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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour and Company.” Here’s what’s coming up.
CHRISTOPHER HILL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SERBIA: There’s no question, we stopped a war, a war that had gone on for years, had claimed the lives
of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Thirty years of imperfect peace in Bosnia, still it can teach world leaders how to end a war. Former U.S. ambassador to Serbia,
Christopher Hill, and the former Bosnia High Representative and Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, on lessons for Ukraine.
Then —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TILDA SWINTON, ACTOR: I think it’s a waste, this idea of fixing one’s identity. I don’t believe it serves us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — cinema’s preeminent shapeshifter, Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton tells me about her favorite way to work, through relationships, and
about her new book, “Ongoing.”
Also, ahead —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOON LEO, SPORTS JOURNALIST AND CREATOR: You can basically bet on anything that happens within the confines of a stadium during a sports game now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — how betting once saved American sports and now could be killing it. Journalist Joon Lee tells Michelle Martin that he’s sounding
the alarm before it’s too late.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in New York.
We begin with Ukraine, where massive Russian strikes on residential buildings have devastated the western city of Ternopil this week. Children
have been among the victims of that attack, and it’s a stark reminder that almost four years into this war, peace has never been more important.
But this week saw reports that the Trump administration has been secretly hammering out a deal with Russia, without Ukrainian involvement, without
European involvement, which sounds very much like Russia’s maximalist demands. Reportedly, the deal would require Kyiv to surrender territory and
substantially reduce its military. President Trump sent senior Pentagon officials to Kyiv to present this plan. It’s unclear if Ukraine would
accept it.
The tricky business of peace, and it comes as the world remembers a successful but imperfect peace plan. Thirty years ago, the Bosnian War
finally came to an end under the leadership of the Clinton administration. Leaders of Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Croatia came together in Dayton, Ohio, to
sign a landmark deal that put a stop to almost four years of that brutal war. It killed approximately 100,000 people, displaced hundreds of
thousands more, and culminated in Europe’s deadliest atrocity since World War II, the Srebrenica genocide.
The Dayton Accords divided Bosnia into two autonomous entities patrolled by NATO peacekeepers. And while divisions remain, in the three decades that
have passed, war has not broken out again. So, how can this time-tested diplomacy inform war and conflict resolution today? Let’s bring in two lead
actors in this drama, Christopher Hill, former ambassador to Serbia under President Biden, and Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister who also
was Bosnia’s first post-war high representative.
Gentlemen, welcome to the program. And I can’t think of two people more perfectly placed to discuss what’s happening now and back then. So, first
to you as former U.S. ambassador and deputy leader to Richard Holbrooke for Dayton. What do you make of the reports of how the Trump administration is
considering ending the Ukraine war, which started with Russia’s illegal invasion in 2022?
CHRISTOPHER HILL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SERBIA: Well, it’s certainly an unusual approach. First of all, what you try to do is you try to make
sure you’re having kind of equal time for different sides. And from what we understand, this has been very much an effort with Russia rather than with
Ukraine.
So, I mean, there were times in Bosnia where I would go off and see Milosevic. And the insistence, and it was correct, was I should then make
my way to Sarajevo, never see one without the other. So, that’s one thing that’s kind of odd.
The second is that rather than go to 28 points, and again, I speak as someone who doesn’t know the inside game on this, you usually try to start
with some principles, start with some concept, what the overall war aims are, and see if those can be met and then you articulate principles into
points. But these seem to be efforts to go right to the points.
And again, you know, when you’re out there trying to do something, you don’t like people on TV to tell you you’re not going to succeed, but I must
say the odds are long.
AMANPOUR: So, Carl Bildt, also as a European, it appears that the E.U. has not had a look in. Can you tell me what concerns you have and what you
think about the prospects of, apparently, as far as we know, and as Chris Hill says, we don’t know all the details yet, basically just hammering out
this framework with the Russian side?
CARL BILDT, FORMER SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, we only have very sort of uncertain information via the media. And that media — that information
hints that the U.S. negotiated accepting more or less all of the key Russian demands. So, I think, as a matter of fact, this is going to go
nowhere because what is reported in the media, there’s no way that’s going to fly either with the Ukrainians or with the Europeans. And it affects the
Europeans, both directly and indirectly. So, I think this is going to go nowhere.
AMANPOUR: Let me play for both of you a little bit of that kind of reaction from the E.U.’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas. Let’s just
play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAJA KALLAS, E.U. FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: Of course, for any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board. So, this is very clear. Also,
we have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So, we haven’t heard of any concessions on the Russian side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I just want to ask you both, and also from your experience, especially dealing with the Serbian Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic,
you know, to bring an end to the war in Bosnia. Chris Hill, what — you know, in Dayton you all had all the parties together. You brought them to
Dayton, and it was hammered out with them. What are the perils of just not doing that in this case?
HILL: Well, I mean, the issue is in Dayton, it was essentially to hammer out the details of something called a contact group plan. There were no
surprises really to anybody as to what the principles of getting together were. I mean, obviously, Dayton turned out to be a tough slog over those
three weeks, but it was kind of clear what we’re trying to accomplish.
