{"id":504656,"date":"2022-02-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/numero.com\/culture\/will-honor-swinton-byrne-follow-in-her-mother-tilda-swintons-footsteps\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T17:02:38","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:02:38","slug":"will-honor-swinton-byrne-follow-in-her-mother-tilda-swintons-footsteps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numero.com\/en\/culture-en\/movies\/will-honor-swinton-byrne-follow-in-her-mother-tilda-swintons-footsteps\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Honor Swinton Byrne follow in her mother Tilda Swinton\u2019s footsteps?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Life is harsh as a celebrity\u2019s child. While many of them follow in their parents\u2019 footsteps, talent is not a given. <\/b>Sometimes the magic happens, and success follows. Honor Swinton Byrne is one of those gifted children. Starring in The Souvenir Part II<\/i>, she shines as a young discreet and timid film student, besotted with a charming junkie. As the daughter of the aristocrat Tilda Swinton and Scottish playwright John Byrne, Honor Swinton Byrne has been in good hands. Along with her twin brother Xavier, she spent her childhood in a Scottish alternative school where self-confidence and attention to one\u2019s needs are the focus, as opposed to a conventional education. Jane Austen, Nancy Mitford, Virginia Woolf\u2026 Honor Swinton Byrne knows the classics off by heart. Well-mannered, she kept an elegant turn of phrase, highlighting each of her lines with a delicate \u201cMy Lord<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Even if her mother brought her on sets early on<\/b>, the young Honor never dreamt of becoming an actress. Right after she finished high school at the age of 19, Honor Swinton Byrne was asked to play in Johanna Hogg\u2019s autobiography. Thrilled by that perspective, she didn\u2019t hesitate much. Why would she? The British film director is her godmother and an old friend of Tilda Swinton, who met her on Derek Jarman\u2019s film set. Tilda Swinton was even part of the Londoner\u2019s final project Caprice<\/i> back in 1986. The Souvenir<\/i> is indeed a family matter, but is talent a DNA one? In Swinton\u2019s case, the answer is yes.<\/p>\r\n\n

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Suit jacket, vintage heels, hair tied back\u2026<\/b> Honor Swinton Byrne naturally radiates in her interpretation of Julie, this \u201clittle upper-class sparrow<\/i>\u201d as the French newspaper Lib\u00e9ration<\/i> portrayed her in an article about Cannes Festival. Honor Swinton Byrne embodies her character with such an ease that one could think she acts the same in her life. Yet she is the exact opposite of her timid character. With her Californian mermaid-like hairdo and her glamourous and feminine silhouette, Honor Swinton Byrne looks like a young American who just landed on the old continent. She is a talkative, free-spirited, and not afraid to take a stand about her career path. Being also an undergraduate psychology student at the University of Edinburgh, she tries to demonstrate that her two passions are not incompatible. In fact, she sees her studies as a \u201ctoolbox<\/i>\u201d to understand herself and her relatives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In order to put herself into her hypersensitive character\u2019s skin<\/b>, Honor Swinton Byrne took her inspiration from her personal life and love stories \u2013 less tragic than the main character\u2019s ones, she confessed. However, even if she seems to share a lot with the good girl Julie, she is less tolerant than her about her romantic setbacks. She describes her character with tenderness and benevolence and admires her complexity: \u201cAll of my friends saw<\/i> The Souvenir and none of them couldn\u2019t help but identify to this character, even if they did not understand her completely. I dare anyone to say loud and clear that we cannot identify, even on a single level, to Julie<\/i>\u201d, she declares. When asked about the toxic relationship of the two lovers depicted by Johanna Hogg, Honor Swinton Byrne defines it as timeless. Far from perceiving it as a power dynamic, she describes the rut, turmoil, and misery in which the two characters led one another. According to her, cinema works as a therapy: \u201cWhen people go see to the cinema, I want them to feel reassured, to better understand themselves and even to feel less lonely<\/i>\u201d.<\/p>\r\n\n

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If Honor Swinton Byrne plays in a slow contemplative film, she enjoys psychological thrillers above all<\/b>. Intricate plots, thrills, strong emotions\u2026 Her favorite film director is without any doubt Bong Joon-ho! Palme d\u2019Or recipient for Parasite<\/i> in 2019, the South Korean director knows the Swintons well. Tilda Swinton starred in various of his productions, such as Snowpiercer<\/i> (2013) and Okja<\/i> (2017). She is also part of The Souvenir<\/i>. It comes as no surprise that she plays Rosalind, Julie\u2019s mother. When asked about how difficulty it could be to play with her own mother, Honor guffawed: \u201cNot at all! It was completely natural and effortless. Really, it was like a game<\/i>\u201d. On screen she asserts that tense mother-daughter relationships bore her, but in real life they apparently get along pretty well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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If Honor Swinton Byrne does not get her fame thanks to her prestigious line<\/b> \u2013 she is also the daughter of aristocrats \u2013 she does not conceal the fact that she adores her mother and saw each one of her films. \u201cShe is the best. I am a total fan of her<\/i>\u201d, she says. Honor Swinton Byrne still remembers the first time she watched the Narnia<\/i> saga, in which her mother played one of the protagonists. The young girl was traumatized for a long time after that, as she witnessed the death of her mother\u2019s character. Perhaps she chose to study psychology for a reason\u2026 Despite her growing fame and her first successful experience on screen, the young hard-working woman reveals that she will soon go back to her psychology mid-terms.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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The Souvenir Part II<\/i><\/b> by Johanna Hogg. Coming out on February 2nd, 2022.<\/b><\/p>\r\n\n

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