Hilary Swank

[angelaudie]

I thought Hilary was excellent in Boys Don't Cry and deserved her Oscar. Everything else she's been meh. Not awful but not that great either.

The VF interview was a complete jerk move and I don't think endeared her to anyone. Honestly, I don't know why she even worried about getting caught with her manager. I don't think anyone really cared about her personal life. When she's not promoting a film you hear nothing about her. She's not on the tabs radar.

[normadesmond]

Oct 18, 2009 18:13:29 GMT -4 iClaudia said:

I figure she was riding on the Clint Eastwood love train when she won the second Oscar.

You could be right. I didn't think of it before, but the only other of today's actresses to win a second Oscar as early in life as Swank is Jodie Foster. And she too was riding a love train for a movie, The Silence of the Lambs, that dominated the major categories, just like Million Dollar Baby did.

As ridiculous as the Oscars often are, I was actually happy when she won the second time because I just knew that Fishstick was somewhere stewing in her juices about. Her reaction after Swank won the first time ("welcome to the club" phony pretension) always bugged me. I'd rather Swank have two Oscars than some other anointed one "it" girl.

Gwyneth must not be too pleased at how recent history has turned out: most of the other Best Actress winners of the past couple decades were either nominated several times before they won (like Winslet or Sarandon or Mirren) or went on to receive at least one other nomination, and sometimes several. But Gwyneth, like Helen Hunt, is still only a one-time nominee.

Gwyneth's Oscar doesn't even bug me anymore. I resented it at the time, but now I'm grateful she won. Grateful? Why yes! I used to be, "Fucking give Cate Blanchett back her Oscar!" but now I realize that if Gwyneth hadn't robbed Cate, Cate would almost certainly not have won for The Aviator, which was really a make-up win for the earlier snub. Next in line to take it the night Blanchett won was almost certainly Princess Amidala herself: Princess Natalie of Harvard for Closer (she won that year's Golden Globe). If Cate had won for Elizabeth, it's virtually certain she'd have lost for The Aviator, which means Natalie Portman would probably have an Oscar right now. She'll probably get one anyway, eventually, given how overhyped and overrated she is, but at least she'll have to wait for it.

[mochakitty]

Hilary at the premiere of Amelia (October 20th, NYC):

Close-up

Full Length Shot

“It’s a responsibility to play someone who really lived,” Hilary told the Vancouver Sun. “And it’s a big responsibility to play someone as iconic as Amelia. I mean, we all have such a great idea of who she was and what she looked like, so there wasn’t a lot of room for fictional license, and we just had to do the best we could to bring honour to that person. Under (director) Mira [Nair]’s guidance and keen eye — she’s an incredible visionary — we just tried to navigate the best we could, and that is hopefully onscreen.”

[may2]

She may be a great actress but she has no presence.

[Wol]

I wouldn't put all the blame on the Academy for her second Oscar win. She also won almost every other major award from film critics societies/associations. She was definitely part of a massive love showing for Million Dollar Baby. Best Actress was also a really weak category that year. Her only real competition were Annette Bening and Kate Winslet, the latter in a quirky film by a quirky writer/director that old Academy farts would never get (notice she had to win for a Holocaust movie, cause the Academy loves Holocaust movies). The other two nominees were Catalina Sandino Moreno who was a young foreign unknown and Imelda Staunton who played an abortionist. I'm not saying the Academy got it right but it wasn't a surprise imo.

Hilary's said/done some questionable stuff but I can't believe she's all evil since she's BFF with Mariska Hargitary, who is supposedly one of the loveliest people walking the earth.

[Deleted]

Hilary's said/done some questionable stuff but I can't believe she's all evil since she's BFF with Mariska Hargitary, who is supposedly one of the loveliest people walking the earth.

I don't think she's a totally troublesome person but I do find her career trajectory baffling. She seems to go from one extreme to the other. She stars in bunches of flops. Then she wins an Oscar. Goes back to flopping. Oscar again! Flopping some more. Than possibly another Oscar. There's like no middle ground. It's either top or bottom with her career-wise. It sort of fascinates me.

[normadesmond]

Wol, your post is informative, I keep forgetting that the Million Dollar Baby lovefest wasn't limited to the Oscars. It's kind of baffling how critically adored it was. It was well-made but far too packed with sports movie cliches to deserve that amount of acclaim.

On a side-note, here's a partial list of names of actors who never won a competitive Oscar; the women include: Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, Thelma Ritter, Deborah Kerr, Gena Rowlands, Michelle Pfeiffer, Debra Winger, Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Angela Bassett, Judy Davis, Miranda Richardson.

The men include: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Cary Grant, Montgomery Clift, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson, Richard Harris, Albert Finney, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Kirk Douglas, John Hurt, Ian McKellen, Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Johnny Depp.

That's not including foreign language performers, since they almost never win, Marion Cotillard being a recent rare exception. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz may speak Spanish, but they didn't win for acting in Spanish. A whole cavalcade of international stars in theory could win, but in practice virtually never do.

Even apart from these omissions, another striking thing is how many of the winners with the most distinguished overall careers won only belatedly: among their most respected winners are a lot of late-in-the-day winners: Shirley MacLaine and Susan Sarandon were both around 50 when they won, Al Pacino, Michael Caine, and Anthony Hopkins in their 50s, Paul Newman, John Wayne, and Helen Mirren in their 60s, Henry Fonda in his 70s. Then on the other hand you have Hilary who won twice by age 30.

[Martini Girl]

The only problem I've had with Hilary is through stories relayed to me from some very knowledgeable people in the industry.

First, she dumped her managers right after her first AA. These guys worked tirelessly for her, and she was very close to them during the lean years. As soon as she started to hit it big, BAM! they were history. To me it was a pattern of out with the old, in with the new and more established....

Then she thanked her best friend AND PUBLICIST for M$B, only to boot her for Robert Garlock immediately after that. Unfortunately for all, he died of cancer.

I knew her new publicist's assistant, and she said she was asked to get Hilary a bunch of freebies, because she didn't like paying for anything.

We all have things that bug us, and mine is lack of loyalty when people have stuck with you through thick and thin, and then are dumped when the next great thing comes along. To me, that's Hilary.

Having said that, I enjoyed her performance in both M$B and BDC.

[happypenguin]

I can't stand Hilary since the VF interview. It was a really cheap thing to do to sell Chad Lowe out like that. Especially since they'd been together for so long.

However, despite that I have to say I can't hate her for the two oscars. Her first was for what was absolutely the best performance of that year and completely deserved. As for the oscar for M$B, Imelda Staunton deserved the win but was never going to (based on the role and that it was a really small film v an Eastwood juggernaut), her win was the nomination itself. If Hilary hadn't won it probably would have gone to Annette Benning, but I'm glad it didn't as Being Julia was an awful film. Hopefully one day she'll win for a great performance in a great movie.

There are far more travesties in Oscar's recent history such as Helen Hunt winning (over Judi Dench, Julie Christie, Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham Carter- how did that happen?) and even in my opinion, Marion Cotillard winning over Julie Christie.

[Ninja Bunny]

Oct 18, 2009 18:17:04 GMT -4 @innocentone said:

She bugs and I can't wait to miss Amelia.

I'd love to see a film about Amelia Earhart but because Hilary TMI Swank is playing her I refuse to see it.

Plus he has an ugly, scrunchy bitchface and her hair looks like a cheap wig.

You can take the girl out of the trailer park...