And so, I have some concerns as to whether this plan could really get anywhere. As Carl has accurately pointed out, it didn’t seem to have any of
the input of the major players, the Europeans, nor the Ukrainians. So, I think the idea of bringing people together at this point over something
that’s really in a very kind of stage where no one really knows what it’s about, I think would be a terrible mistake.
AMANPOUR: So, Carl, obviously this has huge implications for Europe, right? I mean, this is a war fought in Europe. And for four years,
Europeans, along with Ukrainians, have been trying to hold the line against further Russian threats, particularly if it gets all its demands met on the
Ukrainian battlefield. And Ukrainian independence and sovereignty are also at stake.
You have recently — and I — we spoke in the summer, went to Dayton for a 30th year anniversary of what you all accomplished back then. What did you
come back with? What made you, you know, remember what you all did in the hard slog of negotiations compared to what’s happening, you know, on this –
– you know, around what doesn’t seem to be a peace table regarding Russia- Ukraine?
BILDT: I think two things should be pointed out. The first one is that prior to going to Dayton, we had a ceasefire. And that was not entirely
easy to get, but it was absolutely essential to stop the guns firing before you had the leaders sit down and do the final, final, final agreement. So,
that should be the focus of attempts in Ukraine now, get a ceasefire, and then the politics after.
The second is, as Chris pointed out, that prior to the three weeks at the Dayton, at the airbase there, there had been a process for X numbers of
peace plans, and there had been agreement on some of the key parameters and principles of the deal that should be done. That didn’t make it easy for
the three weeks because the devil is obviously in the detail.
But the key issues, the parameters of peace had been agreed in negotiation prior to that, and we had a ceasefire in place. Without that, it could
never have worked.
AMANPOUR: And, Chris Hill, as we know, and we’ll just say it again, when President Trump called for a ceasefire in — you know, between Russia and
Ukraine, Ukraine immediately accepted it, and Russia did not accept it and still hasn’t accepted it. So, that’s one difference.
But I also want to ask you, because I suppose realistically there’s going to have to be some give and take and maybe some territorial compromise by
Ukraine, but it would have to be negotiated. The reason I ask you this is because I spoke to President Clinton, who led the Dayton Peace Accord
process. I spoke to him a couple of years ago, and he mentioned some of the limitations in the final peace deal. Let’s just listen to President
Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, we had a special problem in Bosnia because we couldn’t make the peace without the Bosnian Serbs. And
then, from the beginning, either a hardline Serbian government or their Russian sponsors were always pushing for paralysis, paralysis, paralysis.
They’re still way better off than they were when they were slaughtering each other in massive numbers. But, you know, I hope that’ll be resolved
someday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Obviously, I was speaking to him, actually, in a perfect environment because you saw the two prime ministers of Britain and Ireland.
It was about the anniversary of the Northern Ireland Good Friday Peace Accord. So, they were talking about the hard slog of how you resolve these
incredibly long and difficult wars.
So, take what President Clinton said, Ambassador Hill, that they had to deal with the recalcitrance and also the Russian influence against a peace
deal, influencing the Serbs when it came to Bosnia. And it’s very similar to what’s happening now regarding Russia and Ukraine.
HILL: First of all, I just want to say on the issue of a ceasefire, the reason it worked in Dayton was everyone knew what the peace was going to
be. And so, the ceasefire came naturally as something you would do before you sat down, because everyone knew where it was going and no one wants to
be the last person to die in a war. So, that worked. The problem here is no one really knows where we’re heading on this.
Bosnia, I think, had the added complexity of several sides. And of course, on the Serbian side, who could speak for the Serbs, and that’s where we got
a situation where Milosevic could speak for all the Serbs, including the Serbs in Bosnia. That may not sound ideal, but we really needed some one-
stop shopping in terms of dealing with the Serbs. And so, we were able to get that from Milosevic, not because we liked him, but because it was — it
made the difficult negotiation something that we could actually solve.
But to President Clinton’s point, there’s no question we stopped a war, a war that had gone on for years, had claimed the lives of hundreds of
thousands of civilians, and we stopped that. And at a certain point, the parties, and this goes up to today, are going to have to do a much better
job of talking to each other and working things out together rather than tattletaling to the great powers.
So, I think we’re at a phase now where they can talk, they should be able to talk together. I would say the Ukraine situation is far from that.
AMANPOUR: And it does also show the limitations of freezing a, you know, conflict in place. Many Bosnians believe that it was unfair, it did stop
the war, but, you know, the ill-gotten gains of the Serbs have been cemented in place.
So, to you, Carl Bildt, Chris talked about the ceasefire and nobody wanted to be the last man to die for a war that was ending. But the truth of the
matter is, and I covered this war, obviously, for a long, long time, the United States and European leaders did not do the heavy lifting and the
heavy intervention to stop this war. It was only because of the massacre in Srebrenica, the subsequent attack on the marketplace in Sarajevo, that the
U.S. gathered a coalition to bomb the Bosnian Serb military emplacements and a lot of military reorganization started there.
