After working as a production assistant on Forrest Gump (1994) in 1993, Girard Swan moved to Los Angeles in an attempt to continue to get work in the film business.
After less than a year in LA, he decided to move to New York and began studying at the HB Studio in Manhattan and working at Manhattan's Pierre Hotel.
Over the next several years he focused most of his creative energy on theatre, playing such roles as Eugene in Look Homeward Angel, John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, Malcolm in Macbeth, Marco in A View from the Bridge, Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Arturo Ui in The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, among many others.
After completing work on The patriot: Le chemin de la liberté (2000) and Ce que veulent les femmes (2000), he left the business again from 2001 until 2006.
In the fall of 2006, he was cast as Deputy Harvey Pell, opposite Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, Peter Fonda and Ben Foster in the instant, western classic 3h10 pour Yuma (2007).
His role as one of the town deputies tasked with escorting Crowe's character to the train at the end of the film gained him some long sought notice in Hollywood. Other roles soon began to follow, including opposite Jessica Alba in the horror film The Eye (2008). Although, his scenes were later cut from the film.
A role as an FBI Agent on the series US Marshals (2008) and as a Firefighter on Crash (2008) were next.
Then came the western genre feature Appaloosa (2008), starring Renée Zellweger, Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen as one of the outlaw gang members working for Randall Bragg - played by Jeremy Irons.
He lives in Los Angeles and has several projects in financing and development to be filmed in 2014 and 2015.
