I'd venture that she could take about 80% of the women out there," says Clint Eastwood. He's talking about how Hilary Swank might fare if she were obliged to box for real instead of for the camera, as she triumphantly, tragically does in Eastwood's Oscar-worthy Million Dollar Baby.

"Work ethic" is the phrase that keeps recurring to Eastwood when he talks about his star. To play Maggie Fitzgerald, the lower-class waitress who's all heart turned fighter who's all gristle, Swank gained 19 lbs.—"all muscle," says Eastwood. She worked out five or six hours a day for three months. "That eagerness and persistence is natural to her," says Eastwood. "She brings it to everything she does."

NEXT: More Million Dollar Baby