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Hilary Swank is reflecting on the challenges and rewards of being a mom of twins!

On Monday, the Oscar-winning actress, 49, spoke exclusively to PEOPLE at the premiere of her new film Ordinary Angels at the SVA Theatre in New York.

In April 2023, Swank and her husband Philip Schneider welcomed twins, daughter Aya and son Ohm.

Nights are admittedly “hard” with twins, but Swank also knows there will be a time when she’ll look back at this period with a different perspective.

“I think that being a mother of twins, I never have had a singleton, so I don’t know what that’s like,” she explained. “But I know that the sleepless nights are hard and when you have one that might sleep through the night, the other one’s not, so it’s kind of this trade-off every night.”

“But I know this is also a season, and it too will pass, and I try and remind myself that there’s going to be a day when I’m like, ‘Oh, I’d love to wake up right now and just hold you.’ So just trying and hold on to that.”

She’s already looking forward to the next challenge: when the twins are more mobile.

“Well, they’re only crawling, so it’s not like we’re out of control or anything,” she tells PEOPLE.

In the Lionsgate film, Swank stars as Sharon Stevens, a “fierce but struggling hairdresser in small-town Kentucky who discovers a renewed sense of purpose when she meets Ed (Alan Ritchson), a widower working hard to make ends meet for his two daughters,” according to an official synopsis.
She starts out as a member of an alcoholism support group, but then cleans up her act to help the widower whose 5-year-old who is waiting for a liver transplant.

“What unfolds is the inspiring tale of faith, everyday miracles and ordinary angels,” the synopsis adds.

Ordinary Angels also stars Tamala Jones, Amy Acker, Drew Powell, Skywalker Hughes and Emily Mitchell, and is directed by Jon Gunn.

During an appearance on Today on Monday ahead of the premiere, the new mom revealed the special meaning behind her babies’ names.

“Aya was a Syrian refugee we met in Lebanon. So she was just this courageous, brave young girl full of life going through a really difficult time. My husband and I were like, she’s so beautiful, what a great name,” she shared.

As for son Ohm, Swank said, “Ohm is considered the first universal sound and unites all people, and that sounds very fitting.”
Source: https://people.com/

These days, the two-time Oscar-winner is staying on familiar ground, in her life and in her work. Her new film, “Ordinary Angels,” is the true story of a woman who moves mountains to help a little girl who needs a liver transplant, to the point of begging the hospital to erase the mounting medical debt.

For Swank, whose own father was a lung transplant recipient, the story hits painfully close to home. She started filming about five months after his death on October 1, 2021. “And so it was like, almost, I don’t know, kismet in a way, to be a part of it,” she said.

The movie is about a woman who tries to do the impossible, and keeps trying, until it happens.

Raised in Bellingham, Washington, she grew up on the proverbial wrong side of town. Some kids at her school were told not to hang out with the kid from the trailer park. “Yeah, I don’t know – they didn’t want their kids playing with me. I don’t know. I know it’s stupid. It’s so silly.”

But it stayed with her: “Well, it stayed with me because, obviously, I didn’t understand it,” Swank said. “But it’s interesting, ’cause some of those people now, being back in the home town, were like, ‘Oh, I always believed in you.’ Yeah, I’m like, ‘No, you didn’t.’ I can’t keep my mouth shut to that!”

And their response? “That they don’t remember.”

And it seems she never forgot how tough it was to make it. For years she took any part, no matter how small. You might recognize her in “Growing Pains” with another struggling actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, who was on his way up, too.

“It was nine years of really hitting the pavement,” she said, “auditioning five times a day. And in the trunk of my car, it was all these different outfits that I would change and go in to be this different person in these auditions.”

And there was a lot of rejection. “You know, it’s a really hard thing to be told all the time, you know, about your looks and why you might not have gotten this or that. And you start to think, ‘Oh, do I need to change that about myself?’ And I think that was one of the reasons why – I didn’t realize consciously I was doing it, but I think I was looking for roles that weren’t about appearance, that they were really about people.”

And that turned out to be the key. In 1999 she landed a role that changed everything: “Boys Don’t Cry,” playing a real life trans teenager.

Continue reading Hilary Swank on “Ordinary Angels” and miracles