Hilary Swank learns to fly for “Amelia”
Hilary Swank poses with a Lockheed Electra airplane at a news conference for the film “Amelia” at Essex County Airport in Fairfield, N.J. (Associated Press photo)
A version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Hilary Swank soars with “Amelia”
FAIRFIELD, N.J. — When she encounters different challenges, Hilary Swank often wonders what her film characters — from the inspiring teacher in “Freedom Writers” to the transgendered teen in “Boys Don’t Cry” to the determined boxer in “Million Dollar Baby” — would do in similar circumstances.
“You can’t help but have that in you,” Swank said at news conference for her new film. “I feel in getting to play these roles, they’re all in my heart. You know, my life’s just richer walking around with Amelia in it. In my heart, she’s right in there.”
In the new biopic “Amelia,” the two-time Oscar winner plays aviation pioneer, women’s rights standard-bearer and early media celebrity Amelia Earhart. The daring aviatrix, who vanished in 1937 while attempting an around-the-world flight, remains one of the most famous figures in American history.
“I learned about Amelia from a very young age … but what I learned was what you learn in textbooks,” Swank said from a hangar at Essex County Airport, where a Lockheed L-10 Electra airplane used in the film loomed behind her. “Getting under the skin of a person that I’m playing is really important.”
Director Mira Nair’s biopic is based on the Earhart biographies “East to the Dawn” by Susan Butler and “The Sound of Wings” by Mary Lovell. The film focuses not only on the flier’s historic achievements — among them, she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean — but also on her marriage to early public relations guru George Putnam (Richard Gere), the endorsements and publicity events that funded her flights and fueled her fame and her affair with fellow aviator Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor).
“It’s a big responsibility to play somebody who really lived. It’s a big responsibility to play someone who is as iconic as Amelia, too,” Swank said.
Along with the biographies, Swank read Earhart’s book “20 Hrs. 40 Min.,” which she and Putnam published in 1928 after she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger. The actress also studied newsreels, worked for eight weeks to master Earhart’s distinctive Kansas accent and talked with author Gore Vidal, son of Gene Vidal.
“Obviously, you can’t play Amelia Earhart and not learn how to fly. That would just be wrong in every single way,” Swank, 35, said with a laugh.
She flew 19 hours with her instructor and plans to get her pilot’s license. Getting licensed requires her to take her own solo flight, and the film’s insurers wouldn’t allow that while she was making the movie.
“When you’re a kid, there are so many firsts, there’s so many things that you’re learning all of the time,” she said. “Then, as you become adults, just somehow you’ve experienced a lot and … there’s not a lot of firsts anymore. And learning how to fly for me was so euphoric because it was like I was learning how to ride a bike, it was a first. It takes all of your senses, you are completely immersed, it’s dangerous, it’s adventurous, it’s all the things that I love and think Amelia loved.”
Swank, whom Nair described as a “spiritual and physical daredevil,” said she was surprised at the calculations and concentration required to pilot a plane.
“I’m not a big sweater, but I’d find after a two-hour flight lesson, I would land and my back was drenched just from the concentration. It was really wonderful,” she said.
She added, “One of the great things about my job is I get to do all of these things that I may not experience had I not been an actor. I think saying that I learned how to fly to play Amelia Earhart is pretty great.”
The budding pilot also was thrilled to get to taxi an Electra, the powerful aircraft that Earhart took on her ill-fated final voyage.
“You can’t tell the story without the Electra. … It’s a character in the movie,” she said. “This plane in particular is a beast to fly. It’s not easy. Flying when Amelia was flying was dangerous. So to fly that around the world, if you really take that into consideration, it’s quite remarkable.”
Butler, one of the Earhart biographers, said the same of Swank’s portrayal.
“Hilary was amazing, actually, how much she does take on the persona of Amelia,” Butler said, adding she was awed at how much Swank’s Earhart mirrored the newsreels of the aviatrix featured at the end of the film.
Swank finished the film with her own theory on why Earhart continues to fascinate more than 70 years after her disappearance.
“She made no apologies for saying, ‘This is my life and this is how I see it and this is how I want it to be done.’ I think that in 2009 that’s really rare, especially for women,” she said. “I think that’s a reminder for me to live my life. You only have one life and it’s so short.”
-BAM
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