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Swank had landed the lead in Boys Don't Cry -- a dark, reality-based indie film.
It's about a 21-year-old named Teena Brandon, a woman with a sexual identity crisis. She had passed herself off in blue-collar, small-town Nebraska as a man named Brandon Teena. The charismatic "Brandon" was popular with the girls, and a buddy to the guys, but ended up raped and murdered -- along with two friends -- after the masquerade was uncovered.
"To do the movie justice -- because it was so close to a lot of people's hearts -- it was very important to me to actually pass as a boy, to live as a boy, which I did for six weeks," says Swank, whose previous big credit was as the heroine in The Next Karate Kid.
"So the transformation began obviously with cutting my hair off, colouring it. I started voice work, deepening my voice and getting the Nebraska accent. The walk, the way I sat ... and of course, strapping and packing (that is, strapping her breasts in tension bandages and packing socks in her pants)."
But big deal, this is L.A. we're talking about.
"You're right," she says with a laugh, "transsexualism is not a big deal there. I went to a couple of gay bars where there were people who looked just like me, so people knew I was a girl passing as a boy.
"But the important thing was to pass with straight people. So I just lived my whole life (as a male) -- in the morning, every time I stepped out of my house, running errands. My neighbours thought I was Hilary's brother."
Her husband Chad Lowe (Rob's brother) helped her along, hanging with "James" during his visit. "He was my one and true anchor the entire time," she says.
Director Kimberly Peirce found Swank after four years of searching and a mere four weeks from the start of shooting. The first-time feature filmmaker had been shepherding the project ever since film school, when she read about Brandon Teena's murder in The Village Voice.
"Brandon, on some level, 'passed,' " Peirce says. "And I had to completely duplicate that. How could you believe the other characters if she didn't pass as a boy in the movie?
"I had been searching for years, I had looked at every butch lesbian, every trans-gender. It's not like a normal role. Most girls can't suddenly be boys. I saw all these great, wonderful actresses, but they could not do the boy thing. They'd strut around, they'd wink, y'know. But they couldn't bring the sexuality out."
Then she got a tape of Swank's audition.
"And there it was. This beam came across the screen. She was wearing a cowboy hat and had this gorgeous jaw, great big ears, wonderful teeth, big brown eyes, an Adam's Apple. She had the confidence and charisma, but most of all she had a smile."
For Swank, the immersion clearly paid off professionally. Boys Don't Cry has received critical acclaim and was singled out by Roger Ebert as the best movie of this year's Toronto International Film Festival. There's even buzz of a longshot Oscar nomination for Swank -- quite a cross-over for a "TV actress."
On a personal level, she says, "I did notice if people couldn't define what sex I was, I could feel the disrespect. It was a lonely feeling and what was sad was I knew I could get out of it, because my role would be over. But people like Brandon Teena go through their whole life feeling that loneliness."
Not that the return to her old life came easily.
"I was immersed in the character so deeply, I didn't know if I was ever going to be feminine again.
"And," she laughs, "I made a beeline to get my armpits waxed and my legs waxed and my eyebrows waxed ... all of that. And I was very into dresses and high heels for about two months after."