The last time I saw Tilda Swinton, she was a voluptuous nude redhead projected in two dimensions from the advance-screening print of her new drama, “Young Adam,” released in the United States on April 16.

Aside from clothing, I wasn’t sure what to expect for our face-to-face encounter. “Young Adam,” a film about Joe, a restless, immoral young man (Ewan McGregor) who lives on a barge with Ella (Swinton) and her husband, is a steamy drama that has received a rare NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. After I had waited for 10 minutes on the 46th floor of the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, in walked a blond woman wearing a purple turtleneck — I almost didn’t recognize her.

After introducing herself as Tilda Swinton, she walked to the head of the table where a strange drawing lay: two concentric semicircles surrounded a dot right in the middle. “Perhaps this is a reference to the fly on the nipple shot,” she said.

Thus began our sexually-charged interview.

Accompanying Swinton was “Young Adam” writer-director (and fellow Scot) David Mackenzie. He pulled out a pack of European cigarettes sporting one of those “smoking kills” warnings, which he blatantly ignored as he puffed away.

Immediately we jumped into the issue that could make or break the film in America: its controversial NC-17 rating.

“It doesn’t really mean anything to us, to be honest,” said Mackenzie, who was never told to cut his film to achieve an R rating.

“The only issue with any rating is how it affects the audience,” said Swinton, adding that the film was designated for viewers over 18 in the UK. “(An ’18’ rating) doesn’t seem to terrify British people in the way in which the NC-17 rating might conceivably (scare Americans).”

Whether they like it or not (and they do), Swinton and Mackenzie are testing the limits of how sexually explicit a film can be.

“David and I are happy to be involved in the vanguard of new adult cinema,” Swinton reassured me.

But what neither of them knew was that, in the United States, Blockbuster will not carry NC-17-rated films in an effort, according to the company’s Web site, “to provide a wholesome environment for you and your family.”

Neither Swinton nor Mackenzie seems troubled by the arguably reduced chances for their film’s commercial success in this country because of the rating.

“It’s a serious film based on a serious piece of literature (the novel by Scottish Beat writer Alexander Trocchi),” said Mackenzie. “I don’t think it’s a standard they should try to keep. They should (decide whether to carry an NC-17) movie on a film-by-film basis.”

What attracted Swinton to the role of Ella Gault, adulteress extraordinaire, was “hidden depths, the fact that she undergoes certain transformations, and the fact that she’s so inarticulate,” she said.

That inarticulate quality was vital in the development of the relationship between Swinton’s and McGregor’s characters, Mackenzie said.

“The sex between Joe and Ella is the way they have their conversations because they come from slightly different worlds and they can’t really communicate in any other way,” he said. “We were interested in the gaps and silences between the words.”

Then Swinton reversed the reporter-subject roles in her matter-of-fact way.

“The scene that got us our NC-17 rating — would you like to guess what it was?”

Panic struck me. I was pretty sure it was the scene where McGregor performs oral sex on Swinton, but I wasn’t sure how to say this. Going downtown? Cunnilingus? A normally taboo topic had been broached, and I had to figure my way out of it without embarrassing either of us.

“It was the first scene with you and him being intimate when you’re outside,” I said.

“Isn’t that interesting? Now why did you guess that? I would never have guessed that.”

Phew. I was relieved.

“(It’s) because you never see that sexual act in American film,” I said.

“Why do you never see that?” interjected Mackenzie, once again trying to expand the boundary of acceptable material.

After I finished standing in as American morality ambassador, Swinton told me what scenes she originally guessed had earned “Young Adam” its NC-17 rating.

“There’s that rogering in the alley with the sister or that rather boring issue of male genitalia for five milliseconds,” she said. “But no, it was (what you guessed), the tenderest love scene in the film.”

Mackenzie also felt a deep affection for that scene.

“Thank God we didn’t have to cut it,” he said. “It would have been a much more ritual coming together between Joe and Ella.”

Ultimately Swinton wants the audience to leave the theater with “a desire to see more adult films” and a desire to see more films where a character’s morality is not clearly delineated.

Will Swinton and company succeed in this mission? Perhaps they will … if more people see concentric circles with a dot in the middle and immediately think of a breast. 

Weinberg junior Ben Rosen is a writer for PLAY. He can be reached at [email protected].