“I really did feel it made me want to dress cooler as Honor. Some silhouettes-a long, dramatic coat in particular-call back to Anthony’s costume from the first film. Then with the second film, it was really chic, very relaxed, comfortable, elegant, a bit more masculine and edgy,” Swinton Byrne explains.
“In the first film, when Julie’s with Anthony, I wore a lot of corsets, a lot of cardigans, very restrictive things that sucked me in. Her wardrobe included pieces from that period, surfaced from the director’s closet as well as her mother’s, and they tell a story of their own across the two parts. I loved living in that time, with the music and clothes.” “I grew up listening to that music, watching those films, hearing about the period from my mum, and feeling quite connected to that time. “I feel like I grew up in the ’80s,” she says, speaking from Edinburgh. Swinton Byrne, now 24, didn’t find the period setting much of a stretch. Jaygann Ayeh, Ariane Labed, and Charlie Heaton as Julie’s classmates at film school in The Souvenir Part II. The Souvenir Part II is currently in theaters. “It gave me a real sense of joy to be the captain of a ship,” she says with a grin. Despite her lauded film debut, she currently studies psychology at university-but she got a taste of directing for one scene in the new film and would jump at the chance to do it again. Likewise, Swinton Byrne comes off as far more warm and ebullient than the interior Julie, which is certain to take her far in any career she chooses. I definitely have tried to imitate that.” Swinton plays her buttoned-up mother in the films both have noted their real-life relationship is much less staid. In Part II, however, both Byrne and Julie are clearly older and wiser: just enough to sustain credibility and to add subtlety to the film. “I’ve seen her be such a pleasure to work with. For Part I, Hogg enlisted Tilda Swinton as the mother, then persuaded Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, to play the lead character Julie, despiteand because ofher lack of acting experience.
I always try to maintain this sense of truth and centeredness that she brings to everything she does, and patience and respect for the entire crew,” she reflects. Still processing her relationship with Anthony (Tom Burke.
“She is the most sprinkly person I’ve ever met-she has this sparkle I wish I had. The Souvenir star Honor Swinton Byrne’s character Julie is back behind the lens making a movie based on her experiences from film one. However, she has gleaned a lot from years of observing Swinton at work.
Swinton Byrne, whom critics are already championing for awards recognition, says her mother didn’t provide any specific acting advice. You keep such a focus on your films that other things in your life can go along the wayside.” But it’s a challenge to make films whoever you are, and it’s such a commitment-there are so many sacrifices you have to make. “I want to show life as I imagine it.” Today, Hogg says carefully, “there’s so much awareness of women making films, and there are these quotas to make sure enough women are selected for projects or in festivals, so there’s a sense that maybe it’s easier now. Honor Swinton Byrne steps out in a long black trench coat for the premiere of her new movie, The Souvenir: Part II, during the 2021 BFI London Film Festival at The Royal Festival Hall on Friday. “I don’t want to show life as it plays out,” Julie tells them.
The closed-mindedness of her film school faculty is vividly rendered in one scene in Part II, where a group of professors-all middle-aged white men-refuses to support Julie’s project (also a tale of ill-fated lovers called The Souvenir). “I’ve always been very interested in fashion, particularly when I was at film school, and it was something that was not understood by my tutors there,” she continues. Hogg credits costume designer Grace Snell for “cleverly mirroring what my journey was in terms of clothes,” in the 1980s, citing designers she admired like Yohji Yamamoto and Manolo Blahnik.