The great rule of thumb when working with the Coens, the actor says, is whether you can hear them guffawing like donkeys in the background

Tilda Swinton is on her second Coen brothers film, after Burn After Reading: here she plays the small but toothsome role of identical twin sisters Thora and Thessaly Thacker, feuding Hollywood gossip columnists of the Hedda Hopper/Louella Parsons variety. Typically for such an idiosyncratic acting intelligence, Swinton has her own ideas on the characters, which aren’t to be found anywhere in the actual script. The Thackers, she theorises, with their neurotic needling and ferocious competitiveness, must be failed actors themselves, the product of stage schools that didn’t make it, and are now compensating by rechannelling their frustrated energies into journalism.

Related: Hail, Caesar! review – George Clooney bigger, broader, zanier in classic Coen caper

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