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Amelia
Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki
Story : After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own, outspoken woman never changed. She was an inspiration to people everywhere, from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) to the men closest to her heart: her husband, promoter and publishing magnate George P. Putnam (Richard Gere), and her long time friend and lover, pilot Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). In the summer of 1937, Amelia set off on her most daunting mission yet: a solo flight around the world that she and George both anxiously foresaw as destined, whatever the outcome, to become one of the most talked-about journeys in history.
Opens October 23, 2009
Runtime:1 hr. 51 min.
Q&A with Actress Hilary Swank
(Q): When you’re making a film where we in effect know the end so that you have to create a sense of dramatic tension what did you two talk about how that dramatic tension should be built and in what ways you develop the arc or the rhythm of it?
(Hilary Swank): When you think you know how it ended you have to go see it to see if it really ends the way you think it ended because there’s a lot of theories aren’t there? Obviously making a movie is collaboration and it takes a lot of people’s ideas but in the end I just try to do what I was told and what was on the page and try to being the honesty to it. It’s a big responsibility to play someone who really lived and who is as iconic as Amelia. We all have such a great idea of who she was and what she looked like so there wasn’t a lot of room for fictional license and we had to just do the best we could to do honor to that person and under Mira’s guidance and keen eye. She’s an incredible visionary I think we just tried to navigate the best we could and that is hopefully on screen.
(Q): What notes did you take away and what were the important notes that you took away from her personality? Or what surprised you that you hung onto in your performance and making the film?
(Hilary Swank): I think obviously I learned about Amelia from a very young age and what I learned was what you learn in text books and so for me obviously getting under the skin of a person that I’m playing is really important. We’re all specific human beings we know what our favorite color is we know what we love we know what we don’t like and trying to figure that out about a person that you’re portraying is very important and so is trying to understand who she was. I think Amelia was a very private person so what she was expressing out in the world might not necessarily have been what her true thoughts were so just breaking down how her childhood formed who she was.
One of the things that I took away from Amelia that I found very inspiring and moving was that what people are kind of magnetized to is the idea that Amelia lived her life the way she wanted to live it. 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.” and I believe that in 2009 that’s really rare especially for women. I think it’s a more male centric world and I think that a lot of males are able to have the life that they envision for themselves. Women not as much even in 2009 so when we’re talking about somebody who lived in the ‘20’s when women just got the right to vote and in the ‘30’s it’s incredible and so it’s obviously a period piece yet it even transcends what we know now and it was certainly a reminder for me to live life,and that you have to constantly look within and continue to live the life that you know you want to live for yourself and not for other people.
I'll look at my life and say, “I might be doing this because it was my mother’s idea of my life, or your friend’s idea, or your partner’s idea, or whatever it is.” And also ‘Amelia’ was such a great reminder that you can live your life the way you want it and find love and experience your dreams and you can have it all so to me that’s what I really learned in diving deep into who she was and like I said you only live once you might as well be doing what you love.
(Q): Miss Swank you were taking flying lessons. Could you talk a little about that and do you have future plans to get a license and maybe become involved with general aviation a little bit?
(Hilary Swank): Obviously you can’t play Amelia Earhart and not learn how to fly that would be wrong in every way. I have to say when you’re a kid there are so many firsts there are so many things that you are learning all of the time. You're learning how to ride a bike and to read. There are so many things you haven’t experienced and it’s euphoric because you're really in the moment and then as you become adults 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 and it takes all of your senses and you’re completely immersed.
It’s dangerous and adventurous and it’s all of the things that I love and that I think Amelia loved. I love to learn and it was exciting to learn something new that really was challenging. I didn’t realize the calculations that go into flying. It was like I was back in calculus. I’m not a big sweater but I would find after a two-hour flight lesson I would land and my back was drenched just from the concentration it was really wonderful. I flew 19 hours and I wanted to get my pilot’s license but for insurance purposes they couldn’t really let me go up by myself in order to do that especially before filming the movie. I’m sure now they’d say, “Sure go ahead.”
I would like to get my pilot’s license. It’s something that I’d like to see things through to the end and I don’t want to just say, “ Yeah I flew”. I’d like to get my license and continue to go up on my own. 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 and I think saying that I learned how to fly to play Amelia Earhart is pretty great.
(Q): Could anyone speak about the contemporary way of promoting things for your passion?
(Hilary Swank): Promoting things for your passion as in press obviously my passion lies in telling stories it’s what I've wanted to do since I was 9 years old. I love people I love what makes people unique and what makes them similar. One of the things you would ask are some similarities between Amelia and I and one of them is that she loved to travel and I love to travel. I've been so fortunate in my career to travel all around the world and part of that is to talk about the films that I am a part of. Sometimes it can be very grueling and difficult. In the last 16 days I was in Italy and then back to Los Angeles then Dubai then London then back to Los Angeles and now in New York.
Stewards actually laugh because I know them so well and they say, “Hillary it’s illegal for us to fly as much as you fly.” I’m constantly in the air and I’m constantly out promoting my films. Amelia understood that without the understanding of the business side of things you can’t have your career. If I'm not willing to go out and talk about the things that I'm a part of, which I in fact love, so it’s not like it’s difficult to get in touch with why I'm a part of a film, then you can't have the other side of it and that makes complete sense to me. I understand the business side of it, although I really love the art side of it and they intertwine. You just try to do the best you can and I wonder what Amelia would say.
I remember her saying that it was hard and there’s a line in the movie I feel like I'm this white horse jumping through hoops and sometimes you feel like you're in a circus but it’s when things become more personal and you feel like, “I'm just an Actor trying to talk about my love for movies,” and you just have to remember why you're doing it and be in touch with that.
