THE sky’s the limit for Hilary Swank’s dedication to making a screen role come to life. She tells Siobhan Synnot why she had to learn to fly to become feminist pioneer Amelia Earhart.

Hilary Swank is used to rising to a challenge, whether it’s piling on 20 pounds of muscle to play a girl pugilist in Million Dollar Baby, or passing herself off as a boy in Boys Don’t Cry. Her conscientious attention to character has won her audiences and awards, including two Oscars, yet not everyone is impressed by her film choices. “My mother used to ask me, ‘Are you going to ever live to see the credits?'” admits Swank with a laugh. Continue reading New interview

Hilary Swank is sitting in her backyard in LA, feeling the sun on her face. Her dogs, Karoo and Rumi, are playing at her feet.

These days, she can afford to relax, but it wasn’t always so. In the past, she thought she should keep working, keep striving, looking for the next thing. But times have changed.

As a plane flies overhead, the actor looks skywards, wondering where it’s headed. She says she’s been doing this since she was a kid and was always keen to visit new places – even when growing up poor in a trailer park in Bellingham, a small town in Washington, meant travel options were limited at best. Continue reading Hilary Swank gets high on life

On screen, Hilary Swank incarnates the larger-than-life Amelia Earhart, pioneering aviatrix, as a towering figure. Yet in life the two-time Oscar winner, 35, is of medium height, slim as a tulip stem.

Despite a chilly hotel suite, she radiates warmth.

Clad in a cobalt-blue minidress patterned with polka dots the size of her large brown eyes, Swank improvises a cocoon out of an assistant’s flannel shirt. Don’t tell her stylist, but the actress is about being comfortable, not glamorous. Continue reading Swank shares Earhart’s derring-do

Historical figures like Amelia Earhart are hard to come by– a woman who bucked the trends of her time by wearing pants and refusing to marry until her 30s, who wasn’t just a pioneer in the field of aviation, but was committed to helping other women follow in her footsteps. Then again, directors like Mira Nair and actresses like Hilary Swank are hard to come by too. Nair is one of few female directors working consistently with big budgets and stars, while Swank has made her career playing tough women like Million Dollar Baby’s Maggie Fitzgerald, or tackling tricky roles like Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry. Continue reading Hilary And Mira Nair On Female Power And Amelia

Hilary Swank has won two Best Actress Oscars over the past decade and now she could be gunning for a third with her performance in Amelia, which opens in theaters nationwide on October 23. Swank and her director, Mira Nair, recently held a press conference discussing this biopic of famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart and here’s what Swank and Nair had to say. Continue reading Hilary and Mira Nair Get Airborne with Amelia