Hillary Swank and Clint Eastwood in moments from Million Dollar Baby

As part of its Oscar festival, STAR Movies is beaming Million Dollar Baby from 9 pm on Friday. The film had swept the major Academy Awards in 2005 including Best Director for Clint Eastwood (Frankie) and Best Actress for Hillary Swank (Maggie). This is what the two had to say about the movie.

MAGGIE

On the offer: The producers at Lakeshore sent me the script and said, ?We think you?d be great in this.? I read it and I laughed, I cried, I was inspired, I was moved. I thought Paul Haggis did an amazing adaptation. I instantly got the short story and read the short story as well. I said, ?I love this.? I got a call a couple of weeks later saying, ?Guess what, Clint Eastwood is going to star in it and wants to direct it and we?ve got to set up a meeting with you guys.? I almost fell off my chair.

On Clint Eastwood: I walked in and Clint can leave you speechless and you kind of just sit there and you gawk, you take him in. He?s incredible, but then he also makes you feel really comfortable and at ease. And then we started talking like I?d known him forever. I mean, he?s an icon, he?s a legend, he?s part of our film history in a way. I grew up watching his movies. He?s been making movies longer than I?ve been alive... There will never be another Clint Eastwood. There just won?t. And the great, most amazing thing I think is that I had such high expectations, our expectations I think are really hard to match most of the time, but Clint exceeded my expectations.

On the experience: I only had three months to get ready, which I realise in retrospect was barely enough time. I had trainers say to me, ?You?re never going to be able to gain 10 pounds in three months.? And I?d say, ?Well, okay, but you?re not my trainer, because I have to.? Clint ended up introducing me to Grant Roberts, a weight trainer he knew really well, who said, ?Yup, we can do it.? And together we put 19 pounds of muscle on me. So between him, Hector Roca, my boxing trainer, and Oz Garcia, my nutritionist, I got myself ready. It was the most physically challenging thing I?d ever done.

FRANKIE

On the film: It wasn?t hard to make, but it was just hard to get the studio interested. It seems nowadays everyone?s so interested in sequels, remakes, etc, it?s hard to do dramas, character studies or anything. They just don?t get them off the paper. Million Dollar Baby has nothing to do with other films... Fate took it in a tough direction. Here?s this young girl, and life should be great as the dream world goes, but it doesn?t come out that way. He?s the father that died that she loved very much, she?s the daughter that he?s estranged from, and he has the greatest moral dilemma. When I think about it, if somebody told me now, I?d say: ?You?d have to be pretty brave to try to pull that off, because what else could be worse in life??

On his style: A lot of times, a crew will be used to a person who does maybe 10 or 20 (takes), so they set it up and they know we?re going to be here grinding for a while, but I prefer not to. There are certain scenes in this particular picture that are very difficult for me that I just wanted to shoot. I didn?t want to rehearse ?em, I didn?t want to hear lines. I just wanted to say them for the first time. The scene in the church with the priest took one take. Because they?re highly emotional moments, you want to capture them while they?re still highly emotional in your mind. There?s

othing technical in ?em. So the ultimate reaction you want from your audience is that every scene sounds like it?s said for the first time. If a person can do that 10 times in a row and make it sound like it?s the first time, that?s terrific.

On acting: Back when I first started directing in 1970, I was thinking that eventually someday, I?d look on the screen, and I?d be tired of looking at that guy, so I took to directing. That way, if I got tired of looking, I could just work behind the camera. And that?s happened periodically, but there?s no real earth-shattering reason for it all, other than that I probably will in the coming years do more directing, not acting. I thought it might happen sooner, but it hasn?t. There?s just enough roles for older guys that I could slide in a few, like this last one. This was a wonderful role, but there?s not going to be a lot of roles for guys my age other than cameos or small roles that are repetitive of things I?ve done before, and I don?t want to repeat myself at this stage in life. Maybe when I was younger. You have to change with the times, change with your life. If you?re not constantly developing, then you just stop and slide off the scale.