So, this is not — how do you extrapolate diplomacy backed by the credible threat and then the use of force as used around Bosnia to the way the West
has done that between Russia and Ukraine?
BILDT: Well, there are fundamentally different conflicts. I think it’s very difficult to make any comparison. What we dealt with in this
particular case, we should not forget that it was a wider conflict all over former Yugoslavia. It was essentially a civil war inside Yugoslavia.
It was essentially a civil war inside Yugoslavia. The dissolution of Yugoslavia and to prevent the dissolution of the miniature Yugoslavia, that
was Bosnia. And one of the reasons why the war was so prolonged was that the International Community was profoundly divided. There were X numbers of
peace plans. There were X numbers of disagreements across Atlantic, inside the United States, inside Europe with the Russians. And it was only really
when all of the key international actors, the Europeans, the Americans and the Russians, that should not be forgotten.
We had the Russians in Dayton as well, agreed on one sort of overall peace plan or approach to peace that it was possible to, I wouldn’t say impose
it, but to convince the warring parties, all three of them, because there were three of them in reality, that this is the end of it and this is the
Bosnia that you will get now. And then, of course, the responsibility for taking that Bosnia further rested with the political authorities in
Sarajevo and Banja Luka and Mostar themselves further on. But it’s a very, very different conflict from the one that we have with the Russian
aggression against Ukraine.
AMANPOUR: Chris Hill, can I ask you about Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs, Milorad Dodik, you know, he has had sanctions taken off him by the Trump
administration, but they’re constantly agitating to essentially bust the deal and move Bosnia and Serb Republic into Serbia or get some kind of, you
know, further independence. What is the future looking like for the integrity of Bosnia?
HILL: Well, I think on the positive side of the ledger, the Serbs have made very clear they are not interested in having Bosnian Serbs as part of
Serbia. And I think they’ve said repeatedly they support Dayton, they support its external boundaries of Bosnia, they support the internal
boundaries of Bosnia.
The real issue is this kind of peculiar interpretation of Dayton rules that this Bosnian Serb leader, Dodik, has pursued where he simply does not
accept any overall structure and an overall structure of Bosnia, as Holbrooke used to call it, the roof, is very much in place. So, it’s been
an issue to make sure that these problems are addressed, but we’ve certainly not wanted a situation where Serbia itself would somehow
interfere and open up the whole question of where the boundaries of Bosnia are. And so, far, we’ve been fortunate on that.
I mean, I’ll mention one proviso, which is any leadership in Belgrade has to be aware of how the Serbs are perceived as being treated, and they don’t
want a situation where because of domestic opinion in Serbia, that somehow, they have to get more involved. But I think with very active diplomacy on
the part of both the Europeans and the U.S.
And I just want to reiterate points that Carl has made. I mean, we really worked together on this. We had our disagreement, but we worked together
with the understanding that together we were more than the sum of the parts. And so, we have made very clear to Belgrade what we expect, and so
far, so good in that regard.
AMANPOUR: And very quickly to you, Carl Bildt, if in Ukraine, the so- called peace deal allows Russia to get all its, or most of its demands, how much of a threat is that for Europe? What do you think? Everybody said
that, you know, if Russia isn’t stopped, that it will threaten the rest of Europe.
BILDT: I think there’s no way that Putin is going to get all of his demands. He might get some territory. He has, after three and a half years,
managed to capture slightly more than 90 percent of Ukraine territory. That’s a fairly miserable result of the Russian army. But of course, he
wants to take away the sovereignty of Ukraine, and that is simply unacceptable. And I would think it’s unachievable for Putin. He will have
to accept that he will not be successful.
Then it takes how long time it’s going to take for him and for Russia to accept that remains to be seen. But Europe and the U.S., I hope, will
support the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine for as long as it takes, because if that is endangered, if that is sort of crushed, then I
think all bets are off when it comes to the security of the rest of Europe.
AMANPOUR: Well, this is an important moment for us to have this conversation, and I really appreciate both of you. You were players in that
game in Bosnia. So, Ambassador Chris Hill, former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, thank you very much indeed for being with us.
And now, coming up, away from war and peace, she is the avant-garde actress who refuses to be typecast. I speak to Tilda Swinton about four decades of
shape-shifting and her new book, “Ongoing.”
AMANPOUR: Our next guest has spent her entire career defying categorization and convention, frightening us as the wicked white witch in
Narnia, switching sexual identities in “Orlando,” even shocking the world as an octogenarian male psychoanalysis in “Suspiria.”
Tilda Swinton is a rare Hollywood creature, both an Oscar-winning megastar and a favorite of indie film directors, photographers and fashion houses.
Well, now she’s inviting the world behind the scenes of those artistic collaborations in a new book and a new show. The book is called “Ongoing.”
And we spoke about it when she joined me here in New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Tilda Swinton, what a pleasure. Welcome to the program.
