On this day in 1998, Hilary Swank makes her final appearance in a multi-episode arc on the Fox prime-time soap opera Beverly Hills, 90210. Barely two years later, in a somewhat unexpected turn of events, Swank would be standing onstage at the Academy Awards to accept the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance inBoys Don’t Cry.

Born in Nebraska on July 30, 1974, Swank grew up mostly in Bellingham, Washington. She performed in school plays and was a talented athlete, swimming in the Junior Olympics and competing in gymnastics. After her parents separated, Swank’s mother Judy moved with her daughter to Los Angeles to support Hilary’s desire to become an actress. After arriving in L.A., mother and daughter lived out of their car for a couple of weeks until Judy was able to save enough money to rent an apartment.

In 1992, Swank made her film debut in a bit role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Two years later, she landed the title role in The Next Karate Kid (1994), the fourth and final movie in the Karate Kid series. Playing a troubled teenager who learns karate from Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), Swank was a replacement for Ralph Macchio (then 32 years old), who had starred in the first three films. The film was received poorly by critics and earned only $8.9 million at the box office–by far the least money of all the Karate Kid movies.

Swank joined the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 for the beginning of the show’s eighth season, when its popularity was waning (it was canceled in early 2000 after ten seasons). The show’s central characters had graduated from college and were embarking on their first jobs and other challenges of adulthood. Swank played Carly Reynolds, a single mom who gets involved with Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) and works as a waitress at the gang’s hangout, the Peach Pit. After 16 episodes, Swank was dropped from the series.

In a 2005 interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes (shortly before she took home her second Best Actress Oscar, for her role as a female boxer in Clint Eastwood’sMillion Dollar Baby) Swank was candid about how the firing affected her confidence: “I thought if I’m not a good enough actor for 90210, then maybe I should [pack it in]….I was devastated.”

It turned out to be a stroke of luck, however, as the out-of- work Swank was able to audition for and win the lead role in the independent film Boys Don’t Cry (1999), directed by Kimberly Peirce and based on the tragic real-life story of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man in small-town Nebraska who was raped and murdered by his male acquaintances after they discovered his secret. Swank was paid just $75 per week–a total of $3,000–for Boys Don’t Cry, but it would make her career. She won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress and was catapulted onto the Hollywood A-list, leaving the days of prime-time soap operas well behind her.

Hilary Swank is heartbreakingly good in The Homesman, where she plays Mary Bee Cuddy, a plain but forthright frontierswoman imbued with an almost shocking amount of decency. Certainly, she’s got more moral fortitude than just about anyone else in her small Nebraska town: When three local men write off their troubled wives as hysterics (all too easy to do in the mid-1800s) and determine that they should be taken far away to a refuge in Iowa, Mary Bee is the only one brave and compassionate enough to lead those women on their long trek. Soon she meets an irascible criminal (played by Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed the film) who can help her navigate the trail, but he, too, may be helped by Mary Bee’s moral fortitude. Swank recently sat down with Vulture to discuss the movie’s powerful themes of decency and feminism.

Mary Bee is so immediately relatable, but did you picture yourself in this role as soon as you started reading it?
Sometimes I read great scripts that have great characters but I don’t see myself in them, and I just can’t be a part of them if that’s the case. I pretty much saw me in her right away. I really loved her, for all the reasons that you said, and she just does the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. She has morals, she has values, she has manners ... and I think those are really a lot of things missing in the world today. I often hear the wordearnest like it’s a bad thing. When did that become a bad thing?

It’s heartbreaking, though, because Mary Bee has got so much generosity to go around, and the other characters don’t give it back to her in return.
I think it’s part of what makes her so vulnerable and feel so alone, but it still won’t keep her from doing the right thing. I always said that Mary Bee goes where angels fear to tread. It’s very rare to be that selfless, but at least it’s something to aspire to.

