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Hilary Swank Reveals How She Has Changed Since Beverly Hills, 90210: ‘Opinions Don’t Matter’ (Exclusive)

Hilary-Swank
Hilary Swank attends the season premiere of FX’s Trust, May 11, 2018. Sara De Boer/startraksphoto.com

Hilary Swank, Oscar-winning star of Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don’t Cry, took a hiatus from Hollywood in 2015 to care for her ailing father. Three years later, Swank, 43, is back and starring in the FX limited series Trust, playing mother of the kidnapped John Paul Getty III, heir to the Getty oil fortune.

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It’s not Swank’s first time on the small screen. She played single mom Carly Reynolds on Beverly Hills, 90210 from 1997 to 1998, and the Nebraska native admits she’s come a long way since she started out in show business at age 28. “I just think I’ve grown in that maybe opinions don’t matter,” Swank told Us Weekly at the FX’s Trust event earlier this month. “When you’re younger, you’re really feeling like, ‘Ahh! What do people think?’ And then you realize you’re just never gonna please everybody.”

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“You really have to make sure you’re pleasing yourself and choosing roles that are right for you, for your evolution as a person and as an artist,” she continued. “Always stay true to yourself.”

 Swank, who would go on to become one of Tinseltown’s most in demand actresses, was fired from 90120 after 16 episodes. “They were like, ‘Look, it’s not working,’” she recalled to Star 2 Entertainment in April. “And I couldn’t move. I was like, ‘What’s not working? Me? Am I bad? I’m not working because I’m bad?’”

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It had nothing to do with Swank. Fans preferred her onscreen love interest Steve Sanders (Ian Ziering) single according to Swank. But her tears quickly dried. Months later, she landed Boys Don’t Cry as transgender man Brandon Teena, a life-changing role that earned her an Oscar.

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