A gurgling infant falls from the sky, landing in the arms of a woman. As shocks go, it’s a big one, especially since the baby turns out to be killing unsuspecting civilians. But you get the feeling that Michelle de Swarte, who plays the woman in HBO/Sky’s new horror-comedy The Baby, can handle it. Before going into acting, after all, De Swarte worked as a journalist, a model and a standup. She’s had her fair share of problems falling from the sky.
“My self-esteem is all right,” she says, as we sit on strangely low chairs in a London hotel lobby. Her hair is pulled into a neat ponytail, her shoes are flat and, as we arrived, I watched her sneak an empty smoothie bottle behind a vase of flowers standing on the bar. “For the most part,” she adds, “I don’t mind failing. But that doesn’t mean I like or love myself every day. It doesn’t mean I don’t get in the cycle of calling myself a dickhead when no one’s in the house.”
