A professional actress since the age of 16, when she moved to Los Angeles from Bellingham, WA, Hilary Swank first appeared onscreen in 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Two years later, she earned a rudimentary degree of fame when she was picked to star in The Next Karate Kid, but this recognition proved fleeting: Swank subsequently appeared in a number of minor films and did a year-long stint on Beverly Hills 90210. In 1999, however, she won both acclaim and recognition for her lead role in Kimberly Peirce's independent drama Boys Don't Cry. Based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a woman whose decision to lead her life as a man met with dire consequences, Boys Don't Cry was one of the year's most lauded films, with particular praise going to Swank for her stunning performance. She went on to win a number of honors for her work in the film, including Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Actress, at the mere age of 25.Predictably, Swank's workload increased significantly after her Oscar win in 2001, and the actress found herself starring in several lesser known but nonetheless challenging roles, including Sam Raimi's psychological thriller The Gift (2001), as well as The Affair of the Necklace with then future Oscar winner Adrien Brody. Swank also co-narrated the Barbra Streisand-produced documentary Reel Models: The First Women of Film, and would take on gender equality issues once again in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels(2003), which featured Swank, Angelica Houston, and Frances O'Connor as leaders in the women's suffrage movement. However, Swank did take a break from brooding period pieces and serious explorations of sexuality for one unapologetic big-budget summer blockbuster — Jon Amiel's The Core (2003), in which Swank co-starred as one of several individuals chosen to journey to the Earth's core in hopes of jump-starting the collapsing electromagentic forces. She also accepted a supporting role as an eager-to-please rookie detective alongside Hollywood veteran Al Pacino in 2002's Insomnia. Though she may have cut loose in a few post-Oscar popcorn munchers in a bid to blow off some steam onscreen, Swank had already gained a reputation as a serious-minded actress whose quickly evolving onscreen talent pointed to many great things to come in the future. Meanwhile, Swank and then-husband Chad Lowe (brother of Rob Lowe) mounted Accomplice Films, a Big Apple-based production house, in early 2004. Swank inaugurated this triumph with an executive producer credit on the quirky, little seen auto accident drama 11:14 Swank took the lead in the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated 2004 HBO drama Iron Jawed Angels - with a role as a South African-born attorney in Tom Hooper's political drama Red Dust following soon thereafter. If audiences awaiting another knockout performance from Swank failed to catch her winning performances in Iron Jawed Angels and Red Dust, there was virtually no escaping her unforgettable evocation of a determined female pugilist in director Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004). As Robert De Niro did for another boxing picture over twenty years prior, the already tough-as-nails Swank physically transformed herself to an astonishing degree for the role, by immersing herself in a holistic diet of egg-white shakes, fish, vegetables, and protein bars, and forcing herself through the barriers of endurance with 4 1/2 hour-a-day, six day-per-week workouts. It enabled her to pack on nineteen pounds.The gamble paid onscreen as well. Swank's remarkable vitality and sincerity served as a highlight to the film that took home the "Best Picture" prize at the 77th Annual Academy Awards, and netted Swank the highly-coveted "Best Actress" award at the same ceremony - a win that helped to bring Eastwood's critically lauded film a total of four well—deserved Oscars. Doubtless encouraged by the film's Oscars, Warner Brothers extended a one-year production deal to Accomplice Films in March 2005 - an offer that Swank and Lowe immediately embraced, even as they purportedly experienced personal difficulties with one another and filed for divorce in early 2006.Meanwhile, if Swank stayed offscreen in 2005, she quietly geared up for a full slate of quadruple roles. The first, a Warners horror picture called The Reaping, was slated for issue in August '06. Produced by Joel Silver and Bob Zemeckis's Dark Castle Entertainment and directed by Stephen Hopkins, the film stars Swank as a professional defrauder of religious miracles overwhelmed by her inability to account for the Biblically-overtoned horrors that plague a small town. The film was bumped to 2007. Swank co-headlined Brian de Palma's noir picture Black Dahlia with Josh Hartnett - an adaptation of James Ellroy's novel based on the infamous, still-unsolved L.A. murder case of the title.Swank also began a two-picture collaboration with director Richard LaGravenese (Living Out Loud, A Decade Under the Influence). The first, Freedom Writers, is adapted from Erin Gruwell's memoir The Freedom Writer's Diaries: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Essentially a reworking of Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds, the picture dramatizes Gruwell's (Swank) successful attempts to turn "at risk" children around in the classroom. Swank's second LaGravenese effort, P.S., I Love You, is an adaptation of Celia Ahern's novel about a widow launched on a series of jaw-dropping adventures by some letters that her dead husband bequeaths to her.