Best Known As: Star of Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby
Hilary Swank has twice won the Academy Award as best actress: for playing a boxer in Clint Eastwood's 2004 drama Million Dollar Baby, and for her gender-bending turn in Boys Don't Cry (1999, with Chloë Sevigny). Swank got her start in the early 1990s with small roles in movies and TV shows. Her first big break came with the movie The Next Karate Kid (1994), in a leading role that made good use of her background in swimming and gymnastics. In Boys Don't Cry she gave a stunning performance as a young woman who lived as a young man; Swank's Oscar for best actress led to bigger roles and bigger paychecks. (She reportedly was paid a mere $3,000 -- $75 per day -- for Boys Don't Cry.) Even so, what followed was less than impressive: small roles in The Gift (2000, with Keanu Reeves) and Insomnia (2002, starring Al Pacino), and a part in the big-budget flop The Core (2003). For Million Dollar Baby, Swank trained rigorously, put 20 extra pounds on her lean frame and turned in a performance that earned her a second Oscar.
Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar as the best film of 2004, and Swank's co-star Morgan Freeman won the Oscar as best supporting actor... Some sources list Swank's birthplace as Lincoln, Nebraska, which is the birthplace of Teena Brandon, the transvestite whose story was the basis for Boys Don't Cry.
Career Highlights: Boys Don't Cry, The Gift, The Next Karate Kid
First Major Screen Credit: The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Biography
A professional actress since the age of 16, when she moved to Los Angeles from Bellingham, WA, Hilary Swank first appeared onscreen in 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Two years later, she earned a rudimentary degree of fame when she was picked to star in The Next Karate Kid, but this recognition proved fleeting. Swank subsequently appeared in a number of minor films and did a year-long stint on Beverly Hills 90210. In 1999, however, she won both acclaim and recognition for her lead role in Kimberly Peirce's independent drama Boys Don't Cry. Based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a woman whose decision to lead her life as a man met with dire consequences, Boys Don't Cry was one of the year's most lauded films, with particular praise going to Swank for her stunning performance. She went on to win a number of honors for her work in the film, including Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Actress, at the mere age of 25.
Predictably, Swank's workload increased significantly after her Oscar win in 2001, and the actress found herself starring in several lesser known but nonetheless challenging roles, including Sam Raimi's psychological thriller The Gift, as well as The Affair of the Necklace with future Oscar winner Adrien Brody. She also accepted a meaty supporting role as an eager-to-please rookie detective alongside Hollywood veteran Al Pacino in 2002's Insomnia. However, Swank did take a break from brooding period pieces and serious explorations of sexuality for one unapologetic big-budget summer blockbuster -- Jon Amiel's The Core (2003), in which she co-starred as one of several individuals chosen to journey to the Earth's core in hopes of jump-starting the collapsing electromagnetic forces.
Though she may have cut loose in a few post-Oscar popcorn munchers in a bid to blow off some steam onscreen, Swank had already gained a reputation as a serious-minded actress whose quickly evolving onscreen talent pointed to many great things to come in the future. Meanwhile, Swank and then-husband Chad Lowe (brother of Rob Lowe) mounted Accomplice Films, a Big Apple-based production house, in early 2004. Swank inaugurated this triumph with an executive producer credit on the quirky, little-seen auto-accident drama 11:14. Swank took the lead in the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated 2004 HBO women's suffrage drama Iron Jawed Angels, which also featured Anjelica Huston and Frances O'Connor. Soon after, Swank starred as a South African-born attorney in Tom Hooper's political drama Red Dust.
If audiences awaiting another knockout performance from Swank failed to catch her winning turns in Iron Jawed Angels and Red Dust, there was virtually no escaping her unforgettable evocation of a determined female pugilist in director Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004). As Robert De Niro did for another boxing picture over 20 years prior, the already tough-as-nails Swank physically transformed herself to an astonishing degree for the role, immersing herself in a holistic diet of egg-white shakes, fish, vegetables, and protein bars, and testing the barriers of endurance with 4 1/2-hour-a-day, six-day-per-week workouts. This harsh regimen enabled her to pack on 19 pounds of muscle. The gamble paid off onscreen as well. Swank's remarkable vitality and sincerity buoyed the film, which took home the Best Picture prize at the 77th Annual Academy Awards and netted Swank the highly coveted Best Actress award at the same ceremony -- a win that helped to bring Eastwood's critically lauded film a total of four well-deserved Oscars.
Doubtless encouraged by the success of Baby, Warner Bros. extended a one-year production deal to Accomplice Films in March 2005 -- an offer that Swank and Lowe immediately embraced, even as they filed for divorce in early 2006.
Meanwhile, if Swank stayed offscreen in 2005, she quietly geared up for a full slate of roles. The first in production was a Warners horror picture called The Reaping, produced by Joel Silver and Bob Zemeckis' Dark Castle Entertainment and directed by Stephen Hopkins. The film starred Swank as a professional defrauder of religious miracles overwhelmed by her inability to account for the Biblically overtoned horrors that plague a small town. In fall 2006, Swank co-headlined Brian De Palma's noir flop The Black Dahlia with Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, and Aaron Eckhart -- an adaptation of James Ellroy's novel based on the infamous, still-unsolved L.A. murder case of the title.
