Two
time Oscar winner Hilary Swank has built her reputation upon
a series of compelling performances, with her work in Boy’s
Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby prime among them.
Her other, varied, list of credits includes The Gift, Insomnia,
The Core and The
Black Dahlia.
In Freedom
Writers – based on a true story – she
plays Erin Gruwell, an idealistic new teacher at Wilson High
School in Long Beach, California. This is the early 1990s,
the era of the Rodney King police beating that inspired riots
in LA. These tensions inevitably touch Erin’s students,
who come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, and carry
into the classroom the distinctly drawn lines from their
communities.
They are, she is told, a class of underachieving no hopers
who will before long drift away from an academic life in
which they show no interest. But when she learns more about
their lives she determines to create a spark of interest
within them. And, before long her relentless enthusiasm and
unorthodox methods strike a chord with a class that slowly
becomes united in their desire to prove wrong all those who
had written them off.
Erin Gruwell has said that she only
wanted you to play her if they ever made her story into
a film, didn’t she?
“That’s what she said. She said she saw Boys
Don’t Cry and thought from that movie that she wanted
me to play her. Which I find fascinating – and great.”
Perhaps because both are real life stories treated sympathetically
without being sanitised in any way?
“That’s a good example of what she tried to
describe to me when I asked her how in God’s name she
figured out from Boys Don’t Cry that I should play
her.”
Did you have an inspirational teacher like her in your past?
“I didn’t have a teacher quite like Erin, but
for me this movie is about the power of someone who believes
in you and how that one person can change your life, and
I did have that one person. That was my Mom. So I was given
that gift. Unfortunately I don’t think everyone is,
and they’re made to feel like there’s no place
for them in the world. That was the case with a lot of these
kids that she found herself teaching.”
Was your background in any way comparable to the actual
Freedom Writers, and some of those actors who play them?
“It was comparable in that I
was definitely dealing with adversity in my life, but I
would never try and compare it to the depths of what they
went through. The one thing I was drawn to the most was
that power of someone believing in you. One of the things
that makes me saddest in life is seeing people who feel
hopeless about their own lives. Especially a kid. A child
or a young adult should never feel that.”
There’s a film history of inspirational teachers making
a difference, in part through understanding people that we
feel threatened by, isn’t there?
“Yeah, in fact when I first heard about this story
I thought of Dangerous Minds, but after reading it I felt
it was more Blackboard Jungle. But you know, ignorance is
the most dangerous thing in the world. When we feel like
there’s someone we don’t understand, that threatens
you for whatever reason but if you only sat down with that
person you’d realise you had a lot of things in common.
We’re all the same.”
That idea has a wider political
context, doesn’t it?
“Absolutely, that’s why I bring it up and that’s
why I talk about it. It’s just incredible to me to
think about these things. It stems back to what you tell
your kids. What are you going to tell them to believe?”
What were your feelings when you first met Erin?
“She’s a real force of nature, she’s so
outgoing, gregarious and genuine. She just has a way about
her that is rare. It’s no shock that she has got as
far as she has within the educational system, and where she
is today with her speaking about the world and teaching,
and how she sees it. She’s someone who thinks outside
the box, reaches out and makes a difference.”
In the end can films like this ever make a difference too?
“I feel like this movie, first and foremost, is really
entertaining. If you leave this movie feeling somewhat inspired
to be a little more open minded towards somebody you otherwise
wouldn’t have been then that’s a great by-product.”
Many of the cast who play your students are acting for the
first time, how did they interact with you?
“They obviously sought out my
advice, and we spoke of overcoming adversity and our outlooks
in life. These kids have overcome so much adversity in
their own lives and experienced so much as such a young
age, so to see them so lacking in bitterness about the
world and to see them regain a hope was a remarkable thing.
There really is a parallel with the young actors in the
film and the students in this story.”
Do you think many of these actors will pursue an acting
career now?
“I think that some absolutely would like to. Not all,
but I think a few would. But there aren’t as many roles
for the Latino community, the Asian community and the African-American
community, so when those roles come around it’s easier
to be pigeonholed, unfortunately.”
And yet that idea of being typecast, which many actors fight,
is something you have avoided. Do you consciously strive
for this or are you simply sent a wide range of material?
“I don’t think there’s any one thing that’s
sent to me that’s very specific. It’s hard to
pinpoint. I have a scary movie coming out for instance, and
then a romantic comedy. I went from The Black Dahlia to Freedom
Writers, to this scary movie to this romantic comedy, so
it’s not like I’m going to be able to be pigeonholed
any time soon.”
How intensely do you get into characters that you play,
and how much do they stay with you?
“The characters will always be in me somewhere, because
I part of what I love about being an actor is to get underneath
their skin to a depth that I really understand where they’re
coming from. With Boys Don’t Cry I lived my life as
a boy for four weeks on the streets, to see what worked and
what didn’t. And on Million Dollar Baby, I would box
for three months before I started filming, every single day,
six days a week, five hours a day, to learn what it’s
like to be a boxer. I get to live these lives for a short
amount of time, but really intensely. I get great opportunities
with these experiences so they’re all in there somewhere.
They help create who I am because I get to learn about life
on an even deeper level than I would if I hadn’t been
an actor.”
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