What inspired the film’s dazzling opening credits?
Sullivan: Tilda, how did you become involved with the project? Tilda Swinton: Luca and I have been friends for over 20 years, and we dreamed it up. We started getting more concrete about it seven years ago, talking about a film not far off from this one. We made a film 11 years ago, and while we were cutting it, we started thinking about this one. We began thinking about a film that would be a sort of adventure in classical cinema. Then, about seven years ago, we made another film [The Love Factory] that was an essay or interview with me in close-up about many different things, such as love, the heart, etc. We just chipped away at it. Sullivan: Can you talk about you character’s Russian background and why it was chosen? Swinton: She was actually going to be from somewhere else. She became Russian very fast. It’s so funny talking about this whole process — it’s like a sort of picking things up and shaking them and going, “Is it in there?” and it’s not, over and over. “Is she from Scotla