TILDA SWINTON, ACTOR: Thank you so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: So, we’re in the same city, which is great, so we can actually talk to each other.
SWINTON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And you’re here specifically for the promotion of your book.
SWINTON: I am.
AMANPOUR: Why is this book now, and why have you chosen to make almost like a — it’s like a pictorial version of your life?
SWINTON: It is. Well, it’s the genesis of the book is that it’s the companion to a show at a very great film museum in Amsterdam called Eye,
and they asked me to do a show, and I immediately said no. I had a failure of imagination and also nerve and thought, what could it be, a show of my
work? I felt very much I couldn’t see the wood for the trees, and I was so caught by the idea that it could only be retrospective, and I wasn’t
interested in making anything retrospective because I feel very alive and kicking and basically as if I’m still starting out. And it was only when I
started to ask myself what might be useful.
AMANPOUR: And what do you think was the answer to that question?
SWINTON: Well, I figured out that what is emblematic of my working practice for 40 years, I’ve now been working 40 years, is fellowship, is
companionship. I started working collectively with Derek Jarman in the ’80s, and he left the building in 1994, died of AIDS, way too early, and I
was high and dry at that point and thought, well, I’ve worked with him in this very collective way for nine years in a sort of co-authorship spirit.
I obviously can’t make films anymore, and then the miracle happened. I found other families, I found other people who work in this way. And so, I
decided to make the show about my collaborations.
AMANPOUR: It is actually fascinating, and you say you don’t want it to be retrospective, but it is. I mean, it starts at the beginning and all the
changing looks and faces and work of Tilda Swinton, but it does start with a letter to your old friend and collaborator, Derek Jarman. So, I wanted
you to read just a little bit of it.
SWINTON: I will. Yes, you’re absolutely right. In the book, there are these conversations with these few collaborators. And to Derek, I wrote a
letter. This is the way I communicate with him now. The only reason I found the nerve to make this show is because of all my buried treasure underfoot,
thanks to you. The perpetual life-sustaining happiness I found in embarking for four decades so far on exhilarating voyages in the making of work with
a pretty heavenly host of comrades, born out of friendship and shared curiosity.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, you’ve just read the ultimate fantastic collaboration, the shared comradeship, the collective vision, the ability to have actually
executed this dream with this person, and you’re still working with him after his death.
SWINTON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: How? By the letters or by what you choose to do or what?
SWINTON: Well, I was — I had an early — I was spoiled really early, Christiane. You know, I came out of the art world. I never wanted to work
as an actor. I was clearly not interested in the theatre, and I was looking for film. I was always looking for cinema. In the ’80s, it was quite hard
in London to catch cinema.
There were sort of three strands. On the menu, there were like three dishes. There was highfalutin, international, unreachable stuff made by
people like David Lean, and then there was a sort of cottage industry, lots of people in corsets, quite class-based, very televisual cinema,
exemplified by people like Merchant Ivory, very successful at a certain point, and I knew that I wasn’t interested in that.
And then there was this other kind of wild patch out the back, which was mainly funded by the British Film Institute, of artist filmmakers like
Peter Greenaway, like Sally Potter, with whom I went on to make “Orlando,” and Derek Jarman. And when I found that world, I found a way of working
that made me want to be a performer and actually to be a filmmaker.
AMANPOUR: But you have actually transcended all those worlds. You may say you didn’t want to do X and Y, but you became an international superstar in
the more classic genres and kept the indie spirit and the indie work as well. It’s quite rare.
SWINTON: Well, it was the seedbed of why it’s been possible for me to pack a relatively small suitcase and go into other worlds, because it’s always
the people. I learned early to work with people, and that I have to want to be with these people. They have to be mates, and we have to have a shared –
– as I say, a shared curiosity.
AMANPOUR: And a real collaboration.
SWINTON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, you’ve had many of these wonderful relationships. You’ve been, as you say, spoiled. Very lucky to have worked with some of the
greats, and you yourself are great. You’ve collaborated, obviously, with Pedro Almodovar lately.
SWINTON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And I spoke to him about the film, “The Room Next Door.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWINTON: The snow was falling, falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling on all the living and the dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I’m asking you this because we’ve talked about the death of Derek Jarman and how, you know, you still are dealing with it in a
collaborative way. But this was all about death, about your character, a war correspondent, I mean, I was thrilled, choosing the time and place of
her own death and inviting her friend, played by Julianne Moore, to help through this process.
But I want to just play a little bit of what Almodovar asked — said to me when I asked about your character.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEDRO AALMODOVAR, FILMMAKER: She’s physically very peculiar, and also she has this kind of sense of humor. And it — at least, it gives me this — I
mean, this the impression of being someone very brave, very courageous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: But also, you talked about the color and the vibrancy. It was about death, but it didn’t show death. It wasn’t dark and gloomy. You were
just like this explosion of color.
SWINTON: It’s not about death. I love that film. It’s such a precious film for me, not only because it’s his film, but also because it kind of grew
out of conversations that we had had over the years through our friendship about our relationship to grief and to being the witness to beloveds who
have slipped off.
