How the death of Tilda Swinton's mother bled into movie The Eternal Daughter

Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton channelled a bit of her late mother Judith Balfour in last year's gothic drama The Eternal Daughter.

Directed by Joanna Hogg, the movie features Swinton in a dual role - not for the first time either, Suspiria fans will know - as daughter Julie and mother Rosalind Hart, who stay at a ghoulish hotel.

In conversation with The Observer, the star revealed that her elderly character "wears a wardrobe made up very largely of my own mother's clothes – her shoes, her jewellery".

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"I have a particular tender affection in my memory of wearing these things," said Swinton, and this was a way of sustaining a sense of closeness to Balfour, who sadly passed away in 2012.

Opening up on this great loss, she then recalled: "I was looking after her all through and afterwards and was struck by how I took on her speech patterns and would sometimes wear her things – cardigans or shoes.

"There was a period of time, before she actually left and after she'd gone, when I was enmeshed in a very specific and material way.

"I'd find myself using language she'd have used and would feel the frisson of a thrill, the opportunity to use a particular turn of phrase... it is a way, of course, of keeping them with us."

So, if you microscopically analyse The Eternal Daughter, you may in fact be witnessing a recital of Balfour on screen.

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Meanwhile, Swinton appears in Netflix's brand-new assassin thriller The Killer, which is the latest directorial effort from Gone Girl's David Fincher and co-stars Michael Fassbender.

Watch: British actor Tilda Swinton on playing two roles in The Eternal Daughter