Tilda Swinton on the AIDS crisis and why fluidity isn't frightening

Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, known as a muse and ally to many LGBTQ+ people, opened up about the AIDS crisis’s impact on her in a Friday interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN.

“When I was 33 in 1994, I went to 43 funerals,” Swinton said. One of them was for Derek Jarman, the gay man who directed her in her debut film, Caravaggio, and several others, including The Last of England, Edward II, and The Garden.

Swinton’s grandmother, who was born in 1900 and lived through two world wars, understood the effects of the epidemic. “She said, ‘This is your generation’s war,’” the actress recalled.

“It was an early experience,” Swinton continued. “It’s with me. I carry all my beloveds around with me all the time.”

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Amanpour noted that in the 1980s, there were many protests about AIDS in the United Kingdom, particularly Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s apparent cruelty and indifference regarding the epidemic, and in the U.S., focusing on the similar reaction from Ronald Reagan’s administration. She asked Swinton to compare this era to present-day protests against authoritarianism, in which Swinton’s children participate.

“I do believe that we in the ’80s, certainly in London, there was this way of feeling collective,” Swinton said. “There was a sense of an ethical boundary. And I am heartened to see that it is — I don’t believe it will ever leave us. We have to believe it would never leave us.” It’s crucial that people “defy unkindness, as I say in my book,” she added.

Her book is Ongoing, which explores her career and her collaborations with directors such as Jarman, Luca Guadagnino, and Pedro Almodóvar, plus her influence on fashion.

Related: Actress Tilda Swinton Poses With Rainbow Flag in Front of Moscow Kremlin

In another part of the Amanpour interview, Swinton talked about the concept of fluidity, which played out especially in the film Orlando, with her playing a character who changed genders and other identities over a period of centuries. “Every time I look at you, I look at something different,” Amanpour said.

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“I think it’s a waste, this idea of fixing one’s identity,” Swinton replied. “I don’t believe it serves us. I mean, we all know fluidity and flexibility as children and particularly in our adolescence. We all do. Even those people who pretend they … never felt like a freak. Everybody feels like a freak.” It’s important to use the memory of that to connect with other people “who are carrying their fluidity and flexibility with them and engage with them,” she added. “There’s nothing to be frightened about in being that fluid.”