From the New York Times, this is the interview.

I'm David Marquesie.

Unexpected connections sometimes arise in this job.

As it happens, I had two of them with this week's guest,

the Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton.

Both of them shaped my feeling about the conversation you're about to hear,

though in very different ways. Let me tell you about the first one. In a book of sketches by the

British writer John Berger called Bento's sketchbook, one drawing has always mesmerized me. It's of

an androgynous face, almost alien, and it exudes this deeply human curiosity and compassion.

That sketch is labeled simply Tilda.

I hadn't really thought about who it was based on, until, that is, when in preparation for

my interview with Swinton, I watched a documentary she co-directed about Berger.

In it, she mentioned Bento's sketchbook, and a light bulb went on.

Despite being a longtime admirer of that sketch and Swinton's acting, I'd never put together

that I'd been entranced by the same person the whole time. I couldn't help but take that as a

good omen for the interview. The second connection was tougher to interpret. You might remember that my last interview was with a doctor about medical aid and dying,

a subject that I've had recent personal experience with.

Swinton's upcoming film, The Room Next Door, directed by Pedro Almodovar, is about,

and I swear I didn't know this ahead of time, an eerily similar topic.

In the movie, Swinton plays a woman named Martha, who asks her friend, Ingrid, played by

Julianne Moore, to support her decision to die by suicide after becoming terminally ill.

I would have felt phony or disingenuous not to share this coincidence with Swinton,

...