It’s October so you need to get ready for some spooky shit. Namely Tilda Swinton disguised as a withered elderly man with a prosthetic penis.

After keeping up the charade for months that the male psychiatrist in Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake, Dr Jozef Klemperer, was played by a reclusive newcomer Lutz Ebersdorf, it has been revealed he never existed.

When asked why she took on the task the actress said “for the sheer sake of fun above all”. “As my grandmother would have it – a motto to live and die by – ‘Dull Not To.’” 

At the Venice Film Festival press conference Swinton read a statement out on his behalf which stated that he was a retired psychoanalyst living in Berlin. She went on to tell the audience he was “a private person” and that he “strongly suspects” Suspiria is the only film he will ever appear in. However, she’s finally ready to come out having detailed in The New York Times how an Oscar-winning make-up artist transformed her into an octogenarian.

The make-up artist Mark Coulier, who also worked with her on The Grand Budapest Hotel where she played another elderly character, told the publication how he “thickened Swinton’s neck with prosthetics and built her jaw out to look heavier and more masculine.”

“She did have us make a penis and balls,” he added, revealing they’re probably in a box somewhere. “She had this nice, weighty set of genitalia so that she could feel it dangling between her legs, and she managed to get it out on set on a couple of occasions.”

In the run up to the film, scored by Thom Yorke, the Radiohead legend has dropped a few songs from the soundtrack. Following a teaser on his Instagram he shared “Suspirium”, and “Has Ended” – both equally haunting.

Suspiria will be out in limited US cinemas October 26, with a full release in the UK on November 16