Swank skyrocketed in Hollywood after playing a transsexual man in Boys Don’t Cry (1999). Her excellent performance earned her her first Oscar and Golden Globe. Before this film, she appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) and The Next Karate Kid (1994), the fourth installment in the series.
She is most known for playing Maggie in Clint Eastwood’s inspirational sports movie Million Dollar Baby with Morgan Freeman.
While fighting for a World Boxing Association title, her amateur boxer loses a million-dollar contest to an illegal sucker punch.
Her Oscar and Golden Globe wins were for best lead.
Her story is Cinderella-like.
“I’m simply a girl from a trailer park who had a dream,” Swank stated in her Million Dollar Baby Oscar victory speech.
Swank’s mother sacrificed her dreams for her daughter while she was growing up in a trailer park.
Swank has worked hard since she was 15, earning her success.
In 2014, she left her lucrative business to care for her father, Stephen Michael Swank, an Air Force veteran and Air National Guard member who needed a dangerous lung transplant.
The one-year gap became three due to her father’s sluggish recuperation following significant surgery.
That period saw no relaxation for her. Her latest project focused on her garment company’s Mission Statement, which blends “high performance and high fashion” for women.
Swank resumed performing while caring for her father, who died in 2021.
Swank’s first work after three years caring for her father shows her familial devotion. Swank plays a woman dealing with her mother’s Alzheimer’s in What They Had (2018).
She resumed filming abroad with 2020 horror thriller The Hunt, Netflix sci-fi series Away, and Alaska Daily, where she plays a famous Anchorage journalist.
Swank dedicates her time and fame to cancer research and animal welfare. She founded the Hilaroo Foundation, named after Karoo, a stray dog she saved from death while filming in Africa, to promote mutual healing, like she had with animals as a child.
When interviewed by Health, she said, “One of the things that filled my heart was animals because none of them looked at me for anything other than who I am.” They immediately made it plain they would travel with me forever. My heart is touched by them more than most.
The Freedom Writers star, who learned to put people first from her mother, has struggled to find love.
She married Chad Lowe in 1997, but Rob Lowe’s younger brother’s drug troubles led to their 2006 divorce. Swank told Vanity Fair in 2008 that she needed to take care of herself. In my regimen, I’ve always taken care of everyone. In addition to my parents, mom, and dad, I cared for Chad. I’m done carrying that. Though hard to break, I gave up some of myself.
Swank told USA Today that having her frail father live with her helped her find a good man.
It’s almost a great way to screen people. It appears you live with your dad. You can move faster due of that responsiveness. Swank claimed her husband and she had a family-first philosophy. While caring for her father, she met Phillip Schneider, 45. It improved things.
Logan Lucky, who married entrepreneur Schneider in 2018 after two years of courtship, realized her demands.
Everything fell into place for the award-winning actor.
Swank announced her pregnancy in October 2022. Nobody knew—not even the Alaska Daily crew—as she sought to disguise her growing tummy with hastily manufactured clothing. The actress convinced team members she needed a stunt double to shoot because she was bad at various activities when pregnant.
On Extra TV, Swank said she was having a “geriatric pregnancy” and that “all the pieces needed to come together and be correct” until four years ago.
“I thought about it as a young girl,” she said. I’m glad I’m pregnant because I was thinking about it.
Knowing she was having twins didn’t surprise her. As a child, she predicted she would have two children, and her grandmothers are twins, increasing the odds.
“It’s amazing to see a lot of ladies in their 40s say, ‘You gave me hope,’ because once you believe something can happen, your mind changes.” Swank told ET about the positive feedback at six months pregnant. You should overcome your challenges, the performer said.
Swank posted an ultrasound of a baby flexing its arm in March. “Baby A, Million Dollar Baby,” she called it. “Well, we know baby A already has mom’s shoulders,” Kate Hudson replied.
Her babies arrived a week early, despite being due on April 16, her father’s birthday.
Despite handling her father’s death, her 48-week pregnancy, and a grueling work schedule, Swank was criticized.
Swank announced the birth of her children with a sunset photo of herself cuddling them. One follower declined to congratulate her, saying, “How irresponsible to bring babies into the world at such an advanced age merely to satisfy some inner selfish need for children. By 20s, your children’s parents will be dead or in a nursing facility.
A person asked, “Aren’t you 50?” College graduation will put you in your 70s. Perhaps they’ll live to see their wedding.
Emmy Rossum, who co-stars with Swank in You’re Not You, said, “Go f— yourself.”
Modern women often have children later in life.
According to a 2018 Pew Research survey, more women are pregnant “near the end of their childbearing years.” The paper attributes the rise to “increases in women’s labor force participation and educational attainment, as well as delays in marriage.” The study also says “likely that the deferral of childbearing will continue given these social and cultural trends.”
Swank is not the only 40-something celebrity to have healthy children.
Susan Sarandon had her three children at 39, 42, and 45; Halle Berry had Maceo at 47 and Nahla at 41; Cameron Diaz had Raddix at 47; Tammy Duckworth, a U.S. senator, had Maile Pearl at 49; Janet Jackson had Eissa Al Mana at 50; and Beverly D’Angelo, Al Pacino’s wife.
You know what? Swank says the sky is the limit if you believe in all realms.
We admire women of all ages for having children and reading about the sweet babies in loving homes. It matters more than the mother’s delivery age.