HILARY SWANK

Lately, the Million Dollar Baby star has been underused on film and TV. What will it take to get her back in the ring?

When Hilary Swank finally meets Betty Gilpin in The Hunt, a patchy film finally lands its killer blows. After some sharp banter, the duo soon start beating each other stupid, using guns, knives, light fittings, pricey booze and kitchenware to maximise damage. In the class of Kill

Bill or a Bourne movie, the dirty dust-up reminds us how great a physical actor Swank can be – and how underused she has been lately.

True, reasons for Swank’s recent low profile are plenty. Having taken a screen break to care for her father following his lung transplant, she has also been involved in charity work and clothing lines. But a recent return to acting has yet to see her land a gig worthy of her talents and commitment.

Certainly, Swank sweated hard for her early career peaks. Raised in a trailer park, she lived out of a car in LA with her mum before roles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie), The Next Karate Kid and Beverly Hills 90210 arrived. Though these didn’t perform as hoped, Oscar glory arrived with 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, where she showed an electric capacity for physical transformation and nuance. In 2004, another physically shattering performance brought Swank another Oscar, for her ‘white-trash’ boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby.

Despite her efforts, Swank’s other director choices were not always so well-judged or well-timed. In minor films from Christopher Nolan (Insomnia), Sam Raimi (The Gift) and Brian de Palma (The Black Dahlia), she was either miscast or underused. Elsewhere, genre choices The Core and The Reaping seemed beneath her, as did sentimental romances (P.S. I Love You, New Year’s Eve) and the faux-inspirational true-life likes of Freedom Writers and Amelia.

Tommy Lee Jones mounted a superior vehicle for Swank’s gutsy presence in 2014’s frontier tale The Homesman, though she has since often been – again – underused in cameos (Logan Lucky) or miscast in soapy dramas (What They Had, 55 Steps). Danny Boyle’s Trust was a solid TV gig, though her no-bull Gail Getty seemed increasingly sidelined. More promisingly, Netflix’s flawed but ambitious sci-fi I Am Mother hinted at Swank’s eagerness to try new genres. In interviews, she’s expressed a desire to make “lighter fare” or something physical. If The Hunt is any indication, she could knock an action movie through the window and out of the park. KH