When considering whether she wanted to play the role of the evil White Witch in “The Chronicles of Narnia,” Tilda Swinton remembered what Margaret Hamilton said about being the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz.”
“She was talking about waiting for a subway train in New York and noticing, out of the corner of her eye, little children backing away from her,” Swinton recalls. “And I thought, ‘Is this what I want? Children shying away from me for the rest of my life?’ ”
Swinton took the role.
“What I loved about the White Witch is that she’s not a stereotypical villain with the whole mustache-twirling thing,” Swinton says. “Her evil is more unfathomable. It’s a kind of coldness, an emotional remove. She’s quiet.”
In the film, the White Witch has cast a spell over Narnia, creating a winter that never ends. The four children who venture through the wardrobe door into Narnia must summon their strength to join with the mystical lion Aslan and break the witch’s curse.
“It’s intense,” Swinton says. “My children (twin girls, age 7) don’t want to see it. I think they’re very wise.”
As for other children who have seen it, Swinton says she’s already had her subway moment.
“After a recent screening, there was a question-and-answer session and this tiny child – way too young for the movie, I would have thought – was bursting to come up to me,” Swinton says. “She couldn’t get close enough. So there you have it – the insatiable masochism of the child. Or her exceptional good taste.”