Why don’t people see her like she should be seen?
I think the men don’t see her the way she wants to be seen because, in some way, she intimidates them. She’s perhaps more manly than they are. I don’t use that word to mean she’s like a man, but she’s picking up the responsibility that some of these men should be doing, so if anything, it might make them feel a little bit guilty about their lack of attributes in their own character. She’s self-sufficient, she’s independent, she’s really a modern-day woman in a lot of ways, and a lot of people can’t even handle that in 2014, let alone the mid-1800s.

Though she might appear masculine in certain ways, Mary Bee will also go to great lengths to assert herself as a feminine presence, too, making meals and setting up her homestead just so for a potential suitor.
You know what’s interesting? What we consider “masculine” and what we consider “feminine” — and I was sitting here talking about it, too. If you can blur those lines a little bit more and see that it’s not just the woman’s place in a home, and break down those stereotypes that only men are supposed to be out making the money or doing the hard labor, the more it lends us to helping each other through this walk called life. There is no right [or] wrong way to live as long as you’re doing the best you can and, I think, trying to live with some manners and values.

Those notions of traditional masculinity and femininity are so entrenched in our culture. Take the catcalling video—
I didn’t see it.

It’s this fascinating video where a woman walks through New York City for ten hours, and all the times she’s catcalled are captured via a hidden camera.
Oh, that’s interesting. Women are objectified like that all the time, every single day. Unless you see it for yourself — like that video obviously depicts — you don’t really understand what it’s like to be in that place of being objectified every single day, and trivialized. To me, this movie deals with that in a big way. It’s a feminist movie in a lot of ways, and I think it deals with how women carry themselves or hide from themselves because they want to be seen for more than just their looks. I know that when I became a teenager and all of a sudden was looked at differently, it was very uncomfortable. I immediately put on overalls and started wearing wool socks because I didn’t want to be looked at like that.

Which is tricky, because you’re in a profession where so much of it is based on your looks.
I do think that happens to men in this business, too, but in general, when young girls are looking at billboards of already-beautiful models that are being touched up, it’s completely unattainable to look like that. The idea that you have to look a certain way to attain love or to be successful in the world, those are the stereotypes we need to break down. It's interesting that being seen for who we are changes us, or allows us to be us.

The ability to be seen is very important. Has walking in other people's shoes as an actress given you that empathy for other people?
Absolutely. First of all, I think that coming from a very humble background has made me an empathizer in general. I sometimes have a hard time sleeping at night with all that's happening in the world. Especially before I go to bed, it just pulls at my heartstrings, and I wish that there was more of me to go around, to be able to do more. I don't only get to walk through these characters’ shoes, I get to see the world through their eyes. It totally broadens my blinders; it opens up many new ways of looking at things. To me, that's what life's about: We can celebrate people's differences, and once we blow past the unknowns, we're so much the same.

That's what was so compelling about Boys Don’t Cry. You don’t see characters like Brandon Teena very often in the movies, but the big themes of that movie were so universal.
Absolutely, and it's fascinating to me that people will say, "You know, because you're straight, I looked at this movie differently. It made me see that it transcended gender, that it was about a person." It made it not a gay story or a lesbian story in their eyes, which is crazy to me.

In real life, it can be hard for people to relate to someone whom they perceive to be different. When you watch a movie, though, you can’t help but begin to empathize.
It is astounding. I think we’ve all felt like an outsider at some point in our lives, and for me, especially as a child, I felt the pressure of classism. I would be embarrassed for living in a trailer park, and I would watch movies and see characters that were feeling things that I felt I was experiencing. I felt understood through those movies, and they became my friends, in a way, and I think the power of movies is astounding in that way.

What is it like to be directed by the actor you’re sharing the scene with? You did it in The Homesman with Tommy Lee Jones, and Million Dollar Baby with Clint Eastwood.
The beauty of it is that there is a shorthand. They know what it’s like to be an actor. In the cases of Clint and Tommy Lee, they’ve been doing it for so long that when they’re sitting with you, you know they’re right here. They’re not across the room, watching you on a monitor — they are with you, they are in it. Sometimes other directors overdirect and give me too many words, and I’m like, “I got it. I got it in the first two words.”

