Tilda Swinton Says She 'Always Felt' She Was Queer: 'I Was Just Looking for My Queer Circus'

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Tilda Swinton is speaking out about what her queer identity means to her.

In the new issue of British Vogue, the Doctor Strange star, 60, opened up about identifying as queer, and how her career in Hollywood helped her find her "queer circus."

"I'm very clear that queer is actually, for me anyway, to do with sensibility," Swinton said. "I always felt I was queer – I was just looking for my queer circus, and I found it. And having found it, it's my world."

"Now I have a family with Wes Anderson, I have a family with Bong Joon-ho, I have a family with Jim Jarmusch, I have a family with Luca Guadagnino, with Lynne Ramsay, with Joanna Hogg," she added, listing some of the acclaimed directors she's worked with over the course of her career.

RELATED: George Clooney Gets All-Star MoMA Virtual Tribute from Bradley Cooper, Tilda Swinton and More

Swinton, who has been linked to German artist Sandro Kopp since 2004, also shares two children — twins Honor Swinton Byrne and Xavier Swinton Byrne, 23 — with ex John Byrne.

While speaking with British Vogue, the Academy Award winner also revealed that she never imagined she would have a career in the spotlight.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"I've never had any ambition as an artist," Swinton said. "That may sound crazy and transgressive, but it's a fact. If you'd asked me when I was 10 or 20, I would have said my only ambitions were to live in a family, to have friends that made me laugh and laughed at my jokes and to live in the Highlands of Scotland, by the sea with a lot of dogs and a kitchen garden."

"Seriously. And I have been really blessed to be able to achieve them," she added. "Everything else is a bonus. Everything else is just icing and candles and flowers alongside."

Swinton is currently filming Three Thousand Years of Longing. She stars alongside Idris Elba and David Collins in the George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)-directed fantasy romance.