Hilary Swank stars in Freedom Writers, a film that, for the actor, imitates life. Like the charcter she plays, Swank sacrificed her marriage for her work.

NEW YORK — In real life, Hilary Swank is neither a boxer nor a crossdresser. But it’s a hazard of the job that work and roles will eventually bump into each other.

So it is with Freedom Writers, a teacher-makes-a-difference biopic, in which Swank plays real-life Long Beach high school teacher Erin Gruwell. The chipper Gruwell turned around a class of gangbangers with one of the highest drop-out rates in California, and sadly sacrificed her marriage to her crusade.

And Swank? Her own marriage to Chad Lowe ended while she was shooting Freedom Writers.

And she says she has also come to terms with her own secret shame — that she is a high-school dropout herself.

“I’m not proud to say I’m a high-school dropout,” says Swank, who says her biggest issue was a problem with rules. “I’m not proud that that’s something that happened, but it happened. I think school is really, really important, and we have an education problem in this country, and it’s a shame. It’s a shame for any kid to feel hopeless about their future.”

Of course, Swank quit to concentrate on her career as a teen actor. “I can’t say I felt hopeless about my future because I had this idea about what I wanted to do and I had my mom who supported me (and moved her to L.A. from Washington State to further the cause).

“But when you read the story and see a lot of these kids in high school who feel they won’t amount to anything and might die tomorrow, and no one’s going to believe in them and no one’s going to give them a chance, you know it’s a tragedy.”

Inspired by a profile on ABC’s Primetime Live, and directed by Richard LaGravenese, Freedom Writers picks up Erin Gruwell’s story from her teacher’s college grad at age 23, and her first assignment — a remedial class torn into mini-warzones by gang and race affiliation.

(Several of the actors in the film are from gang-affected neighbourhoods, including newcomer Jason Finn, who was once shot in South Central L.A.).

Gruwell found herself at odds both with the students and the administration, which resisted her efforts to create a new curriculum (denying her books, for example).

Her breakthrough student-journals inspired a book and a national program which Gruwell now administers.

“When I was told what it was about — this teacher goes into a school — I thought ‘Is this going to be like Dangerous Minds?’ ” Swank says of the 1995 film starring Michelle Pfeiffer. “I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it wasn’t anything even close.

“I was sent the script and the book, and immediately, just like Boys Don’t Cry, just like Million Dollar Baby, there was an instant connection. I connected on so many levels. I connected with the kids. I connected with the story of having someone who believes in you and how that changes your life.

“I also loved the power of writing your story down and learning about yourself. I feel that in the last couple of years, I’ve really come into my own and I connected to that. I laughed, I cried I felt inspired — y’know, all the emotions that you want to feel when you read a book or watch a movie.”

As for the romantic casualty in Gruwell’s life (Grey’s Anatomy’s Patrick Dempsey plays her unsympathetic architect husband), Swank says she’s seen it all before.

The actress — who reports she’s “actually in a new relationship now” — says “a lot of people talk about this, when they’re pursuing their dream and success, and not spending as much time at home and taking care of... or whatever myriad things we could talk about ... there’s a support that’s missing.

“That just kills a part of you, because this person who’s supposed to be sharing your life and loves you and is supposed to understand you better than anybody, is, like, trying to cap you down when you’ve already got enough people in the world saying ‘You can’t do that’ or ‘You’re not going to be able to do that.’

“That’s a really real and sad thing. Unfortunately, I think people that are scared don’t allow (their spouses) to be fully realized.”

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