Hilary Swank is one of the most acclaimed actresses in Hollywood, but she is best known for her hard-edged dramatic work. P.S. I Love You may be her first "chick flick." She plays a widow receiving letters from her husband, prepared before his death.
Swank Talks P.S. I Love You
"I wasn't searching out a girlie role, but I certainly jumped at the opportunity to do something romantic and something comedic," she said. "I love doing drama, obviously. I love it and most of my movies are dramatic. It was wonderful to find something that was so rich in drama and comedy really. It was really a comedy that's based in reality I guess you could say, so it was a wonderful challenge and a really fun time too."
Normally, the holidays have Swank play a quadriplegic boxer or a murdered transgender. This Christmas, she gives a happy holiday gift. "It's like the golden age of cinema where you have all these rich characters all around you. You know those movies where all the characters were really fleshed out and everyone had a really important role. It's like this movie. It was like one of those old feel good movies that you don't have anymore, or very few and far between rather. This holiday season, there are so many dark movies out there, it makes me feel good to be in a movie that has some light. It's rare. My mom's always like, 'Are you going to ever live to see the credits?' So here I am living to see the credits and getting to laugh along the way."
P.S. I Love You
P.S. I Love You
It was an adjustment for Swank to soften up the acting tools she usually uses for her Oscar-winning work. "A lot of it was on the page, and you just try to get in touch with the reality of what that person's going through. But, as I also mentioned in the beginning of the interview, that was something that I was really looking forward to was playing a character that didn't have to go through some physical transformation. The transformation was really in the emotions and finding that range and the color within the character, which is a big challenge in itself, just a different type of challenge. But it was certainly fun to play comedic and romantic and light in ways."
The subject matter still hits the heart hard, though in perhaps more uplifting ways than some of her downer movies. "I have talked to people who have lost someone to death but I think the interesting thing is we've all experienced love and losing love, whether it be death or a break up. Break up can feel like death sometimes too because you have this person in your life for so long and they're not there anymore. So I find that it resonates in a lot of people's hearts for sure."
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