Hilary Swank has become the most talked about actress in Hollywood since her astoundingly realistic portrayal of a boy in the independent film "Boys Don't Cry." Swank plays Teena Brandon (Brandon Teena), who masquerades as a boy that was raped and murdered in 1993 for her gender effrontery. Swank modeled much of her performance after her own father and spent a month dressing and living as a man before filming began.

She was born in Bellingham, Washington, in July 30th, 1974. Much of her childhood was consumed with sports and began swimming at the age of three and competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington state championships for the sport. She was also ranked fifth in her state for the all-around-competition in gymnastics. At the age of nine Hilary starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book." She found she enjoyed acting immensely and began regularly appearing in local theater and school plays.

At sixteen Hilary and her mother had only $75 to their name but they put their belongings in their car and moved to Los Angeles. Living out of their vehicle Hilary began looking for work as an actress. She found small parts in the TV series "Harry and The Hendersons" (1991) and commercials, She got her first real break with parts in "Growing Pains" and "Evening Shade." These appearances evolved into recurring roles for her character in both series.

In 1992 Hilary was cast as a regular on the TV series "Camp Wilder." That same year she made her film debut in "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" as Buffy's side kick. Shortly after she was cast in 1994's "The Next Karate Kid."

Since then she has continued to work steadily with film roles as well as TV series. Her most notable TV series was in "Beverly Hills 90210" in 1997-98 season. But it wasn't until "Boy's Don't Cry" that Hilary really made a name for herself in Tinsel town.

She won an Oscar for "Best Actress" for 1999, beating out Annette Bening, Meryl Streep, Janet McTeer, and Julianne Moore. She also won the Golden Globe for the same category.

She is without a doubt one of the finest young actresses on the screen today. She has already begun work on her next film "The Gift" and will follow that up with "Affair."