Hilary Swank may have been the “Million Dollar Baby” of Hollywood for years, but the two-time Oscar winner is now detailing how not every role she took on really resonated with her.
Swank, who rose to fame after her 1999 turn in trans true crime thriller “Boys Don’t Cry,” told Women’s Health that during the start of her career, Hollywood was “more patriarchal than ever.”
“Thankfully, it’s becoming more inclusive. But when I started, it was more patriarchal than ever. And so I was playing roles that were written by men from what a female point of view is, and it wasn’t necessarily true,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t like being feminine — I just don’t like being told how to be feminine.”
Swank added that her career trajectory was like being “shot out of a cannon.” Looking back, she has some advice for her younger self: “I probably would say, ‘Take a breath for a second.’ I’d say to really ruminate on the choices that you’re making every day. Make sure what is happening is what you want. That’s the only control we have — the choices we make every day. My time is my life.”
Swank did step away from acting for three years at age 24 to care for her ailing father. Her return to Hollywood brought her second Oscar with “Million Dollar Baby.” Swank added in the accompanying Women’s Health video that the role “significantly impacted” her body image at the time.
“I put on 25 pounds of muscle and it was the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done,” Swank said. “It becomes this thing that you are living in rather than being objectified. […] You feel so strong and in control.”
Now, Swank is guest starring in buzzy, all-female led series “Yellowjackets.” She said of the show, “I like to be part of projects where you either relate to somebody or you learn from somebody, or you’re just flat-out entertained. And sometimes the best case is when it’s all three.”
Swank previously said to Variety in 2020 that a “white straight male’s point-of-view” is still the pervasive POV for films. “In order to create change and to really make people tell stories that represent the world in which we live in — which is a colorful world full of all different types of people — rules like that need to be set,” she said. “There are so many stories in my 29 years of being in this business that have been told from a white straight male’s point-of-view, and it does a great disservice to people who are living in the world because they don’t get to see themselves represented on the screen in a way that makes them feel seen and heard.”
