Academy Award for Best Actress

1999

Hilary Swank 

as

Brandon Teena

Boys Don't Cry

Hilary Ann Swank (born July 30, 1974) is a US actress and producer. She has won two Academy Awards for Best Actress and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.

Swank made her film debut in a minor role for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, before she made her breakout lead role in the fourth installment of the The Karate Kid franchise, The Next Karate Kid in 1994. On television, she was cast as part of the main cast in the eighth season of the drama series Beverly Hills 90210 as single mother Carly Reynolds from 1997 to 1998. Swank garnered critical acclaim for her portrayal of Brandon Teena in the 1999 biographical independent film Boys Don't Cry, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She starred in Clint Eastwood's 2004 sports drama film Million Dollar Baby as struggling-waitress-turned-boxer Maggie Fitzgerald, which won her a second Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actress.

She starred in other films, such as The Gift (2000), Insomnia (2002), Iron Jawed Angels (2004), Red Dust (2004) The Reaping (2007), P.S. I Love You (2007), Freedom Writers (2007), Amelia (2009), New Year's Eve (2011), The Homesman (2014) and You're Not You (2014).