Tilda Swinton is right about weird Barbies and reluctant slinkies

Tilda Swinton is the kind of actor whose screen presence makes a movie a little more enticing. Whether she’s playing someone alien, like the vampire burnout Eve finds herself in Only lovers are still alive, or someone more grounded, such as the academic Alithea in Three thousand years of longingThere’s something ethereal about the way she inhabits a character, as if she’s always been there, waiting for the story to emerge around her.

However, inside Problemista — a surreal New York fairy tale starring writer-director Julio Torres as Alejandro, a young man who is deported after losing his job – Swinton is booger than usual. Her character, Elizabeth, is a volatile art dealer that Alejandro begins working for in a desperate attempt to get a work visa while clinging to his dream of one day making strange toys for Hasbro. Elizabeth is frustratingly non-committal about sponsoring him, perhaps due to her erratic nature, or some deeper pain on her part – Problemista is partly a story about these two unusual souls learning to understand each other.

Recently, Swinton spoke to Polygon from her New York hotel in support of the A24 comedy, in a short but wide-ranging conversation about difficult bosses, the woes of the immigration queue, and how work makes us desensitized to each other.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Polygon: This is such a warm movie, and yet your character is so abrasive!

Tilda Swinton: Oh my God. Well, you know, she came from the mind of Julio Torres, what can I say? And I also collect his experience. So it was really extraordinary, because (…) almost everyone has had that boss. It’s quite triggering, especially the whole FileMaker Pro abuse scenario (in the movie). There are many people who feel that the film was made about their life story. Do you have an Elizabeth, Joshua?

I’ve had Elizabeths in my life, yes. I also wondered what horror story Julio had experienced with FileMaker Pro, since that program’s difficulty is so essential to the plot.

(Laughs) We’ll see, maybe they’ll get revenge. Or maybe they like it! You never know! And Hasbro, we’ll wait to see what they think about this. We would like them (the Problemista) toys. That would be strange if they stood behind all this and said: Okay, we’ll make your Barbie with her fingers crossed behind her back. Or a reluctant Slinky. That would be fantastic.

I feel like you and Julio share a preference for richly imagined, inanimate objects.

Yes, we have that shared inner landscape.

Elizabeth has a line in the trailer that kills it every time I see it in a theater, about pupusas…

“And those nuns who were murdered in the ’80s.” Apparently that’s all you need to know about El Salvador in the East Village!

How many times have you had a character whose entire problem and outlook is so perfectly encapsulated in one moment?

It’s so well written. What Julio sent me was a script that I only realized yesterday that we had pretty much put to the screen. We did some improvisation and had a lot of fun in the set’s playground. Some of that comes in, but the architecture of the film, the general meat and potatoes of it, are there.

I first thought he was someone I knew I wanted to be with. And second, the script read like a movie I wanted to see today. Elizabeth felt absolutely inclusive. I didn’t know how or why I should play her. There was a moment when I thought she must be American. And I thought, No, you need to find someone better suited for this. But when he explained to me that she could come from anywhere, something lit up inside me because I thought: Well, this really changes the movie because it also makes her an immigrant.

We don’t know how she came to America. I have all kinds of fantasies about her climbing the Glastonbury wall and being a groupie for some absurd Whitesnake-esque band, running off with the drummer and going back to the States with him. And maybe marry him and then get resident status and then meet Bobby. I mean, I don’t know. But the point is that she had to fight her own battles in America. It’s a special fight, right?

I also passed through immigration in America three days ago. It’s not nice for anyone. People who were born in America and never have to cross that border don’t know what it is. And it doesn’t matter if you have some fancy O-1 visa, which I have. No, honestly, I think they’re punishing me for it. Every time. They’re sadists, man, they really are.

Do you think Elizabeth understands the power she has over Alejandro, as someone who can sponsor his visa?

I think she understands. I guess that’s why she can infiltrate a key he needs. I mean, she trains him. And he gets lectured. And he’s working on it. And if he hadn’t gotten it, if he hadn’t absorbed it, and if he hadn’t gone to Hasbro to find that guy, he wouldn’t be where he ends up. I mean, there’s no doubt he’s learning the lesson.

Image: A24

And then of course the blinking Hasbro director. Who knows what his story is! I mean, he probably didn’t go through the immigration lines. But he has clearly built his way into a major company. He’s probably got bits knocked off of him, and he’s quite callous, confused, and fooled, and he’s definitely letting Alejandro bully him. He is a victim of something.

I love the way that almost everyone in the film is trapped in some way: the poor Apple guy who calls up and abuses Elizabeth, most days for hours. And he only has two answers! He has, ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again? Or, you know, did you try pressing another button?’ And that’s all you can say to her.

Presumably he doesn’t want that life. It’s a job. But he would probably like the job to make more use of his mind. I think that’s really one of the things that’s so smart and human about the film. It is optimistic because it says: Yes, we are all prisoners. And yes, we may have become desensitized. And we have these kind of American football helmets on that are constantly trying to hit our heads on things. But we can find a way to take them off and hear other people and care for other people. One of the great things about the film is the way (Alejandro and Elizabeth) care for each other. They really give each other what each other needs. And it’s a love story, I believe. It’s a nice romance.

Problemista Currently playing in limited release and opening wide on Friday, March 22nd.