Hilary Swank said she was personally inspired by Sharon Stevens Evans, the real-life woman she portrays in her upcoming movie, “Ordinary Angels.”
“She’s larger than life. She is like a force of nature, Sharon, and she is flawed and she’s imperfect, like we all are,” Swank said during a visit to TODAY on Feb. 19.
“And she’s going through her life and loses her faith and then gets an opportunity to find her truest purpose by helping this family, and this young girl,” Swank continued. “And then gets a chance to regain her faith.”
“Ordinary Angels,” which hits theaters Feb. 23, tells the story of a determined hairdresser who rallies her community in Louisville, Kentucky, to save the life of Michelle Schmitt, a toddler who needs an urgent liver transplant.
“Reacher” actor Alan Ritchman co-stars as Michelle’s dad, Ed Schmitt. “Ordinary Angels” also features Nancy Travis (“The Kominsky Method”), Tamala Jones (“Castle”), Skywalker Hughes (“Joe Pickett”) and Amy Acker (“The Gifted”).
Read on to learn more about the true story that inspired “Ordinary Angels.”
Is ‘Ordinary Angels’ based on a true story?
Yes, “Ordinary Angels” is based on the true story of a Kentucky hairdresser who helped a critically ill little girl get a life-saving liver transplant.
The real-life events that inspired the movie unfolded in the early 1990s in Louisville, Kentucky, and involved Ed Schmitt, a widower raising two young girls, Michelle and Ashley, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
Both girls had a congenital liver disease and needed liver transplants to survive. Ashley received her transplant in 1991. However, three years later, Michelle, 3 at the time, was still waiting for a liver to become available. Meanwhile, the family was drowning in medical debt.
When Sharon Stevens Evans, a local hairdresser, read about the Schmitts’ plight in the newspaper, she launched fundraising efforts to help the family. She even raised…
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