Hilary Swank is opening up about the challenges of being a young actress in a male-centric industry.
In a recent sit down with Women’s Heath, the “Million Dollar Baby” star said that when she first started acting, Hollywood “was more patriarchal than ever,” which made it difficult to fully embody her roles.
“Thankfully, it’s becoming more inclusive,” Swank said. “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.”
“It’s not that I don’t like being feminine,” she added. “I just don’t like being told how to be feminine.”
Swank, a two-time Oscar winner, earned her first Academy Award for her leading role in 1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” in which she played a transgender teen trying to navigate adolescence in rural Nebraska. Her second Oscar came in 2004 for “Million Dollar Baby.” In that film, Swank portrayed an up-and-coming boxer who is taken under the wing of an aging coach, played by Clint Eastwood.
When asked what it was like to win her first Academy Award at 25, Swank said it was “like I was shot out of a cannon.” She went on to add that if she could give some advice to her younger self, she 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.”
