Fatale star Hilary Swank on filming sex scenes, the future of Away and why she loves Australia

Two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank reveals the secrets of filming the steamy sex scenes in her new erotic thriller Fatale, and the future of her cancelled Netflix space drama, Away

Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy in a scene from Fatale.

Hilary Swank famously punched her way to her second Best Actress Oscar in boxing drama Million Dollar Baby – now she’s showing off a rarely seen side of her in the erotic thriller, Fatale.

But the acclaimed actor says the two have more in common than you might think – whether filming a fight scene or a sex scene, it’s all about “the edit and the angle”.

“The crazy thing is that both of those types of scenes take immense choreography and it’s all in how real it looks on both sides,” she says over Zoom from her Colorado home.

“Whether it’s a scene where someone is having sex or taking a punch – it’s all in the edit and the angle and you just have to work out the choreography of it and the respect of it and make sure that no one is getting hurt or feeling uncomfortable.”

SEX ON SCREEN

The filming of sex scenes has become something of a hot-button topic for Hollywood in recent years, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement and revelations of sexual harassment on film and television sets going back decades.

Indeed, the union that covers many actors in Hollywood, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, last week announced an accreditation program for “intimacy co-ordinators”, to set standards for how to communicate with actors before filming explicit scenes, details of nudity riders, and closed-set protocols.

Michael Ealy and Hilary Swank steaming up the screen in Fatale.

Fatale co-star Michael Ealy, who steams up the screen as a married, successful sports agent who has a one-night stand with Swank’s police officer character, had his first dealings with an intimacy co-ordinator while filming the third season of the HBO sci-fi hit Westworld in 2019 and he says the initiative is not before time.

“For years I had done intimate scenes and been like ‘OK, so what’s off limits? How do you feel about this?’ and we would just kind of work it out ourselves,” he says.

“And Hilary and I kind of did that because this movie was shot before they had intimacy consultants. I think the goal of good actors is to make it look real and make sure everybody feels safe and now it seems like Hollywood is actually standing by that and supporting it by implementing these intimacy co-ordinators, counsellors, consultants – whatever it is – and making sure that both sides are covered and everyone feels that ‘OK, we will stick to the choreography, no one is going to get surprised’. And I think that’s healthy because it leads to a much safer environment for people to be creative.”

FATALE ATTRACTION

Swank says she was attracted to the character of Val in Fatal Attraction-esqe Fatale – a hard-bitten, hard-living detective, traumatised by losing custody of her daughter – mostly because it was such a change of pace for her. Since her early days in television shows including Camp Wilder and Beverly Hills 90210, and then winning her first Best Actress Oscar as trans man Brandon Teena in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, Swank has carved out a wildly eclectic career, from thrillers including Insomnia and The Gift, to dramas Amelia and Freedom Writers, sci-fi efforts The Core and I Am Mother and rom-coms PS I Love You and New Year’s Eve. And as she celebrates three decades in the business, that’s exactly the way she likes it.

Hilary Swank as the hard-living detective Val in Fatale. Photo By: Scott Everett White

“Here I am, 29 years in this business and I haven’t played a character like this before,” she says delightedly of the deeply flawed, morally questionable Val, who becomes further entangled with Ealy’s Derrick when she is assigned to investigate a break-in and assault at his house after their Las Vegas fling.

“How great is it that you can have such diversity and opportunity as decades span? How many people get to say that about their job, that it changes and can evolve and take different shapes and forms? I am just so grateful and it’s so fun. Val was a wild ride but if you get into the heart of who she was – even though she makes choices I would not make – you can kind of understand them.

“You have to find something that you identify with your character no matter who they are or what they are doing. What I identified with in her was that she is an alpha – I am very much an alpha. I persevere, she perseveres. We are both flawed human beings who make mistakes – hers are greater than mine thankfully.”

Hilary Swank hopes she can revive the cancelled Netflix drama series, Away somewhere else. Picture: Netflix

CANCELLED CULTURE

Swank further extended her range last year with the space drama Away, in which she starred as astronaut Emma Green, leader of humankind’s first mission to Mars. She’d been wary of signing up to long-form TV projects in the past, preferring to occupy characters for the span of a single film before moving on to the next one. But she saw enough in the character of Green – also a mother dealing with the consequences of making a conscious choice to leave her husband and daughter for years – to sign up for what she hoped was the first of many seasons.

“It was such a reminder that you just can’t judge anything and put ideas on it until you have really dived into it and experienced it,” she says of her first Netflix experience. “I had so much fun playing in the gradations of Emma Green, and whereas in a movie you know ‘this is where they fall down, and this is where they get up’ … you get one moment for that but in a show you get to play the gradations of all those emotions, which is a really great challenge.”

But despite performing solidly and hitting the No.1 streaming spot for Netflix in the US, Away became one of the streaming giant’s COVID-casualties of 2020 and was cancelled after one season, meaning audiences may never get to see how the crew of the Atlas adjust to life on Mars.

“There were some shake-ups at Netflix and some people moved on and the person who was really championing our show and greenlit the show got a great promotion at another company and she left,” Swank says philosophically. “It’s just the way it is. But I am actually still trying to find another place for it because everyone asks me that question.”

Hilary Swank in a scene from I Am Mother, which was shot in Adelaide.

HONORARY AUSSIE

Australian fans shouldn’t be surprised if Swank makes another trip Down Under when travel restrictions ease. She spent her 20th birthday in Victoria’s Hepburn Springs and has returned several times for work and pleasure, most recently shooting I Am Mother in Adelaide – and absolutely loves the place (even showing off her impeccable local credentials by pronouncing Melbourne correctly).

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“I love that country,” she gushes. “We would drive those back roads and find some crazy random place to get a beer on the side of the road and kangaroos would be jumping up to this boutique little spa that I was staying in and kookaburras would land on my porch and I just remember hearing sounds that were like I was on another planet.

“You get to Australia and you go ‘what WAS that?’. It sounds like a dinosaur outside your door. The people are just great – they are so laid-back and easygoing – and I just love nature so I am in heaven.”

Fatale is in cinemas tomorrow.