Trappedinaspacesuit noonecanhearyou
AS A double Oscarr winner, Hilary Swankk is in the company of greats like Merylyl Streep and Ingrid Bergman.
And it took the 46-year-oldd all of her acting prowess just too get into her spacesuit for new Netflixetflix series Away.
Despite wanting to bee an astronaut since she was five,ve, she discovered during the filmingg of the series she was very claustrophobic.phobic.
She said: “It wasn’t until wee filmed the show that I realised I sufferfer from claustrophobia.
“I didn’t realise how severe it could be until I was locked into my spacesuitpacesuit and helmet and I couldn’t get out myself if I needed to.
“It was something I had to work on and overcome. I just had to take that fear and channel it somewhere else to inform the character. I never really knew what a phobia was until faced with my own making this.
“And to think the first thing I ever wanted to be was an astronaut.
“I was five and I was fascinated with space and the whole idea of going there and seeing the Earth from the stars. It didn’t happen, of course, but being an actor is a pretty good second.”
Away sees her character Emma Green blasting off into space as the commander of a mission to Mars, leaving her husband and teenage daughter behind.
Hilary has finally made it into space (kind of) but if she ever gets a real-life ride to the stars, it won’t be her husband in the seat next to her.
While she’s full of emotion about what it would be like to leave hubby Philip Schneider at home, it’s her pets she is really worried about.
Hilary said: “I would still love to go to space but not all the way to Mars. If I had to go to Mars, I’d have to take
Hilary Swank dreamed of being an astronaut as a child but she had to beat claustrophobia to put on costume for TV drama in which she plays a mum who goes on a mission to Mars
my dogs. I can’t imagine going without my dogs. One of them is named Moon so I’m hoping she’d be at home there.”
Hilary admits she isn’t a sci-fi fan. “It’s not my medium but I do find the exploration of the unknown fascinating and the idea that there may be other life out there,” she said. The Nebraskan actress was ahead of the curve with her first Oscar win, playing a trans man in biopic Boy’s Don’t Cry way back in 1999 before it became part of mainstream conversation.
And like just 12 other actresses ( 13 if you count Katherine Hepburn’s four wins), she did the double playing an aspiring boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby in 2004.
Filmed in Vancouver, Canada, Away sees Hilary become the latest big star to take a break from movies to find new challenges on the small screen.
She worked in TV two years ago on
Trust – a series about the Getty family. She said: “I liked the idea of diving into a character in a limited series. I was excited to really get to explore aspects of a character and a story that you really don’t get to do in a film.”
In Away, Emma has been in space for three years with a small crew. It’s the perfect kind of drama for a world which was in lockdown for months.
She said: “It is something we all have a far deeper understanding of now because of Covid.
“You realise that health is everything for you and your loved ones and how important it is to work together and support one another. In trying to get to that place, a myriad of things pop up. That’s that thing called life.”
We couldn’t let her go without asking how it feels to be a double Oscar winner.
She said: “I’m still stunned that I even have one. Sometimes I’ll read, ‘Academy Award winner Hilary Swank’, and I’ll be like, ‘ What?’ It’s still a very surreal thing.”
Away is on Netflix now.
I’d still love to go into space but not all the way to Mars HILARY SWANK ON HER CHILDHOOD DREAM