All of Tommy Lee’s words seem to be chosen wisely.
Very. He has a brilliant brain, and he certainly doesn’t suffer fools and wear his heart on his sleeve — and why should he? He doesn’t have to do that to please people. If he doesn’t want to connect, he doesn’t want to connect, but in the end, I think that this movie is just a shining example of defying stereotypes. People see Tommy Lee as this intense man, but in the end, he made a feminist movie, a beautiful love-letter to women. I think it’s beautiful that he made that.

Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry

By besting Annette Bening, Hilary Swank prevented American Beauty from taking home the triple crown of best picture, best actor, and best actress. The young Swank was a relative newcomer to movies whose only major screen appearance prior to Boys Don’t Cry was as Pat Morita’s new student in the sequel film The Next Karate Kid(1994). Boys Don’t Cry, though far from a box-office smash, received praise and awards from critics and film festivals around the world in 1999, particularly for the performances of Swank and costar Chloë Sevigny (AAN). This modest true-life drama tells the fascinating yet tragic story of Teena Brandon, a young Nebraska woman whose gender identity crisis led to her brutal rape and murder, as well as the slaying of two other innocents, in 1993. Swank joined Linda Hunt (The Year of Living Dangerously, 1983) in the small group of actors who have earned Oscars for gender-bending performances.

Hilary Swank, in full HILARY ANN SWANK (b. July 30, 1974, Lincoln, Neb., U.S.)

Hilary Swank as Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby

Swank was a bit of a surprise winner of the best actress Oscar for her performance in Boys Don’t Cry (1999), but she was a bit of a sure thing to win for her turn as a strong-willed boxer in Million Dollar Baby (AA). As Maggie Fitzgerald, a waitress who decides to become a professional boxer, Swank imbued the character with warmth and courage and conveyed the intense vulnerability of a young woman literally fighting to make something of her life. A former competitive swimmer and gymnast, Swank got ready for the physical aspects of the role by gaining 19 pounds of muscle, the result of a diet and training regime that included over four hours a day in the gym.

She’s a horse woman—and a hoarse woman. Hilary Swank is willingly sacrificing her voice doing back-to-back interviews for the sake of her latest film, “The Homesman,” which opens on Friday. A rare female-driven Western, co-starring and directed by Tommy Lee Jones, earned praise at its premiere at Cannes, and has been riding a range of other festival appearances since.

At stake for the actress, 40, is a chance to go after her third Oscar after winning previously for her lead roles as a transgender male in 1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and as a boxer in 2004’s “Million Dollar Baby.” In “The Homesman,” her Mary Bee Cuddy is an independent-minded pioneer in the Midwest who volunteers to escort three women driven mad by tragic circumstances back East. Accompanying her is Jones as Briggs, a scofflaw of a scoundrel, and the two make for quite the on-the-road odd couple—not unlike Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in "The African Queen"—as they ride in a makeshift wooden wagon across treacherous terrain.   

You attended the academy’s Governors Awards ceremony this past weekend, where Maureen O’Hara, 94, received an honorary Oscar. She has played a few pioneer women in her time. Did you get to meet her?

I didn’t get to talk to her. She was not there while we were eating. She came in from backstage. God, I would have loved to have had an opportunity to meet such a trail blazer.

Your “Million Dollar Baby” pal, Clint Eastwood, was in attendance. Has he seen “The Homesman”? Do you keep in touch regularly?

He hasn’t seen it yet and I haven’t seen his “American Sniper,” either. Yes, we do keep in touch—as much as possible and when our busy lives allow.  

I am sure you have heard this before, but many journalists are a bit intimidated by Tommy Lee Jones. He does not suffer fools, especially those who work for the media. I assume he is different when directing  such a great group of talented actors, including Miranda Otto, Grace Gummer(and her mom, Meryl Streep, in a small role), John Lithgow, James Spaderand Hailee Steinfeld.

