Actor Tilda Swinton crossed all milestones for her upcoming horror film titled 'Suspiria', in which she will be seen playing two different roles, one of which is the character of an 82-year-old man, Dr. Josef Klemperer.
The film revolves around a ballet dancer Susie, played by Dakota Johnson, as she uncovers the terrifying secrets behind a famous dance company, headed by Madame Blanc also played by Swinton, reported People.
The Oscar-winning actor and the film's director Luca Guadagnino kept the information of her playing the male character under wraps while filming, going so far that they created the fake identity of Lutz Ebersdorf and credited him for playing the character.
Swinton finally revealed to the New York Times that she pretended to be Ebersdorf to play the role of Klemperer.
"The intention was never to fool anybody. The genius of [makeup artist] Marc Coulier notwithstanding, it was always our design that there would be something unresolved about the identity of the performance of Klemperer," said Swinton.
She transformed into this male character with the help of Oscar-winning makeup artist Coulier, who created male prosthetics for her.
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For creating her facial transformation, Coulier said Swinton's "slightly androgynous look" helped but they still thickened her neck and jaw with prosthetics.
"She did have us make a penis," said Coulier. "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," added Coulier.
The actor transformed completely and preferred being called 'Lutz' on the sets of the film, taking on the false identity of a male actor to play the role.
Many of the crew members on the set were unaware of it and "They were all like, 'Is this a famous actor, Lutz Ebersdorf?' They'd go on IMDb looking for him, and there wasn't any information," said Coulier.
Swinton's only regret was that she couldn't prolong the ruse until the release of the film. Photographs of her emerged in the costumes in March 2017. "My original idea was that Lutz would die during the edit, and his 'In Memoriam' be the final credit in the film," she added.
The horror movie will release on November 2 worldwide.