Amelia, directed by Mira Nair, almost certainly will earn Swank her third Academy Award nomination. It is typical of the actress' atypical roles in that it's about a character who flies against the prevailing winds.
The first Oscar was for the transgender Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry, a girl determined to live as a boy. The second was for Maggie Fitzgerald, scrappy boxer of Million Dollar Baby, a waitress determined to train as a prizefighter.
"What grabbed me about Amelia is that here is a woman who made no apologies for pursuing her dreams," Swank says of Earhart, who lived from 1897 to 1937 and was the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo.
How does Swank admire Earhart? Let her count the ways.
"She was honest about the life she wanted to live, she was supportive of other women, she wrote her own prenup!" enthuses the actress, flashing her panoramic smile.
Indeed, the Kansas-born Earhart - who briefly attended Philadelphia's Ogontz School (now Penn State Abington) - fought to get her pilot's license when women were perceived as too hormonal to fly. She founded the 99s, an organization that helped recruit and support women in aviation. When her agent-manager, George Putnam (Richard Gere in the film), proposed, Earhart accepted on condition of an open marriage.
"She was ahead of her time then," Swank says. "She'd be ahead of her time now."
Amelia, chronicle of that most iconoclastic icon, is one in a trio of biopics on 20th-century women that are Oscar front-runners. The others: Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia, with Meryl Streep as cookbook innovator Julia Child, and Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel, with Audrey Tautou as fashion revolutionary Coco Chanel.
"These are women who composed the music they danced to," says Amelia director Nair. "That speaks to audiences." What also speaks to audiences is how the filmmakers tenderly show how these pioneers of flying, food, and fashion were buoyed emotionally by the men in their lives.
