By: Joseph McCabe
Photograph By: Sophia Quach
There aren?t many people to whom the label ?has nothing left to prove? applies, but Hilary Swank?s one of them.

In the seven years since she won her first Oscar, for her work in Boys Don?t Dry, Swank?s maintained a career the likes of which most actors dare not dream, alternating between thrillers like The Gift and Insomnia and dramatic vehicles like The Affair of the Necklace and Million Dollar Baby. The latter film netted Swank her second Oscar in 2004, which, one might think, would call for an extended break. But she followed it up by working?in just ten short months?on The Black Dahlia, Freedom Writers and The Reaping.

If Swank?s finally grown sick of making movies, you wouldn?t know it from the way she discusses The Reaping. She claims her latest role, like all her work, was born out of a need to try something new.

?The Reaping is, probably as you know, a supernatural thriller,? she says. ?But it has a lot of other elements?it?s dramatic, it has religious elements. When I read the script and was talking to [director] Stephen Hopkins about it, I thought, ?What do you see this movie like?? And he actually said, ?I don?t know. There?s not really any movie to compare it to.? That was exciting. That?s how I felt when I read it?it was a real page-turner. I?ve read a lot of scripts and have seen a lot of movies; it?s really hard to trick me. And something happened that really surprised me.?

Swank explains part of her surprise came from the way the film?s script dealt with plagues predicted in the bible.

?The thing that?s scary about this movie is not somebody running around wielding a knife, it?s the idea that something like this could actually happen. Do you believe or do you not believe? The idea that something like this could happen again?a lot of people think, ?Is it happening again?? with the hurricanes and the tsunamis. It?s just an interesting thing to think about, to contemplate on.?

In the film, Swank plays Katherine Winter, a former Christian who specializes in debunking religious phenomena. Winter finds her skepticism challenged, however, when a rash of biblical plagues strikes a small town.

?This movie in a lot of ways, I think, is a great analogy to life, because you kind of have to look at things and say, ?Things aren?t always what they seem.? It?s easy to judge something, a personal experience, from what you know, or from what you?re taught. I think being open to things and allowing yourself to see things differently are components that happen in this movie. My character loses her faith in something that?s happened to her. She?s a missionary, and really religious, and she becomes a miracle and myth debunker, a professor in that. As the movie goes on, certain things happen to make her regain her faith. I think that?s, again, another analogy to life. Certain things happen to people?s lives, and they say, ?How can there be a God if this happened?? As we figure our lives out, we figure out what that means to us. That?s certainly something that?s happened to her. It?s certainly an element of the movie that drew me to it because it?s more than just scary. It?s real.?

Swank says that, like her character, she?s asked more than her share of questions.

?I?m really curious,? she says. ?I certainly was the kid in school who said, ?Why? Why? Why?? to the point where my teachers were like ?Just because, okay? Just because.? I was definitely that person. I just want to know. It?s not that I wanna challenge people, I?m just curious. I?m curious about people, I?m curious about their stories. If someone says, ?You need to do this,? why? Why? I really wanna know why. Not, again, because I?m bucking the system, I just wanna know why. I remember my math teacher gave me the greatest answer because I said to him once, ?I don?t understand how [math] is going to be in my life. I just don?t. I?m not gonna be an accountant.? And he said, ?Actually, you know what? It?s about solving problems, and if you skip through that, you?re going to have to go back.? Okay, that works for me. That works really well for me.?

In preparing for The Reaping, Swank met with a professional debunker, who opened her eyes to a new system of belief.

?There was a man who actually created the Skeptical Inquirer. It?s a magazine that?s at newsstands, which I?d never seen before. It?s so interesting?I mean there?s all this literature out there about everything, anything you can think of; with the internet, you can get your hands on anything. It was really interesting to meet him and [learn] why he believed what he believed, and the science of it all, how things can be proven.

And, asking him questions?if something were to happen to him and his family like this, would it make him believe??he?s like, ?No, I wouldn?t believe that because X,Y and Z make the alphabet?? and dah-dah-dah-dah. He has these really scientific reasons. It?s fascinating.?

Whether Swank herself is a skeptic or a believer, she says she approaches her work without an agenda.

?I don?t make movies because of a message to tell anybody. I make movies because there?s an element or something in it that I believe in or that I?m attracted to. You know, I?m not one to say, ?Oh, well, this would be good to show an audience how important this is or that is.? It?s solely for me and to challenge myself in any way.?