SWINTON Requested Prosthetic Penis For 'Suspiria' Role

By Kristy Puchko | Film | October 11, 2018 |

By Kristy Puchko | Film | October 11, 2018 |

Since Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake made its debut at the Venice Film Festival, speculation has arisen that his recurring leading lady, Tilda Swinton, plays more than one role in the film. First and foremost, SWINTON stars as the elegant and enchanting choreographer Madame Blanc. But many began to whisper that she was also playing Dr. Josef Klemperer, a part credited to Lutz Ebersdorf, in what seemed to be his screen debut. Despite subterfuge that included an IMDB page for Ebersdorf with a fictional bio penned by SWINTON, few believed her and Guadagnino’s denials. They’ve finally confessed this not-so-secret secret to The New York Times. But the real story here is about SWINTON’s dedication to playing an octogenarian, cis-gender man. To do the role right, she requested a penis and testicles to call her own.

Oscar-winning makeup artist Mark Coulier was tasked with transforming Swinton into Lutz, and he designed a series of old-age prosthetics that took four hours to apply each shoot day. But the prosthetics didn’t stop at face and hand applications.

“She did have us make a penis and balls,” Coulier said. “She had this nice, weighty set of genitalia so that she could feel it dangling between her legs, and she managed to get it out on set on a couple of occasions.”

Here’s hoping that if SWINTON wins an award for her Suspiria performance, she takes a moment to thank Coulier and the weighty genitals who helped her. I mean, why not? She managed to bring George Clooney’s rubber Batman nipples up when accepting her Michael Clayton Oscar.

But where are Swinton’s weighty supporting players now? “Probably in a box somewhere!” Coulier told NYT, “I should try and find it, and put it on a plaque on the wall of my workshop.”