Tilda Swinton has revealed David Bowie three years confessed he did not believe in an afterlife three years before he died

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Tilda explained: "He was very ill at the time [of making the music video], which I knew about - although I didn't know quite how ill. And he started to talk about an afterlife and he said, categorically, that he didn't think there was one."

Tilda revealed she formed a solid friendship with the 'Heroes' star and they often shared jokes together.

She recalled: "I remember that while making 'The Stars (Are Out Tonight)', a music video directed by Floria Sigismondi, I'd found a silly, anatomically deformed carrot in my salad at lunch - we talked about that, it kept us going for days ... "

She added: "He was always sending me images - sometimes silly, sometimes not. I used to be amazed at how aware he was of what we were all doing: he was so switched on."

Tilda previously admitted she'd been a fan of Bowie since she was a teenager and thought of him as a "cousin" because of their similar looks.

She told the Daily Beast: "My whole relationship with Bowie started when I was 13, and I bought a copy of 'Aladdin Sane' when I didn't have a record player.

"I had this record for a year before I could play it, and it was the image - not the sound - that I was attracted to. I just saw this image and thought he was my cousin.

"He just looked like me, and looked like someone from the same planet as I did, and that was a great comfort to me at the time when I was 13 and 14 looking like that, that someone not only looked like that, but felt proud enough to stick themselves on the front of an album with a zig-zag across their face and a dewy collarbone. He's always felt like a cousin."

She added of Bowie: "He feels like my cousin; like the cousin I never had."