And I — when he first asked me to make the film, I had to ask him, who do you want me to play? Because I’ve been for so many times in my life and
since I was quite young in what I call the Julianne Moore position. I’ve been the witness, and I’ve been the helpmeet, and I’ve been the supporter,
and I’ve been the cheerleader.
AMANPOUR: Why do you think that is?
SWINTON: Well, in the first instance, when I was 33 in 1994, I went to 43 funerals. That’s what people of my generation in — you know, in a certain
milieu went through.
AMANPOUR: This was after Derek died.
SWINTON: It was — well, Derek was one of them.
AMANPOUR: One of them. And this was the height of the AIDS crisis?
SWINTON: This was the height of AIDS — of that particular AIDS crisis.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SWINTON: And — so, it was quite young. I remember my grandmother, who was born in 1900 and lived through two World Wars. She was the one in my family
who understood. She said, this is your generation’s war. And I was aware that 33 is relatively young to go to 43 funerals.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, I can’t even imagine.
SWINTON: Yes, well, it was an early experience. And so, it’s with me, and I carry all my beloveds around with me all the time. And then, of course,
it’s very often the case with people of my age, my parents and other friends.
AMANPOUR: In your time in London, in the U.K., in those years, there was a lot of protests every weekend about the AIDS crisis, about Thatcherism,
about the seemingly cruelty of government towards people. At the same time that was happening here, the Reagan administration famously was very
insensitive and cruel about AIDS and about the victims.
And I just wonder whether you can sort of just compare a little bit what you all went through fighting against this apathy and this lack of care.
And now, you have children who are also protesting.
SWINTON: Yes, every Saturday. I was with them in London last year, and they kept saying to me, well, we can’t meet on Saturday because we’re
marching on Saturday. And I went, that reminds me of the ’80s.
Yes, I mean, I think, I do believe that we in the ’80s had — certainly in London, there was this way of feeling collective. There was a sense of kind
of ethical boundary. And I’m heartened to see that it is, I don’t believe it will ever leave us. I mean, we have to believe that it will never leave
us. And it’s very important that it’s constantly fanned and ignited and that people stand up to defy unkindness, as I say in my book. It’s all
about connection.
And I think — I do believe — I’m an absolutely avowed optimist. I believe in human beings. I think we can do better. I know we can do better. And I
believe we will. And its connection that will see us through.
AMANPOUR: One of the big films that really launched you into the stratosphere, I think, was Orlando, right? And that’s when you really, I
think, solidified your shape-shifting, genre-bending, physical presence onto the world. Tell me about that, because it’s easy to say, oh, androgyny
or this and that. But every time I look at you, I look at somebody different. You know, your hairstyle, your face, the angle, your arms. Your
whole body is angular. Your neck is long, you know. And I just wonder how your body informs your acting.
SWINTON: I love that. I love the thought of — I mean, let’s call me uncommitted. I think it’s a waste, this idea of fixing one’s identity. I
don’t believe it serves us. I mean, we all know fluidity and flexibility as children, and particularly in our adolescence. We all do. Even those people
who pretend they were never felt like a freak. Everybody feels like a freak. There will be people listening here now who will say, I never did.
Not true. Not true. Go deep.
Remember, and then use that memory to connect with those other people out there who are carrying their fluidity and flexibility with them. And engage
with them. There’s nothing to be frightened about in being that fluid.
AMANPOUR: I was always, you know, quite taken by your connection and collaboration with David Bowie.
SWINTON: Yes.
AMANPOUR: The two of you, in my humble opinion, look quite similar, and you move quite similar. And I just wondered what impact you and he had on
each other in terms of your professional and even personal collaboration.
SWINTON: I was given some Christmas money when I was 12, and I saw an album, an LP, a long-playing record, and it was Aladdin Sane, and I bought
it. And I didn’t have a record player. I couldn’t play it for a year until my elder brother, you know, after me, I don’t know, bribing him with some
favor, allowed me to play it. I carried that album around because of the way Bowie looked. I went, that’s a cousin of mine. He looks like me.
And then I met him in the ’90s, in fact, on a street corner. He stopped me. And we became friends, and we called each other cousin. And then I went on
to make a little film with him, and I loved him.
AMANPOUR: He was really remarkable.
SWINTON: Really remarkable.
AMANPOUR: And quite a genius, actually.
SWINTON: An absolute genius, and a genius in this fluidity respect, not just some sense of gender fluidity, but in every sense. He was, again, one
of my favorite capacities, curious. He was such a curious bird in every sense.
AMANPOUR: Tell me about the — it might have been your first show, I’m not sure, but the famous box at the Serpentine after Derek Jarman’s death, and
you essentially slept —
SWINTON: I slept in —
AMANPOUR: — for eight hours a day or so.
SWINTON: Yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: Do you actually sleep?
