Swank’s ready for more challenging roles

Hilary Swank’s rise to becoming a bankable Hollywood star and a two-time Oscar winner is the stuff of a movie itself. She spent much of her youth in a trailer park outside of Bellingham, Wash., and after getting a break was written out of “Beverly Hills, 90210” after 16 episodes. Just over a year after that, she would win her first Oscar for “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Although she has evolved into a marquee star as well as a producer who commands millions per role now, she received about $3,000 for her work on “Boys Don’t Cry.” If you look closely at her films, you can see someone with the sincerity and the buoyancy of an artist who made good despite crazy odds and has never forgotten the tough ascent to the peak.

Swank will appear this week in “P.S. I Love You,” collaborating again with writer-director Richard LaGravenese, who directed her in “Freedom Writers.” Early reviews of the romantic comedy about a dead husband who leaves behind messages of inspiration for his wife have not been kind.

In fact, after a period of success, she has hit some large potholes this year. Two other high-profile releases, “The Black Dahlia” and “The Reaping,” failed to impress critics or attract audiences. But in the case of Swank’s career, it hardly matters.

She has enough industry mojo in the bank to endure a few flops. Next year she will appear in the Craig Lucas-directed indie comedy, “Birds of America,” along with Ben Foster, Ginnifer Goodwin and Matthew Perry. She has a cameo in one of next summer’s tentpole films, “Iron Man.” In January of this year she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Swank’s strengths will always serve her well. Clearly she took James Cagney’s advice on acting to heart: “Look in the camera and tell the truth.” She’s believable in a variety of roles, she’s attractive and she’s likeable. And she has the guts to take on the kind of daunting roles other actresses of her stature might be afraid to touch.

The following is a list of five of her best films. She doesn’t have the extensive filmography of many of her peers. But she is really in her prime now, and figures to add more Oscar-worthy performances to her resume in the very near future:

“Million Dollar Baby”
Simply put, “Million Dollar Baby” is one of the best pictures of the past 25 years. Clint Eastwood’s poignant and heartbreaking saga about a female boxer with big dreams and her emotionally broken trainer won the best picture Oscar for 2004. Swank’s Maggie is at a crossroads in her life where her unwavering optimism is beginning to show cracks with age, and she clings to Eastwood’s Frankie, the owner of a crummy L.A. gym, for a shot at achieving her goal of becoming a boxing champion. Swank has been knocked because she comes from a modest and difficult upbringing herself and therefore is said by some to be comfortable only with roles that involve characters from that milieu. But Maggie is a difficult role to pull off. With failure and success trading punches in her head, she dances along an emotional tightrope through the whole film. And the final gut-wrenching scenes could have slipped into cliché-ville. Instead she gave a performance that earned her a second Oscar.

“Boys Don’t Cry”
Swank won her first Oscar for her moving portrayal of Brandon Teena, a teen who lived a male identity even though he was born biologically female. Once in a while the perfect role comes along for an actor or actress and he or she nails it; think Charlize Theron in “Monster,” or Jamie Foxx in “Ray.” This was Swank’s opportunity to embrace a challenge and make a name for herself, which she sorely needed after being fired from “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Obviously, Swank had to master the mannerisms and speech of a young man, but she also had to do so while providing glimpses of the emotional torment that lurked below the surface without being obvious about it. When fans and critics look back on her career years from now, “Boys Don’t Cry” will be to Hilary Swank what “A Streetcar Named Desire” was for Marlon Brando.

“Insomnia”
This film is probably more notable for being the sophomore effort from director Christopher Nolan. He made a splash with “Memento,” and this impressive remake of a 1997 Norwegian picture featured a battle of wits between sleep-deprived L.A. detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and killer Walter Finch (Robin Williams), set in Alaska. Swank plays a somewhat neutral character, Detective Ellie Burr, who is new to her job. She provides a refreshing counterweight to Pacino’s beaten-down veteran and alternates between being the good supportive complementary investigator who admires the older detective’s history and a shrewd, intuitive gumshoe in her own right. It was not her first film after “Boys Don’t Cry,” but it was her first with such major co-stars and showed she could handle herself in that company.

“Freedom Writers”
Based on a true story, “Freedom Writers” saw Swank play the lead character of Erin Gruwell. If you just watched the trailer, it would come off as one of those hackneyed tales about a devoted teacher with good intentions determined to change the lives of her inner-city students. It’s better than that, and much of the credit goes to both Swank the actress and Swank the producer who helped develop the material. Swank and director Richard LaGravenese sometimes slip into a vat of sentimentality and predictability. But the earnestness of Swank’s Erin is infectious, and it helps to smooth any sugary bumps. It’s not as challenging a role as her turns in “Million Dollar Baby” and “Boys Don’t Cry,” but she maintains a forceful presence and lifts a film that might otherwise have tumbled into the DVD bargain rack.

“Iron Jawed Angels”
This is an entertaining history lesson about the American women’s suffrage movement, made by HBO and featuring a splendid cast that included Anjelica Huston and Francis O’Connor. Swank plays Alice Paul, who returns from England after working as an activist there and discovers that the ladies involved in the U.S. movement are a little too cautious and timid for her radical tastes. In fact, they’re content with being second-class citizens, which rankles the feisty Alice. Swank possesses a stoicism that served her well in a role like this. She lends a dignity and a determination to her character, and she makes Alice seem like a real human who made sacrifices for the benefit of others and endured doubt and heartache because of it, and not some stick-figure caricature of a rabble-rouser.

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