USA TODAY International Edition
Swank’s love life swayed by caregiving
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Illness changes things. It changes how we live. What we care about. Who we make time for. For Hilary Swank, who moved her father into her Los Angeles home three years ago as he had a lung transplant, it also changed how she dated. “It’s almost a great way to weed out people,” says Swank, 44, who recently married social venture entrepreneur Philip Schneider. “‘Wait, you live with your dad?’ The reaction to that helps you move through things faster.” She and Schneider, who were set up on a blind date, have “that same ethos and belief in being there for your family,” she says. “That started it off right.” Familial devotion is at the heart of Swank’s latest film, “What They Had,” one of the first roles she took after caring for her father. In the multigenerational drama, Swank plays Bridget, a long-distance daughter coping with her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s. Her father (Robert Forster) argues he can care for his wife (Blythe Danner) better than the Chicago memory-care facility that his son (Michael Shannon), who lives nearby, is advocating. It’s Christmas, and no one has the answers. Swank says little prepares someone for becoming an aging parent’s proxy. “There were moments when I was taking care of my dad where you’re not confident, when you know that in helping make a decision, (it) could be good or bad – and that was something you were going to have to live with, no matter which way it went,” she says. “So it was scary.” As one year away from work became two, then three, Swank, a twotime Academy Award winner (“Boys Don’t Cry,” “Million Dollar Baby”), wrestled with who she was outside of her work. “It made me look at how I defined myself,” she says, and she began channeling her creative efforts into her new clothing line, Mission Statement. Today she’s back to shooting movies around the world. “I’m blessed because prayers were answered, and my dad came out the other side a completely independent person again,” she says. Her father, 70, still lives with the couple, “but he’s self-sufficient. He’s getting around.” Swank, who excuses herself for not shaking hands upon meeting (her vampy manicure is still wet) but presses her hands over yours instead, says she still feels like a newlywed. Her wedding to Schneider in August was held under the leafy cover of California redwoods, with a reception in a 100year-old rustic barn illuminated with fairy lights. Pictures eventually were shared with Vogue, but “it was an unplugged wedding,” she says. These days at work, Swank notices that Hollywood has plugged into a new normal. If anything, she says, one year into the #MeToo movement, there’s a shift away from an idealized male gaze. “One of the crazy things I used to be asked was ‘You’re so pretty in person – why don’t you ever play a pretty girl?’ ” she says. “So that’s never (been) asked again. I haven’t been asked that in an entire year.”