Swank poured over as much archival footage of Amelia Earhart as she could get her hands on, and what she found is that there just isn't much footage available. "I know exactly to the minute how much there is out there. There are about 16 minutes of newsreel on Amelia, and all of that is some waving. It’s not all talking. So the actual things that we have of her speaking are limited, and a lot of the stuff that we have of her speaking are when she had her public persona on," explained Swank. "I found about 45 seconds of when she didn't know the camera was actually on and so I got a little bit of an insight of her not public face, which was very obviously insightful for me and something I really grabbed on to, because I didn’t want to parody her. That accent was very specific, the cadence in which she spoke was very specific, the way she carried herself was very specific, as it is for all of us. If I were playing you I would want to break down your exact mannerisms. They were big shoes to fill, I couldn’t take a lot of fictional-license, actually, that I could probably take if I were playing you, so it was a daunting task, and I felt like something that I had to really study to do justice to her."
Despite the lack of footage, Swank was able to get some insight into Earhart through other sources, including letters written by Earhart. "But I'll tell you, she was such a private person, as you see, that getting to know what she really felt was something that you have to read between the lines, because it's not really on the page even when she wrote about it. So just getting her childhood, I think our childhood makes up a lot of who we are and how we carry ourselves in the world, and what her parents were like, and the gifts her parents gave her and her sister. Her father encouraging her and her sister to get an education, to learn how to write, she was a prolific writer, she was writing poetry at the age of five," said Swank.
In getting to understand as much as possible who Amelia Earhart was, Swanks found she was most surprised about how unapologetically Earhart lived her life. "I found it quite remarkable, but at the same time she wasn't threatening to people. She didn't live it and say, 'Screw you all, this is my path,' and leave a bunch of people behind. She cared about people at the same time," offered Swank. "I found the more that I read about her, the more endearing she became."
Amelia Earhart's Legacy
Amelia Earhart broke down barriers and did everything in her power to inspire women to follow their dreams. Her accomplishments continue to inspire women today. "That’s what’s incredible about this movie to me is that I have never had such an outpouring of people come up to me and say, 'I cannot wait to see your film,' more than any of my other films I’ve ever been a part of. And I really have to say, I think what a lot of people know about Amelia is kind of what you learned in text books, and this iconic image of who she was, but I think people also realize that this was a woman in a time when following your dream was a man's job is an inspiration to us, to continue to follow our calling," said Swank."But even to take it a step further, I think this was a person who made no apologies for really living her life the way she wanted to live it. I think that that’s something, if she was living in 2009, that would be ahead of our time. I think it's very challenging to live our lives on the path that we want, whether you're a woman or a man. So to me, I think, more than anything that's what people are responding to, and it's exciting to see - especially in the difficult economic times we're living in and through - 70 years after she was living [we're] still dealing with a lot of the same issues."
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Amelia hits theaters on October 23, 2009 and is rated PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking.