SWINTON: I never talk about it because I do intend to do it again, but the idea is that I’m asleep. I made this piece in 1995, the year after so many
of my friends had left, and the year after I had been — had spent about two or three years sitting beside bodies that were ailing, and many people
I knew would never get up again. And I remember having this sort of waking fantasy of sitting beside a healthy body, someone who was just asleep,
someone who would get up, and thinking about what that witness is. And so, I had this idea.
As I said earlier, I didn’t know that I was going to be able to go on making films after Derek Jarman died because I had almost exclusively
worked with him for nine years in this very, very home-grown way. And so, I was at a crossroads, and I made this performance, “The Maybe,” it’s called,
of me lying in this glass case, and people make of it what they will. You know, they come towards — they come very, very close, like you can in the
cinema, very close and scrutinized, or they can stand back, like in the theatre, and take in the whole scene.
AMANPOUR: You know, in real life, you come across as you are, friendly, open, chatty. In the films, you’re austere.
SWINTON: Really? Am I?
AMANPOUR: You don’t breach my space. I feel that anyway. I just feel that you’re very impregnable.
SWINTON: Interesting.
AMANPOUR: And I just wonder whether you feel that inside or you feel more vulnerable. You know, when you talked about being at the hospital, you
also, I think, said, in the ’90s, that you were almost the stand-in for your friend’s parents who had shunned them and who didn’t —
SWINTON: Very often.
AMANPOUR: Yes, which must have been a heck of a thing to internalize and carry for the rest of your life.
SWINTON: Yes, yes. And then there are many of us who are survivors, and we stay very close. And, yes, there is a sense, I have to say, of confusion
about the fact that that time — you know, we have to teach our children about that time because it feels like society is not going to do it for us.
And that I find, yes, confusing and outrageous because it’s something that is very much a part of our history and the idea of them not knowing about
that particular AIDS crisis. And I say that one because, of course, there are AIDS crises all the time and who knows what may come back.
It was an enormous rupture, social rupture. Think of the generations of artists and spirits that we lost during that time. All the incredible
forebears, particularly artists, I think. I think so often of younger generations not knowing about that.
AMANPOUR: Finally, what would you like people to take away from this book?
SWINTON: OK. What I’m very, very proud of with the show and with the book is how personal it is and how inviting it is and how accessible they are.
And my dream of the show, but I hope also for those who can’t get to the show wherever it goes in the world but can only access the book, is I would
really love people to go, oh, is that all it takes? It’s simple. Let’s do it. Let’s.
Because really what I’m saying is stick with your friends. Find your friends. Stick with them. We want our artists to be relaxed. We want them
to be authentic. We want people to be telling their own truths. We don’t want anyone dressing up as anybody else. That’s of no use to us. And I hope
that’s what you might find in that book. It has a soft cover. It’s like a flip book.
AMANPOUR: Yes, it is.
SWINTON: It’s full of pictures, but it’s full of conversations between friends. And I think work comes out of that friendship. But it is.
AMANPOUR: It’s easy and accessible and remarkable. So, Tilda Swinton, thank you for being with us.
SWINTON: Thank you very much, Christiane, my honor.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And coming up, is the world of modern sports changing as we know it? Journalist Joon Lee tells Michel Martin how gambling companies are now
calling the shots.
AMANPOUR: Next, from insider betting to game rigging, a wave of scandals is rocking the sports world. According to our next guest, it just proves
how gambling is reshaping the industry with alarming effect. A national poll says six in ten Americans now question the integrity of sport.
Journalist Joon Lee has written about this for the New York Times, and he joins Michel Martin to explain exactly how betting is changing the game for
the worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Joon Lee, thank you so much for speaking with us.
JOON LEO, SPORTS JOURNALIST AND CREATOR: Yes, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
MARTIN: So, you covered the NBA and Major League Baseball for major outlets. You’ve been writing about how sports betting is reshaping the
entire culture around sports. So, before we get into that, for people who perhaps haven’t followed this that closely, tell us what are a couple of
the scandals that have really gotten our attention?
LEE: So, the major scandal right now in the NBA is player Terry Rozier, the Portland Trail Blazers coach, Chauncey Billups, who’s also a Hall of
Famer, and some others who are involved in this major gambling ring that’s tied to the mafia and has also been tied to rigging prop bets. And so, what
that kind of entails is a player like Terry Rozier basically deciding to sit out because people that he knows have decided to bet on him and whether
or not he’s going to hit an over and under.
So, like, for example, a sports book might say that the odds on a guy — the over under on a guy might be 12 and a half points on a given night. So,
you bet whether or not he’s going to hit over 12 and a half points or under that. And a player in theory could tell their friends that they’re going to
be sitting out after the first half and that they should be trying to hit the under as much as possible, and that in turn would allow their friends
to make money off of their friends sitting out of a basketball game.
MARTIN: And prop bets being that you’re not betting on the entire outcome, you’re betting on like a specific action, right?
LEE: Yes, because sports gambling over the course of the last few years have expanded to a point where it’s not just about the wins and losses. You
can bet on something as small as the outcome of an individual pitch in a baseball game. You can bet on the length of the national anthem before the
Super Bowl. You can bet on whether or not Travis Kelce is going to propose to Taylor Swift if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. You can basically bet on
anything that happens within the confines of a stadium during a sports game now.
