From her chilling turn as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia to playing the gender-bending protagonist in Orlando, few actors have a screen presence as varied and transformative as Tilda Swinton. Today, she calls the Scottish Highlands home, but for fifteen formative years, Tilda lived in a snug London flat that has now come to market.
Tilda, who once described herself not as a woman in Hollywood, but 'a woman who goes there occasionally, with a very small bag', is what many would consider a 'true actor'. Her body of work spans big-screen blockbusters, transgressive arthouse movies and acclaimed stage performances.
This year, she returns to the stage at the Royal Court theatre, starring in the one-woman play Man to Man, which tells the story of a woman in 1930s Germany who adopts the identity of her dead husband.
As it happens, her upcoming place of work is just a stone's throw from the apartment she lived in between 1983 and 1998, from the ages of 22 to 38 – the years during which she rose to prominence, most notably with her breakout role in Orlando.
In fact, her former home is so central to the actress's story that a replica of the space recently featured in an exhibition at Amsterdam's Eye Filmmuseum, which explored Tilda's life and creative work through themes of memory, space and personal history.
Now, the two-bedroom 'Flat 19', as it was dubbed in the exhibition, is on the market with Knight Frank. The 603 sq ft apartment sits on the second floor of a handsome red-brick mansion block at the Chelsea end of King's Road.
The charming apartment is well-proportioned and filled with light. A long hallway runs through the space, with rooms branching off on either side: a bathroom to the left, an efficiently arranged kitchen to the right, and two bedrooms positioned along the corridor. At the end, a welcoming central living area is bathed in daylight thanks to high ceilings and sash windows.
'The apartment offers excellent accommodation in a central setting and would make a wonderful pied-à-terre or home for anyone seeking a slice of city life, while still enjoying the quintessential charm of Chelsea and the tranquillity of the nearby river,' says Claire Mengham, sales associate in Knight Frank's Kensington & Chelsea office.
'It is no surprise that someone as iconic as Tilda Swinton chose to live here in her youth.'
Keen to follow in the actor's footsteps? The property is currently on the market with Knight Frank, with a guide price of £625,000.
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