United States actress Hilary Swank gets in touch with her inner child in her new Netflix series Away.

“When I was five years old, all I wanted to be was an astronaut,” she told The Jakarta Post in a recent email interview.

“My top priority as a child was simply wanting a telescope. I finally got one, but it was pretty cheap and I couldn’t see much of anything when I looked through it. For someone who wanted to explore the planets in person, not even being able to see them through a telescope was pretty disappointing,” she said.

Known for her method acting in Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Swank saw playing the lead role in Away as a challenge. As Emma Green in the series, a NASA astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars, it was a great opportunity to dive in and essentially scrape the surface of what it’s like to be an astronaut, she said.

Swank was thrilled to play the character, especially because Emma is written in a way that she displays an array of complex characteristics of a woman who is mother, wife and also an astronaut with a science and military background. The complexity makes the character strong and at the same time vulnerable.

“I find that oftentimes when you speak about a female character who has strength, she lacks vulnerability because for some reason that's seen as a weakness. In Away, it’s championed as a strength and I love all of the facets of who she is,” she said.

Many critics, however, have given the series a lukewarm response. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 61 percent based on 54 reviews, with a critics’ consensus that reads “doesn't reach the stratosphere as a spacetime adventure, but emotional earnestness and a strong cast help make this a compelling enough journey to the stars”.

Viewers who expect a typical sci-fi drama might be disappointed by the fact that the screenplay gives more room to the characters’ emotional journeys.

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For Swank, the series was an opportunity to explore a character so deep that it required both her physical and emotional resilience.

“I've been acting now for 29 years and it's hard for me to find roles that challenge me to my core like this one has,” the two-time Academy Award winner said. “To be emotionally challenged and physically challenged, those are two very different things. It's hard to find them both in a role, so to get to do something where I could dive in for six months physically and emotionally was an extraordinary gift.”

According to Swank, she and her costars did two weeks’ astronaut training to adapt to zero gravity and one-sixth gravity.

She also spoke to Peggy Whitson, one of the most celebrated female astronauts who has served the longest tenure as a commander in the Space Station.

“The biggest struggles that she had experienced really paralleled our story with what Emma's struggles were,” she said.

The 10-episode series Away premiered on Netflix on Sept. 4. Along with Swank, it features the cast of Josh Charles, Vivian Wu, Mark Ivanir, Ato Essandoh, Ray Panthaki and Talitha Bateman.

The actors also got to play alongside real-life former NASA astronaut and consultant Mike Massimino, who has a cameo playing himself in the series. “I am not really an actor, but I do think I am really good at playing myself. I’ve done it for a long time,” he said in a statement.

Created by Andrew Hinderaker, the series is inspired by journalist Chris Jones’ article in Esquire, and he also contributed as a writer. (wng)