MARTIN: So, let’s talk about Major League Baseball. There was a recent scandal took place just earlier this month where the Department of Justice
charged two Cleveland Guardians players, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, over their alleged roles to rig bets on pitches thrown during MLB games.
Just briefly tell us about that.
LEE: Yes. And so, this is also tied to the prop bets where someone like Emmanuel Clase, who was one of the best relief pitchers in all of baseball,
someone who the Guardians could rely on to come in to close games when the games were tight and basically make sure that the other team doesn’t score
so that the Guardians would win. He basically had this arrangement where he would throw the first pitch into the dirt and his first pitch percentage of
strikes was much lower than the rest of the pitches he threw throughout the course of a game.
And it turns out that he was part of this ring tied where he was basically having his friends bet on the first pitch that he would throw in a baseball
game, being a ball so that they can make extra money off of it. And he would get a kickback from that.
MARTIN: So, let me just say Emmanuel Clase’s lawyer issued a statement saying he’s innocent of all charges. He looks forward to clearing his name
in court. Luis Ortiz’s lawyer also gave a statement, denied the charges and said Ortiz has never and would never improperly influence a game. Not for
anybody, not for anything.
Going back to the NBA case, Chauncey Billups’ lawyer gave a statement saying, anybody who knows Chauncey Billups knows he’s a man of integrity.
Men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others. And they say Chauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide
insider information or sacrifice the trust of his team and the league.
Terry Rozier’s attorney gave a statement via The Athletic and said, Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry
is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight. And he looks forward to winning this fight.
It’s important to know people are still innocent until they’re proven guilty in a court of law. But having said that, you’ve been writing about
the fact that you just think this whole there’s a core issue here that gambling, sports gambling, which has been embraced by the sports leagues
now, you feel has just really just changed the whole kind of ecosystem. Tell us why you say that.
LEE: Yes, there’s two things I think going on. First on kind of a sports world level. Gambling is now the major driver of revenue for the sports
leagues, whether it comes to TV ratings, the advertising for sports media outlets and sports journalism. It has its fingers in basically every single
nook and cranny of the industry.
You know, if you go back about 2011, 2012, there was a big panic that was happening among the sports leagues because TV ratings were falling, because
people my age who are in college at the time were not watching sports as frequently because there were so many other entertainment options, whether
it was social media or Netflix or other streaming services, YouTube. The sports leagues faced way more competition for eyeballs and attention than
ever had in the past.
And research found both internally within the leagues and externally that younger people were more engaged with sports when they were tied to doing
fantasy sports or with sports betting. And so, there was a push because of the falling TV rings and the falling potential revenue that the leagues
wanted to have sports gambling legalized in order to save their entire business, the foundation of being able to make sure that the lights stay on
and that the players get paid.
And so, as a result, there was a lobbying effort that started in New Jersey, but it started happening across the country as well to kind of
integrate daily fantasy sports initially, and then the legalization of sports betting and the kind of foundation of sports culture. And so, that’s
when you saw — started seeing kind of this massive push for sports gambling ads across every single game. First, it was daily fantasy, and
then it was sports gambling.
And you now see this across sports journalism outlets as well, where if you turn on a game, whether it’s on ESPN, or any of the other major networks
that broadcast sports, sports gambling ads are everywhere. And it funds a lot of the work that’s done outside of broadcasting as well, whether it’s
the sports journalism, or the sports commentary or the sports podcast world, it’s impossible to kind of escape the grip of sports gambling.
MARTIN: So, just say a little bit more about how gambling is just really integrated into the entire ecosystem. It’s not just the ads.
LEE: Yes. So, like, in the pregame show before the game, people are speculating about what might happen in the game tonight, there’ll be a
segment on the gambling odds for the evening, what are the percentage chances that this team is going to beat that team, or this player is going
to score a certain number of points or hit a home run.
And within the games, you’ll see live betting odds, as well integrated into that. You know, there’s the ads and then there’s the way that people talk
about the athletes as well. There’s an evolution from kind of the narrative, the bigger picture stories about the human beings involved in
the game that have kind of been pushed aside, and has now centered, you know, what are the odds of this happening? Can you win money off of this?
Did that field goal being missed wide right, you know, affects the odds and the over unders and are gamblers going to be mad?
And you see this too when you talk to athletes as well, you know, I have conversations across sports in locker rooms, and players are getting
harassed in their Instagram direct messages by fans who have lost money because of something that they did during a game. And it doesn’t matter if
they perform well, or if they perform poorly. Athletes are getting harassed either way, because regardless of how well they do, someone is losing money
as a result of their performance.
MARTIN: When you say harassed, what do you mean?
LEE: Racial slurs, homophobic slurs, death threats.
MARTIN: Threatening their families, death threats, right.
LEE: People doxing their addresses. Like there — it kind of covers the entire gamut. And there has been arrests made of people who have sent
threatening messages to athletes. People have had to report it up to the leagues like this is an issue that is becoming really, really widespread.