More successfully, Swank also began a two-picture collaboration with director Richard LaGravenese (Living Out Loud, A Decade Under the Influence). The first, Freedom Writers, was adapted from Erin Gruwell's memoir. Essentially a reworking of Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, the picture dramatized Gruwell's (Swank) successful attempts to turn "at risk" children around in the classroom. Swank's second LaGravenese effort, P.S., I Love You, was an adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel about a widow who is launched on a series of jaw-dropping adventures by some letters bequeathed to her by her dead husband. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Swank was born in Lincoln, Nebraska,[1] the daughter of Judy (née Clough), a secretary and dancer, and Stephen Swank, who was an officer in the Air National Guard and later a traveling salesman.[2] She has a brother, Dan. Many of her family members hail from Ringgold County, Iowa.[3] Swank came from humble beginnings, particularly as a child growing up in a trailer park near Lake Samish in Bellingham, Washington,[4] to which she moved at age six,[1] after having lived in Spokane, Washington. Swank has described her younger self as an "outsider" who felt that she belonged "only when [reading] a book or [seeing] a movie, and could get involved with a character," and was thus inspired to become an actress.[5]
When Swank was nine years old, she made her first appearance on stage starring in The Jungle Book. She became involved in school and community theater programs, including those of the Bellingham Theatre Guild. She went to Sehome High School[6] in Bellingham until she was sixteen. Swank also competed in the Junior Olympics and the Washington state championships in swimming; she ranked fifth in the state in all-around gymnastics[1] (which would come in handy when starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). Swank's parents separated when she was thirteen,[1] and her mother, supportive of her daughter's desire to act, moved to Los Angeles, where they lived out of their car until Swank's mother saved enough money to rent an apartment.[4] Swank has described her mother as the inspiration for her acting career and her life.[7] In California, Swank enrolled in South Pasadena High School (although she later dropped out of school)[8] and started acting professionally. She helped pay the rent with the money she earned appearing in television programs such as Evening Shade and Growing Pains.
Career
The Next Karate Kid (1994) paired Swank with Pat Morita. It is the fourth and final movie in the Karate Kid series. In September 1997, Swank was cast as single mother Carly Reynolds on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was initially promised it would be a two-year role, but saw her character written out after 16 episodes in January 1998. Swank later said that she was devastated at being cut from the show, thinking, "If I'm not good enough for 90210, I'm not good enough for anything."
As it turned out, the firing was a lucky break for Swank, freeing her to audition for the role of Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry. Swank reduced her body fat to seven percent in preparation for the role.[9] Many critics hailed hers as the best female performance of 1999; the performance of her co-star, Chloë Sevigny, was singled out as well. Swank's work ultimately won her the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Actress. She subsequently won the Best Actress Oscar and another Golden Globe for playing a boxer in Clint Eastwood's 2004 Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby, a role for which she underwent training in the ring and gained 19 pounds of muscle.[9]
Swank's success meant that she had joined the ranks of Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Sally Field, and Luise Rainer as the only actresses to have been nominated for Academy Awards twice and win both times.[citation needed] After winning her second Oscar, she said, "I don't know what I did in this life to deserve this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."[citation needed] Swank had earned only $75 per day for her work on Boys Don't Cry, culminating in a total of $3,000.[1][10][11] Her earnings were so low, that (according to an anecdote on 60 Minutes) she had not even earned enough to qualify for health insurance.
In early 2006, Swank signed a three-year contract as spokesperson for Guerlain (a women's fragrance).[12] In 2007, Swank starred in and executive produced[13]Freedom Writers, a drama about a real-life teacher who inspired a Californiahigh school class. Many reviews of Swank's performance were positive, with one critic noting that she "brings credibility" to the role,[14] and another stating that her performance reaches a "singular lack of artifice, stripping herself back to the bare essentials".[15]
Variety online reported in February 2008, that Swank would be portraying Amelia Earhart, and be co-executive producer for a biopic titled Amelia.[20] Filming occurred in the summer of 2008 in a number of international locations. Swank is also attached to star in the Hollywood remake version of Intimate Strangers.[21] In addition, it was reported that Swank would be a lead role and producer for an film adaptation of the John Marks novel Fangland,[22] directed by John Carpenter.[citation needed]
Personal life
Swank has said that she is "an actor, not a celebrity" and has described herself as a "homebody."[16] Swank considers herself a spiritual person, though not a member of an organized religion.[23] She has said that she is "athletically inclined" and that she "love[s] sports."[13]
Swank developed potential health problems, including elevated mercury levels in her body, through certain preparations for her roles, including weight gain and loss for Boys Don't Cry and The Black Dahlia. She has stated that she would "do what [she] need[s] to make [the role] believable and to make it work" and that her "battle scars are a reminder that you're alive and human and that you bleed."[9] In 2007, Swank noted that she "feel[s] like in the last couple of years, I’ve really come into my own and a lot of that has come from figuring out who I really am and what I want in life."[4]
Swank married actor Chad Lowe on September 28, 1997. The two met in 1992, on the set of Quiet Days in Hollywood, a direct-to-video film.[1] Swank infamously forgot to thank Lowe during her acceptance speech after winning her first Oscar in 2000, and she spent nearly every public appearance afterward making up for it. Upon winning her second Oscar in 2005, Lowe was the first person she thanked. However, in January 2006, the couple separated. In subsequent interviews, Swank expressed hope that they could reconcile, but they announced in May 2006 that they were divorcing.[24] In December 2006, Swank confirmed that she was dating John Campisi, her agent.[25]