(Q): Two very different questions. First, as a two-time Oscar winner, you have your pick of roles so is this something you always wanted to do, to play Amelia? Secondly, as a woman, how did you relate to her open marriage?
(Hilary Swank): I wouldn’t say I was always longing to play Amelia Earhart but I do long to play roles that challenge me, scare me, and make me learn new things about the world, about myself, and about my art. I had read a script on Amelia about 10 years ago right after I did ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and it didn’t capture Amelia to me and so it was obviously not a movie that I was a part of. When this one came across my desk I just felt that connection, which I spoke to you about.
I think one of the things that I also touched on was Amelia’s way of going about her life the way in which she carried herself and the way she expressed herself and I feel like if we could all be so up front and forthright about our feelings, our emotions, our desires, and needs and could somehow manage expectations out of relationships. I think it’s really challenging to be that honest even with the people that you really love and you feel are suppose to be loving you unconditionally.
It’s really hard and there’s a lot of reasons why we could sit here all day and talk about that, but I think that Amelia’s way of living her life was very honest and very open so when she lived her life the way she wanted she had already expressed that’s how she was going to do it so it wasn’t like she was hurting anybody along the way. It almost made it an unconditional relationship that they had, which is really rare. I respect anyone who is able to be so forthright about themselves. I think that that’s a lot of what our life is about, figuring out how can we be as honest and live as honestly with ourselves and in our relationships.
(Q): Hilary, Uma just complimented you on doing this and said that it’s possible that you may get an Oscar. What do you think about that?
(Hilary Swank): Thank you. First to have such a compliment from another actress that I admire so much is a great honor. I have to say Amelia was so supportive of other women and I feel like women aren’t always supportive of another woman’s strengths and I think powerful women are supportive of the underdog women or the women who are suffering from inequality, yet, when it’s another woman’s strength they find it hard to muster up a lot of accolades so one it’s very nice to hear such a nice compliment from someone that I admire so much.
I also wanted to comment that Mira being at the helm of this ship was such a perfect match because I feel it’s rare to see a woman carrying herself in the way in which she does. Mira also makes no apologies for her strengths and it’s interesting when you see a woman in a place of power a lot of times they’re apologizing for it, “I'm sorry but can you please do this or can you please do that?” It’s a lot of, “I'm sorry but”, before they say what it is that they need.
To be with Mira and to see her ask for what she needs and to see her direct with the strength in which she carries herself and with the vision that she carries I think was perfect to direct a story about Amelia Earhart. This is the first time I heard that and it just warms my heart. I think it’s a hard enough world out there in general and then you add the layer of being a woman and we just need to be there for each other so thanks for letting me know that.
(Q): What was the impact whenever you saw that aircraft, did it help you get into that mode of portraying Amelia as she went off on her final journey?
(Hilary Swank): I have to say that it’s a character in the movie you can’t tell the story without the Electra. It’s talked about throughout the film and in the latter part of the film it’s a character in the movie. One of the interesting things that people take for granted is I mean look I was just telling you I just spent 36 hours in the air in the last five days. I was in the air more than I was on the ground and I just got onto the flight and sat back and enjoyed it. When Amelia was flying it was a sport and she hoped that someday it would be a way of transportation and this plane in particular is a beast to fly, it’s not easy. When Amelia was flying it was dangerous so to fly that around the world is really quite remarkable. When we had the plane I taxied it, but I didn’t actually get to fly the plane.
(Q): Hilary can you talk about how beneficial it was for you to have all of that archival footage about Amelia and also what do you think Amelia’s reaction would be to how commonplace flying has become now?
(Hilary Swank): I think Amelia would be thrilled. It was something that she was always commenting about when she was working with Gene it was always the progress of aviation in any way, shape, and form she could be a part of that. The footage on Amelia there’s something like maybe 16 minutes it might only be 12 minutes, a lot of it is from news reels so it’s more her public face but there are little moments within the news reel where she doesn’t know the camera is on and you actually see her tone down her way of speaking and her physicality.
She had a unique pattern in which she spoke, which was the most challenging accent that I have done to date. I spent over eight weeks trying to learn how she spoke and there is that period way of speaking that you would hear Katherine Hepburn and you see all those old movies and there's that way of speaking, which can sound posh or upper class and Amelia wasn’t that. She was a girl from Kansas and she sounded period yet different and trying to figure that cadence out and also not make it the elevated public persona that she put on except when needed was quite a challenge. Thankfully I had Mira saying, “Push it a little here, bring it back here, that’s a little too much here.” It was challenging to walk that line to find the human quality in it and also to relate to it now because we don’t speak like that.
(Q): Hilary, I wanted to know did you walk away from this role completely satisfied with your knowledge of Amelia because I enjoyed it so much it just wetted my appetite to learn more?
(Hilary Swank): Thank you first of all. I think in order to play a role I think you have to try and dive in in so many different aspects and ways and I felt like by the end of it I had a pretty good idea of who Amelia was or at least what we feel Amelia was from the books we were reading and the information we had and just trying to go deeper in telling the stories through the scenes that were written on the page. I feel in getting to play these roles they’re all in my heart and my life’s just richer walking around with Amelia in it in my heart, she’s right in there it’s wonderful and I try and remind myself throughout some things that I'm experiencing I often think about what would the characters I've played do in these situations you can’t help but to have that in you. So it makes for a really rich life and I feel like she’s in there. Thanks.
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