It’s not just limited to the players themselves, it’s also to the spouses and the children of athletes, anyone in this universe, you know, people are
getting harassed regardless of how an athlete performs on the field.
MARTIN: And you’re not just talking about professional athletes at this point, right, you’re talking about college athletes as well?
LEE: Yes, this is also happening at the college level, because you can bet on pretty much any college game that there is right now. And so, people
with — you know, who aren’t necessarily even public figures, who aren’t making millions and millions of dollars for — you know, to play a child’s
game, basically, are getting harassed because, you know, they’re trying to basically make their way through college and, you know, pay for further
education.
MARTIN: So, the sports books like DraftKings and FanDuel say that these scandals that you were telling us about show that their monitoring systems
are working, that regulated betting flags suspicious behavior, that they are providing actual safeguards. What do you say to that?
LEE: I think that it is accurate that we’re probably catching stuff that we might not have before. At the same time, I’m not sure how much that
matters. Because if the perception of integrity is falling among sports fans, that’s more important than what the actual integrity of the league is
at any given moment.
There was a poll that came out in Sacred Heart this last week after all these scandals and gambling with the Guardians and with Terry Rozier and
Chauncey Billups came out. 75 percent of sports gamblers, not even sports fans, sports gamblers believe that corruption extends beyond just the NBA
and exists across all sports with sports gambling right now. That is terrible news for the leagues.
Even if things are getting caught, it is the perception of whether or not the leagues have integrity in the first place that supersedes whether or
not that integrity is working at all. And ultimately, sports doesn’t matter, but people care about because of that integrity. And it really
scares me as a sports fan and also as an American that, you know, sports is one of these major institutions that people, you know, try to find trust
in, in this country.
And we live in a time where institutional trust is collapsing. I think that this is just another example of it. Because, you know, if sports, a thing
that sensibly doesn’t matter, in terms of affecting the direction of humanity, if the integrity of that is collapsing, what does that say for
things like our government or the, you know, the legacy media? There’s a lot of other concerns, I think, kind of are a domino effect, if people
start to lose their trust in something that’s that ostensibly doesn’t matter, like sports.
MARTIN: The leagues are responding to this by, I would say, emphasizing integrity, like, for example, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called the
federal charges against Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and others, quote, “deeply disturbing.” And he said that they raised serious questions about
the league’s relationship with gambling. He said to a reporter, there’s nothing more important to the league and its fans than the integrity of the
competition.
What do you think? How do you respond to that?
LEE: It feels like a slap on the wrist, it feels like, you know, narrowing in on what the issue is, when I think the larger picture issue is that
gambling culture and the gambling mindset has infiltrated and taken over the way that people engage with our country. And so, it’s not just about
these like small bets, it’s about the way that we engage with other people and the way that, you know, people engage with in politics now.
Like I was walking down the street during the New York City mayor’s race and I saw on the streets ads for Kalshi and Polymarket, these prediction
markets who are putting gambling odds on Zohran Mamdani versus Andrew Cuomo, you know, people are thinking about politics through the lens of
these the sports gambling now.
And when you’re putting democracy and you’re putting, you know, sometimes the lives of these politicians in the hands of these odds, it’s quite
frightening. I remember when Charlie Kirk got assassinated, that Polymarket and Kalshi had to take down betting markets on his political future. Like
this is no longer a thing that is just about sports, it’s about how the sports gambling mindset has taken over the way that many people engage with
culture in the United States.
MARTIN: Well, before we let you go, do you think is there a way to put the genie back in the bottle? I mean, do you see any sign that any of the
players in this ecosystem, as you describe it, are willing to take a step back and say, we’re destroying the fans relationship with the sport, we’re
destroying the athlete’s relationships with their sport? I just wonder if there’s anybody other than you saying, you know, hold on here. Let’s take a
breath.
LEE: It will take fans realizing that they have much more power than they realize, I think back to what happened with the Super League in Europe all
the time when, you know, all these major European soccer clubs kind of united together to try to create the Super League, that was kind of a major
boundary crossed by these owners, because it kind of took away from the local tradition of the Spanish Soccer League or the British Soccer League,
the Premier League or the Italian Soccer League.
And fans protested in the street, they literally blocked buses of players from being able to go into the stadium. There was a major political protest
over how owners were treating sports fans. And that kind of political kind of organization hasn’t happened in American sports.
Sports is a place where fans pay money, and it goes directly into the pockets of a lot of the richest people in our country. And I think when
fans realize that they have power to actually affect the lives of a lot of these billionaires, and they’re kind of massive plans for global growth,
there would have to be some sort of more political organization that is more similar to what has happened in Europe, and the relationship that
soccer fans have with their own teams, than what has historically happened in the United States. Until that happens, it’s hard for me to imagine
anything changing.
MARTIN: Joon Lee, thanks so much for talking with us.
LEE: Thanks so much for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: A reality check for everyone who loves sport. And that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly
after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and
goodbye from New York.