Hilary Swank Oscar #2: Century’s First Double-Winning Performer

Hilary Swank Oscar triumph: The star of Clint Eastwood’s boxing melodrama Million Dollar Baby has become the 21st century’s first two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner. Her previous victory, for Boys Don’t Cry, took place in early 2000.

Hilary Swank Oscar feat: Million Dollar Baby star is new century’s first 2-time winner in the Academy Awards’ acting categories

At the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony held on Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, 30-year-old Hilary Swank became the first two-time Best Actress winner of the 21st century. In fact, Swank became the young century’s very first two-time winner in any of the Oscars’ acting categories.

Only five years ago, at the 2000* Oscar ceremony, she was named Best Actress for her work as a young woman passing for a man in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry.

This second victory was for her performance in Clint Eastwood’s sentimental melodrama Million Dollar Baby, starring Swank in another “mannish” role: An all-but-unbeatable and steadfastly loyal boxer with whom a throaty-voiced, stone-faced trainer (Eastwood) develops a father-daughter relationship.

Swank’s Best Actress Oscar competition consisted of National Board of Review winner Annette Bening for Being Julia, Venice Film Festival winner Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake, Independent Spirit Award winner and Berlin Film Festival co-winner† Catalina Sandino Moreno for Maria Full of Grace, and London Film Critics Best British Actress winner Kate Winslet for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

* For all purposes, the beginning of the 21st century, not the end of the 20th.

† Tied with Charlize Theron for Monster.

Previous two-time Best Actress Oscar winners

Although the Hilary Swank Oscar Double Dose is the first in the 21st century, it’s definitely not the first one ever. Back at the 1938 Academy Awards ceremony, relatively recent German import Luise Rainer became the acting categories’ first double winner and first back-to-back winner.

Below are the Oscars’ previous two-time Best Actress honorees (in chronological order):

• Luise Rainer – The Great Ziegfeld (1936); The Good Earth (1937).
• Bette Davis – Dangerous (1935); Jezebel (1938).
• Olivia de Havilland – To Each His Own (1946); The Heiress (1949).
• Vivien Leigh – Gone with the Wind (1939); A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
• Ingrid Bergman – Gaslight (1944); Anastasia (1956), in addition to a Best Supporting Actress win for Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
• Elizabeth Taylor – Butterfield 8 (1960); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
• Glenda Jackson – Women in Love (1970); A Touch of Class (1973).
• Jane Fonda – Klute (1971); Coming Home (1978).
• Sally Field – Norma Rae (1979); Places in the Heart (1984).
• Jodie Foster – The Accused (1988); The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In a realm of her own, Katharine Hepburn won a total of four Best Actress Oscar statuettes:

• Morning Glory (1933).
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967).
• The Lion in Winter (1968), tied with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl.
• On Golden Pond (1981).

Below are a trio of images from the 2005 Oscar ceremony, in addition to the list of this year’s winners and nominees.

Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman flank Best Picture Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby director-producer-composer-star Clint Eastwood. Flanking the three of them are Million Dollar Baby producers Tom Rosenberg and Albert S. Ruddy.

Hilary Swank Oscar honor from the hands of last year’s Best Actor winner, Sean Penn – coincidentally, for a performance in another melodrama directed by Clint Eastwood, Mystic River.

Clint Eastwood with Julia Roberts. This year’s Best Director Oscar winner for Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood had previously won in that category for the Western Unforgiven (1992). Roberts is herself a Best Actress winner for Erin Brockovich (2000).

Oscar winners & nominations

Picture
The Aviator.
Finding Neverland.
* Million Dollar Baby.
Ray.
Sideways.

Foreign Language Film
As It Is in Heaven (Sweden).
The Chorus (France).
Downfall (Germany).
* The Sea Inside (Spain).
Yesterday (South Africa).

Actress
Annette Bening – Being Julia.
Catalina Sandino Moreno – Maria Full of Grace.
Imelda Staunton – Vera Drake.
* Hilary Swank – Million Dollar Baby.
Kate Winslet – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Supporting Actress
* Cate Blanchett – The Aviator.
Laura Linney – Kinsey.
Virginia Madsen – Sideways.
Sophie Okonedo – Hotel Rwanda.
Natalie Portman – Closer.

Actor
Don Cheadle – Hotel Rwanda.
Johnny Depp – Finding Neverland.
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Aviator.
Clint Eastwood – Million Dollar Baby.
* Jamie Foxx – Ray.

Supporting Actor
Alan Alda – The Aviator.
Thomas Haden Church – Sideways.
Jamie Foxx – Collateral.
* Morgan Freeman – Million Dollar Baby.
Clive Owen – Closer.

Director
* Clint Eastwood – Million Dollar Baby.
Taylor Hackford – Ray.
Mike Leigh – Vera Drake.
Alexander Payne – Sideways.
Martin Scorsese – The Aviator.

Original Screenplay
The Aviator.
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Hotel Rwanda.
The Incredibles.
Vera Drake.

Adapted Screenplay
Before Sunset.
Finding Neverland.
Million Dollar Baby.
The Motorcycle Diaries.
* Sideways.

Cinematography
* The Aviator.
House of Flying Daggers.
The Passion of the Christ.
The Phantom of the Opera.
A Very Long Engagement.

Film Editing
* The Aviator.
Collateral.
Finding Neverland.
Million Dollar Baby.
Ray.

Score
* Finding Neverland.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The Passion of the Christ.
The Village.

Art Direction
* The Aviator.
Finding Neverland.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The Phantom of the Opera.
A Very Long Engagement.

Documentary Feature
* Born Into Brothels.
The Story of the Weeping Camel.
Super Size Me.
Tupac: Resurrection.
Twist of Faith.

Animated Film
* The Incredibles.
Shark Tale.
Shrek 2.

Original Song
“Accidentally in Love” – Shrek 2.
* “Al otro lado del río” – The Motorcycle Diaries.
“Believe” – The Polar Express.
“Learn to Be Lonely” – The Phantom of the Opera.
“Look to Your Path” (“Vois sur ton chemin”) – The Chorus.

Costume Design
* The Aviator.
Finding Neverland.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Ray.
Troy.

Visual Effects
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
I Robot.
* Spider-Man 2.

Sound Mixing
The Aviator.
The Incredibles.
The Polar Express.
* Ray.
Spider-Man 2.

Sound Editing
* The Incredibles.
The Polar Express.
Spider-Man 2.

Makeup
* Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
The Passion of the Christ.
The Sea Inside.

Live Action Short
Everything in This Country Must.
Little Terrorist.
7:35 in the Morning.
Two Cars One Night.
* Wasp.

Animated Short
Birthday Boy.
Gopher Broke.
Guard Dog.
Lorenzo.
* Ryan.

Documentary Short
Autism Is a World.
The Children of Leningradsky.
Hardwood.
* Mighty Times: The Children’s March.
Sister Rose’s Passion.

“Hilary Swank Oscar #2” endnotes

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.

See also: The mysterious link connecting George W. Bush, Jesus Christ, and the Academy Awards.

Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Rosenberg, Albert S. Ruddy, Sean Penn, Clint Eastwood, Julia Roberts, and Hilary Swank Oscar ceremony images: © A.M.P.A.S.

“Hilary Swank Oscar #2: Century’s First Double-Winning Performer” last updated in December 2021.