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Before she was cast in Boys Don't Cry, Hilary Swank was that wispy girl who'd played Carly Reynolds for one season on Beverly Hills 90210.
She'd also replaced Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid movies in 1994's The Next Karate Kid.
These days, Swank is the front-runner in the Oscar race for best actress and already has this year's Golden Globe to celebrate her critically acclaimed performance.
In the powerful fact-based drama which opens exclusively at the Globe Cinema on Friday, Swank plays Teena Brandon.
She was a 21-year-old Nebraska woman with a serious identity problem.
Teena believed she was a man and was determined to live her life as Brandon Teena.
For a while, it worked.
Because he was so sensitive, Brandon was popular with the local girls -- even finding himself a serious girlfriend in Lana (Chloe Sevigny), a factory worker who may or may not have guessed Brandon's deception.
When the truth emerged, Brandon was raped and murdered by two of the town boys who had accepted him/her as a friend.
"I couldn't see myself playing Brandon in the film unless I was convinced I could pass as a man," recalls Swank.
This transformation entailed more than just cropping off her hair and wearing men's clothes.
"For a month before we began shooting the film and for the six weeks we shot, I lived my public life as a man.
"When I left the house, even to do an errand it, was as Brandon, not Hilary.
"Our neighbours thought I was Hilary's younger brother. I would go to malls and play video games with the teenage boys and talk to girls. I realized quickly I couldn't grin. That was the dead giveaway and I had to consciously pitch my voice much lower."
Swank says her greatest support came from her husband Chad Lowe, younger brother of Rob Lowe.
"If he hadn't been there encouraging and helping me every moment, I don't think I could have done the movie.
"You get so confused after a while. I got to the point where I felt I'd lost my femininity, and I did, in a way.
"I remember a friend visited us one day. After an hour, she said she was spooked. She didn't feel as if Hilary was in the room."
The hardest scenes for Swank to film were those when Teena is forced to strip and later when she is raped.
"Simulating the rape was a terrifying ordeal. The other actors were so understanding, but after a while your brain can't differentiate.
"Worse still was the bathroom scene where they force me to strip. I could feel just how humiliating and terrifying that must have been for Teena.
"It made me physically ill."
Swank also has several intimate scenes with Sevigny, whose equally uncompromising performance has earned her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
"Those scenes were not difficult at all. To an actor, there's no difference pretending you're in love with a man or a woman. The only person I love that way is Chad, so it's all pretense whether the object of my character's performance is a man or a woman."
Boys Don't Cry has given Swank's career an incredible boost. She has already filmed the central role in The Gift, a powerful new drama written by Billy Bob Thornton, and has signed on to The Affair of the Necklace, a period drama about the French woman who engineered the downfall of Marie Antoinette.
"I'm happy to say I'm completely back. There are no traces of Brandon left. I can honestly say when I look in the mirror I only see Hilary.
"Even more exhilarating is that when I watch Boys Don't Cry, it's as if I'm watching someone else."