(continued from previous page) Even, says her husband, actor Chad Lowe, to cleaning out the basement and other chores the laid-back Lowe tends to duck. "She's a perfect combination of drive, fearlessness and humanity," he says. She has had to be, because Swank, 30, grew up in the same sort of trailer-park environment as did Maggie and, for that matter, Teena, the small-town transgendered woman she won an Oscar for playing in 1999's Boys Don't Cry. The difference between them and Swank—and she insists that it's the crucial difference—is that, unlike those characters, she had a supportive mom, who encouraged her dream of escape via acting.

Pursuing that dream took her through the usual forgettable TV work before she landed Boys, as well as some pretty dismal movies after it. That's because there are not many parts for authentically tough little nuts like Swank. In most tough-nut movie roles, actors drop their hard edge after a couple of reels so that we can adore their vulnerability. Swank, in her two great roles, allows us to take her to heart eventually—but it's not quite an unconditional surrender. The wariness, the memories of hard use remain and, in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby, steel her (and us) for the devastation of their climaxes.

Eastwood, for one, is grateful. "There are just not that many actresses her age with the right combination of discipline and experience for Maggie." But that's all right. There is at least this one. And we're firmly in her corner.

—By Richard Schickel