Hilary Swank

Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress and film producer known for physically committed dramatic performances and for becoming a two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was born on July 30, 1974, in Lincoln, Nebraska, and spent part of her childhood in Washington state. Before acting became her main focus, Swank was active in athletics, including swimming and gymnastics, and she later described performance as a way to inhabit lives and identities beyond her own. As a teenager she moved to Los Angeles with her mother to pursue an acting career, beginning with television and small film roles before becoming one of the most recognized dramatic actresses of the late 1990s and 2000s.

Swank made her film debut with a supporting part in the 1992 comedy horror film Buffy the Vampire Slayer and soon appeared in television movies and episodic television. Her first major film lead was Julie Pierce in The Next Karate Kid, a role that drew on her athletic background and placed her opposite Pat Morita in the fourth film in the Karate Kid series. She also played Carly Reynolds during the eighth season of Beverly Hills, 90210. Although that television role ended sooner than expected, it was followed by the independent drama Boys Don't Cry, in which Swank portrayed Brandon Teena. The performance brought major critical attention and earned her the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Her second defining role came in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, in which she played Maggie Fitzgerald, an aspiring boxer whose determination anchors the film's sports and family drama. Swank trained intensively for the role and won her second Academy Award for Best Actress, again also receiving the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. The two wins made her one of the few performers to win the Best Actress Oscar for both of her first two nominations. In 2005, Time included her among its list of the world's 100 most influential people.