Tilda Swinton Doesn't Know If She Will Play Ancient One Role In Doctor Strange As A Man Or Woman

There's been far less outrage than one might expect from comic book fans about the apparent gender-swapping of Doctor Strange's mentor The Ancient One in the forthcoming film adaptation of the Marvel Comics property.

A lot of that might have to do with the casting of Tilda Swinton, a beloved actress whose previous comic book experience includes playing Gabriel in Constantine (an androgynous take on an angel typically depicted as male in other stories) and the Minister of the Train in last year's acclaimed Snowpiercer.

Well, it may not even be that The Ancient One will be female in the film at all. Swinton herself isn't sure how she's meant to play it yet.

That's according to a new profile of Swinton in The Guardian, in which she's also quoted as saying, "The thing that keeps me being a performer is my interest in society's obsession with identity, because I'm not sure that I really believe identity exists."

You can check out much more from Swinton (although not much about Doctor Strange yet) at the link above -- but comic fans beware, the "writer and artist John Byrne" to whom she was once married is probably not the one you're thinking of.