Let me tell you, part of my job and working in the arts in general is to break down stereotypes. Tommy Lee is much more than who people in the press world see. I do hear that a lot and I think he simply doesn’t want to show all sides of himself in such a situation. But he is totally alive on a movie set.

Tommy Lee and Clint Eastwood worked together on 2000’s “Space Cowboys.” He has said he was influenced by his directing style, especially with 1992’s “Unforgiven.” Clint is known for his no-muss approach to filmmaking. Is Tommy Lee the same way?

He is like that, too. He does one or two takes, very much the same way. Sometimes, however, he will say, “I’m doing a third take, just for luck.”

How did you get this part?

I read this script and fell in love with it. It feels so much like what my own family went through. I was born in Nebraska and my family settled in Iowa. There was a whole generation of farmers. It felt like my story. My dad showed me our history and parts of it parallel this movie exactly.

Mary Bee Cuddy is described as “bossy” by the men in her town and is declared to be “as plain as an old tin pail.” Yet none of them are man enough to volunteer to transport these women so they can get help, not even their husbands. Only she steps up and does the right thing. “Bossy” is one of those negative terms that get tossed around even today to describe a woman who speaks her mind and takes a stand.

This is a real feminist movie. A lot of things that it deals with are going on now. The objectification of women and how they are trivialized.

I get the sense that you felt a special kinship with Mary Bee Cuddy and you wanted to make sure you did right by her.

The thing that I really fell in love with in her is that she has values, morals and manners. In this day and age, society has lost touch with those things. I appreciated that she wanted to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. Not for a pat on the back or to get ahead. We could use some more of that. Also, she is very vulnerable and multifaceted underneath her independent nature. She needs to be taken care of—that is something that transcends gender.

To play this role, you had to learn to plow with a mule, handle horses and engage in other physical labor. But you have said that the real challenge was working in New Mexico and the sometimes brutal outdoor conditions.

We were in New Mexico in February, March and April. Even in summer, it can be a challenging climate and super hot. We had all four seasons in one day. And a fifth season—wind. It was unbearable. But being there gave us a truly great underlying understanding of the elements that these people had to endure, day in and day out. We were able to go home to a hot meal and a nice bath every night. But going through this gave you an understanding of how these women could lose their stability.

Still, the scenes where you plow had to be tough. I bet Tommy Lee shot more than three takes of those moments.

I would say he shot a few. It was definitely a challenge to learn that physicality. I gained a newfound respect for farmers. They’ve got to be stronger than any body builder.

Did you get along with the horses?

Yes, my horse was red and her real name is Juicy. She is 8 years old. I went from not knowing how to ride to taking my horse home with me. I learned to be a horse women.

There are scenes that are sometimes difficult and heart-wrenching to watch. But also ones of great tenderness. I was quite moved when Mary Bee is giving water to the women. She pours a thimble full for the doll that Grace Gummer’s character cradles, a substitute of sorts for the three children she lost to diphtheria.

I have heard that from a dozen women by now. It is just one of those maternal things that us women take notice of. It is such a relatable moment. I love that.

You do have your own production company—2S, for Swank and your partner, Molly Smith. Your first release was 2011’s “Something Borrowed” with Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson. “You’re Not You,” in which you play a concert pianist with ALS, just opened last month.

“You’re Not You” came out four weeks ago. I am super proud of it. It is the fourth book we bought the rights to. We saw it though the adaptation and, seven years later, it is on the screen.

You won two Oscars by the time you were 30. And you could easily be in the running again. How does that feel? And what impact have those two trophies had on you through the years?

Anytime they are talking about your movie and Academy Awards, it’s good. Tilda Swinton (a supporting Oscar winner for 2007’s “Michael Clayton”) told me something at the Governors Awards. She said, “The great thing about an Academy Award is that it is always bigger than one person or one project. Bigger than anything. It’s like a gold star on a cereal box. When you go down the aisle and see that star, it gets chosen—whether it’s better or not.” I love my movies. It’s like giving birth to something. I am proud and honored to be a part of them.