Hilary Swank’s Oscar-winning turn as Brandon Teena in “Boys Don’t Cry” was a boon for the representation of trans people onscreen back in 1999.
Kimberly Pierce’s film highlighted the tragic story of Teena, who fell victim to a brutal hate crime in 1993 in Nebraska, turning Swank into an A-lister and opening the doors for deeper LGBTQ storytelling in American movies.
(Though how widely it opened those doors is open to debate.) But would Swank, a cisgender woman, take on the role today, in a moment of increased visibility for trans actors? Swank spoke about her casting in a recent interview with Variety while promoting her Netflix series, “Away.”Swank said, two decades ago when the movie was released, “Trans people weren’t really walking around in the world saying, ‘Hey, I’m trans.’ Twenty-one years later, not only are trans people having their lives and living, thankfully, [although] we still
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