Warning- fan girl walking. If you don’t care for gushing, do not pass GO: Everyone has that person who they hold up as the gold standard- who embodies the qualities they believe compose a life well lived. We don’t get a road map, and without role models we would crank the wheel, take a left turn and wind up in a ditch (can you tell I don’t know how to drive?) For me, that person is Tilda Swinton. From the moment I saw her on the screen almost thirty years ago in Sally Potter’s Orlando, her presence recalibrated my sense of how we are allowed to roll our game as women, as people. The choices she’s made, the directors she’s championed (Derek Jarmon, Sally Potter, Joanna Hogg) and the unshakability of her ethos- not to mention the ‘fits, omg the fits- give us mere mortals hope that there’s a way to push yet stay true, shine but relax. Meeting her last night checked an item off the old bucket list, and it was enough- but when a photographer suggested a photo, I seized the moment like I seized her hand. My face didn’t know what to do, so I just told myself “look up and at her like you always have.” Listening to her speak last night about the power films have to unite us, how she wants to live “in wonder, amongst friends and rich in dogs” I was reminded- for the millionth time lately it seems- how lucky I am to do this goofy yet, if we spin it just right, useful job i love. She has been more useful than any one person has the right to be. To Tilda, who could play a mushroom and we’d know its heart. Thank you to the academy museum for having me, and to Hollywood for sometimes- just sometimes- being just what you want it to be. You know, when *she’s* there.