One minute Hilary Swank’s making you sob, the next she’s trying to inspire you. She hopes that with the biblical thriller “”The Reaping,”” she’ll make you jump out of your seat. Swank talks to us in a conference call about how “”The Reaping”” even surprised her, why working with a blue screen is as challenging as working with badass Clint Eastwood and how plagues of locusts are fun.

Wildcat: As an Oscar winner, you’re now afforded a greater opportunity to choose your own roles. I was wondering how your decision-making process works.

Swank: It’s all script. If I love the script or it’s just my reaction to the script whether it be, you know, challenging a new way or, I mean, it doesn’t matter what genre it is as long as I laugh or cry, I’m scared or suspense … it’s just what’s on the page. I’m not actually out there searching for things. I just try and find something when I’m reading that moves me in some way or scares me in some way but ultimately challenges me.

W: When you’re doing a thriller movie, did you realize which parts were scary or were you surprised when you saw the final product?

S: You know, that’s actually a great question because even though I read the script and you obviously act it in the movie, when I watched the movie I got scared at certain points. And all my friends looked at me like, ‘But you know what happens.’ Yet I forgot that some of those things happened.

W: You mentioned earlier you pick your movies based upon what draws you from the scripts. So what out of “”The Reaping”” really caught your eye?

S: Well, I thought that it was a really smart supernatural thriller. When I read the script it was a real page turner. There were some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. And it’s hard to trick me. I read a lot of scripts and I see a lot of movies. And that was definitely a catch for me. There were things that were happening that the movie deals with that made me think a lot. So when I was done reading it, I just kind of really kept thinking about it and it really stuck with me.

W: Since the film is heavy on special effects you had to do a lot of blue screen work. Which is more challenging for you – coming up with a complex human emotion while acting with people or playing fear against something you can’t see?

S: Well, it’s definitely different, and I wouldn’t say one is more challenging than the other. But that’s what I love, is that it’s just different. It’s different than what I’ve done before. It’s doing something on a blue screen, and you don’t have anything to react off that’s right in front of you. So it’s definitely different and mixes it up. I love that new challenge. It was really fun to see all the locusts that weren’t really there when you watch the movie to see what I was reacting off, of which was nothing and just pretend. But then to see them actually on the screen – it’s great how a film can do that.

W: On the topic of religion I wanted to ask you out of all the plagues that you saw come to life in the film, which is your favorite scene and why?

S: Well, I think that the locust(s) because it was just fun to film. When you see the movie the locust scene is fun and interesting.