis explains. "After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation."
Swinton, in the joint ELLE interview with costar Moore, 63, said the film's themes of death resonated with her.
"The subject really is power. The feeling of powerlessness that we have to engage with around mortality, or, by the way, around aging. We have to get with the program: We are powerless," said Swinton. "And that in and of itself is a sort of taboo."
Swinton has been a film actress since the '80s. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for the film Michael Clayton, in which she starred opposite George Clooney. Her other major movies include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Snowpiercer (2013), Trainwreck (2015), Doctor Strange (2016) and many more.
At a Venice press conference for The Room Next Door earlier this year, Swinton said she doesn't fear death.
“I personally am not frightened of death, and I have never been. I think the whole journey toward accepting death can be long for some people for some reason. And for certain experiences in my life, it came quite early. I know it’s coming. I feel it coming. I see it coming."
The Room Next Door is in select theaters Dec. 20, wider on Jan. 10, then nationwide Jan. 17.