Million dollar appearance
Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank closes out The
Hollywood Masters series for 2014 at LMU
by Michael Aushenker
Of meeting her “Million Dollar Baby” director for the first
time at his Warner Bros. office, Hilary Swank described the filmmaker this way:
“He was a tall glass of water. He was refreshing and so handsome. He is Clint
Eastwood.”
The actress could have used a tall glass of water on Nov.
12, when the Hollywood Reporter’s Special Features editor Stephen Galloway
interviewed Swank in a conversation closing the exclusive The Hollywood Masters
series for 2014 at Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television.
Swank’s voice was hoarse from promoting “The Homesman,” which co-stars director
Tommy Lee Jones and came out last Friday. She asked for some cough drops and
received them from a screenwriting student in the audience.
This, on top of running late because she was trapped within
her own home.
“The power went out and my gates are electric,” said Swank,
who nevertheless scaled said walls. “My next job is Spider-Woman!”
Prone to positivity, effusively espousing lines such as
“There’s no biggest obstacle than ourselves,” Swank handily won over her teen
audience of aspiring entertainment professionals with her upbeat nature as she
recalled the classicism she experienced growing up in a Lincoln, Nebraska
trailer park and how she and her mom lived in an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme for
three weeks upon arriving in Hollywood.
But it was worthwhile. Swank landed a plum part on “Beverly
Hills 90210.”
Too bad the Aaron Spelling soap had jumped the shark by this—its
eighth season— and was quickly canceled. Swank was depressed.
Then, two months later, she landed the role of real-life tragic
transgender figure Brandon Teena for which she won her first Academy Award.
“There are no negatives,” Swank said. “I think it is how we
choose to look at it. It would not have happened if I were still on ’90210.’”
What Swank deemed “the little movie that could,” “Boys Don’t
Cry” became the breakthrough film making it possible for her to work with
“Interstellar” director Christopher Nolan on 2002’s “Insomnia” (“I feel like
he’s not just a director, he’s a visionary”) and Eastwood on 2004’s “Million
Dollar Baby,” which landed her a second Oscar.
“I felt like I was shot out of a cannon with that movie,”
she said of the unlikely success of micro-budgeted indie “Boys,” for which she
only received $3,000 (not even qualifying her for SAG health coverage, then a
minimum $5,000).
Swank has since portrayed uber-teacher Erin Gruwell (“Freedom
Writers”) and doomed aviator Amelia Earhart (“Amelia”).
“I’ve pretty much made a living out of playing real-life
characters,” she said, laughing.
Proud of her “Boys,” acting opposite then-rising actors Chloë
Sevigny and Peter Sarsgaard, “I didn’t know it was going to be a catalyst for a
bigger talk about gay, lesbian and transgender people,” Swank said.
In fact, following her talk, she could not stick around long
to chat with students because that very evening, Swank was receiving an award
at Outfest, thanks to this little movie she made 15 years ago.
