The performance that made Sydney Sweeney want to be an actor: “An amazing movie”
If we ignore the various controversies and interesting takes Sydney Sweeney has started delivering lately, there is still no denying that in the new cast of Hollywood’s rising greats, she’s there.
Before even turning 30, Sweeney has several iconic roles under her belt. Already, many people will know her from different things. To one person, she will always and forever be Cassie, frantically making herself beautiful at 5am during a crash out in Euphoria. To another, she’s always going to be Olivia from the first season of White Lotus. Older audiences might only ever remember her as a face from an episode of Criminal Minds, while movie fans might first think of her roles in Anyone but You, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, maybe even the awful Madame Web.
It’s a triumph, and it’s undeniably an achievement won by Sweeney’s ability. Across all of those roles, her character is vastly different. While still so young, she’s already done everything from the romantic lead to the villain, comedy to horror, cult movies to blockbuster television.
But that breadth and depth doesn’t come from nowhere, and Sweeney didn’t have any kind of classic leg-up way into Hollywood. Born into a working-class family in Washington, it was actually her family’s financial struggles that first led her into acting, even having to present her parents with a five-year business plan of how she’d make money to allow them to let her pursue the creative career. So it’s not like anyone gave her an easy ride into the industry.
Instead, it came through work. She started honing her skills through the lowest-level commercial and acting jobs, taking any role she could in lieu of any formal training. To her, training came more in the form of watching movies as she studied the greats to try and join them.
“I love my favorites like Titanic and Gone With the Wind, just films [worth] watching as a whole,” she said to Backstage. But no movie has ever inspired her like one 1999 release. “Boys Don’t Cry is an amazing movie to watch, just emotion-wise,” she said, recommending it to any viewers at all. Specifically to her, though, she saw this film as a true masterclass, stating, “that performance by Hilary Swank made me want to be an actor.”
In the film, Swank takes on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a trans teenager in Nebraska. It’s a truly harrowing and tragic tale, so naturally, Swank’s performance is a devastating one, capturing the struggles Teena suffered in a society that wouldn’t accept him, and then in the horror he faced at the end.
Swank’s performance was so captivating that it earned her the Oscar for ‘Best Actress’, and castmate Chloë Sevigny also got a nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actress’, as the entire film was celebrated as an emotional masterpiece.
Still today, it’s one that a lot of actors especially bring up as a key movie that taught them a lot or greatly moved them, with Sweeney being one of many devotees who took what they learned from her iconic performance and put it into their own work.
