Tilda Swinton refuses to wear COVID mask on set of new film: “I’m full of antibodies and very healthy”

Tilda Swinton has said she will not be wearing a COVID mask on the set of her new film, despite being asked to do so.

The Oscar-winning actress is set to film a new project in Ireland in the coming months, but has insisted against wearing a mask because she is “full of antibodies and very healthy”, having contracted the virus a number of times.

Speaking as part of her keynote speech at the SXSW Film and TV Festival on Monday (March 13), she said (via Vanity Fair): “I’m about to shoot a picture in Ireland, and I was told to wear a mask at all times, and I’m not.

“I’m sure this is being recorded. I’ve had COVID-19 multiple times so I’m full of antibodies and very healthy.”

Last year, Swinton explained that while she had got off “relatively lightly” with the virus, she suffered with memory problems and vertigo as a result.

She told The Guardian: “I was coughing like an old gentleman who smoked a pipe for 70 years, and had nasty vertigo. I got off relatively lightly, but the worst thing is how it affected my brain.

“I did two films that I had to learn a lot of text for. I’m normally quite quick at studying, and picking stuff up, but this was like chewing a really big piece of gum.

She added: “I couldn’t remember my lines. [I have recovered] More or less, but I’m still forgetting things. I have to work my brain!”

Swinton will next star in Wes Anderson’s upcoming film Asteroid City, alongside Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie and Steve Carell. The romantic comedy drama takes place in a 1950s fictional American desert town during a junior stargazer convention.

She’ll also appear alongside Michael Fassbender in David Fincher’s The Killing, a thriller set to be released in November.

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