Age: 33 Home Town: Lincoln, Nebraska Status: Livin' Life Biography: In September 1997, Swank was cast as single mother Carly Reynolds on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was initially promised it would be a two-year role, but saw her character written out after 16 episodes in January 1998. Swank later said that she was devastated at being cut from the show, thinking, "If I'm not good enough for 90210, I'm not good enough for anything." As it turned out, the firing was the best thing to happen to Swank, as it freed her to audition for the role of Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry. Swank dropped her body fat down to seven percent in preparation for the role. Many critics hailed hers as the best female performance of 1999; her co-star of the film, Chloë Sevigny, had her performance singled out for praise also, Swank and Sevigny were often ranked as the best two leads of 1999 in film. The performance ultimately won her the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Actress. She subsequently won the Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe again for playing a boxer in 2004's Million Dollar Baby, a role for which she underwent training and gained 19 pounds of muscle.
Swank's Oscar success meant that she had joined the ranks of Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Sally Field, and Luise Rainer as the only actresses to have been nominated twice and win both times (both times she won over fellow actress and nominee Annette Bening). She is also the third-youngest double Best Actress Oscar winner (after Luise Rainer and Jodie Foster.) After winning her second Best Actress Oscar, she said, "I don't know what I did in this life to deserve this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream." Swank had earned only $75/day for her work on Boys Don't Cry, culminating in a total of $3,000. Her earnings were so low, that (according to an anecdote on 60 Minutes) she had not even earned enough to qualify for health insurance but she has managed to draw attention of fight-movie goers and boxing fans with her award winning role Million-Dollar Baby.
In early 2006, Swank signed a three-year contract as spokesperson for Guerlain (a women's fragrance). In 2007, Swank starred in and executive produced Freedom Writers, a drama about a real-life teacher who inspired a California high school class. Many reviews of Swank's performance were positive, with one critic noting that she "brings credibility" to the role and another stating that her performance reaches a "singular lack of artifice, stripping herself back to the bare essentials".Later the same year, Swank starred The Reaping, a horror film released on April 5, 2007, in which she plays a debunker of religious phenomena. Swank convinced the producers to move the film's setting from New England to the Deep South, and the movie was filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina struck. Swank has also completed filming on the romantic comedy PS, I Love You.She will have a cameo in Iron Man, an upcoming film based on fictional Marvel Comics character due for release in May 2008.
Swank received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, January 8, 2007. Hers was the 2,325th star given.
