Having won two Academy Awards for her outstanding lead performances in “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Million Dollar Baby,” Hilary Swank is taking on another role: movie mogul.

Together with partner Molly Mickler Smith, she has formed a production company called 2S Films. The two met 13 years ago while working on the period drama “The Affair of the Necklace.”

Their first co-produced project through their company is “Something Borrowed,” a romantic comedy with a twist. Written by Jennie Snyder Urman, based on the novel by Emily Giffin, “Something Borrowed” is also a story about female friendship, betrayal and forgiveness.

Swank, 36, previously executive produced (and starred in) “Freedom Writers,” “Amelia” and more recently, “Conviction.” As executive producer, her responsibilities began after the projects already had been developed.

“Usually, they had a director on board,” she recalls. “I helped get the financing, the cast and then helped from the development on.”

“Something Borrowed” required a lot more effort on her part from start to finish.

“As a producer, your hands are on everything, from finding the writer of the adaptation to the director to the cast and gathering the crew and everything,” she says.

Swank says she knew after reading the book and pondering its potential as a movie there wasn’t really a part in it for her, but she nevertheless thought the material was ripe for a screen adaptation. So she and Smith obtained the film rights not only for Something Borrowed, but for the sequel Something Blue.

“You don’t want to force yourself into something that doesn’t feel right,” Swank insists. “I immediately saw Kate Hudson as Darcy and Molly immediately saw Ginnifer Goodwin as Rachel, and after we said that, I couldn’t get Ginnifer out of my head and she couldn’t get Kate our of her head. So we got our dream cast with the two girls.”

Meanwhile, Swank the actress recently wrapped Garry Marshall’s “New Year’s Eve,” the follow-up to his hit 2010 comedy “Valentine’s Day.”

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/