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Holly Hunter - Biography |
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Holly Hunter was born in Conyers,
Georgia on March 20th, 1958, the daughter of Charles Edwin Hunter, a
part-time sporting goods manufacturer's representative and part-time
farmer with 250 acres, and Opal Marguerite Catledge, a homemaker. The
youngest of seven children, Holly was encouraged by her parents to pursue
her acting talent at an early age, and she landed her first gig as Helen
Keller in a fifth-grade play.
After a comfortable small-town upbringing, Holly ventured north for some
serious acting training. She found it at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon
University under Jorge Guerra, and then hopped over to New York City to
try to live the dream. Serendipity was on her side when the young talent
found herself stuck in a stalled elevator with playwright Beth Henley. The
chance meeting led to collaborations between the two women -- first the
stage production of The Miss Firecracker Contest, then with Hunter's 1982
Broadway debut, Crimes of the Heart. Meanwhile, Hunter had made her
onscreen debut in the 1981 slasher flick The Burning, a film notable for
two things: its sheer unwatchability, and its casting of a young, not so
stocky or bald Jason Alexander.
Hunter worked in a couple of TV movies and had her role reduced in the
Goldie Hawn vehicle Swing Shift (1984) before attracting attention as the
lovesick, maternal police officer Ed in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona
(1987), a part the quirky pair wrote specifically for her. She had an even
meatier role, turned down by Debra Winger, as an ambitious TV news
producer in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987), where her portrayal of
a successful workaholic earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Since those two career-making roles, Hunter has never disappointed, time
and again demonstrating her ability to command the screen as a lead. She
was Richard Dreyfuss' star-crossed lover in Steven Spielberg's Always
(1989), and then reteamed with Dreyfuss two years later as a plain-Jane
type who falls in love with a fast-talking salesman in Once Around.
Hunter has also mined the TV movie genre successfully, appearing in Crazy
in Love (1992), and winning Emmys for her memorable performances in Roe
vs. Wade (1989) and The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas
Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993).
She followed the latter up with roles in two films with more manageable
titles: as Gary Busey's sexy secretary in The Firm and as the repressed,
mute, 19th century emigrant entangled in a treacherous affair with Harvey
Keitel in Jane Campion's The Piano (both 1993). Maybe it was her maiden
stage experience as Helen Keller a quarter century earlier that helped her
find the expressiveness that won her a Best Actress Oscar and many other
awards for The Piano.
Unfortunately, over the next couple of years, Hunter found herself
starring in vehicles that ranged from underrated to abysmal, with Jodie
Foster's failed directorial debut Home for the Holidays at one end of the
spectrum and the thriller Copycat (both 1995) at the other.
Her work in David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) did win her strong notices,
but it was swallowed by the controversies of depraved sexuality
surrounding the film. Always up for more, Hunter rebounded in 1998 with
her portrayal of a recently divorced New Yorker in Living Out Loud, in
which she sold audiences on the idea of falling for Danny DeVito.
In 1995, Hunter married acclaimed cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, but
divorced at the beginning of the new century. Role-wise, she passed over
the part of God in Dogma, leaving it for Alanis Morissette's bland
treatment, and also nixed Helen Hunt's Oscar-winning performance in 1997's
As Good As it Gets.
Instead, Hunter hailed in the new millennium with a memorable performance
as Penny in the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). The
talented actress took top billing in that same year's television
production Harlan County War, a powerful account of labor struggles among
Kentucky coalminers.
In 2003, Hunter drew favorable reviews for her role in the otherwise
critically maligned redemption drama Levity, with Billy Bob Thornton and
Morgan Freeman. And she has a major role as the worried mother of a
downward-spiraling adolescent in the critically-acclaimed Thirteen, which
Hunter also executive produced. In 2004 she could be heard in Disney's The
Incredibles as the voice of Helen aka Elastigirl. |
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Holly Hunter - Personal Quotes |
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Acting, for me, is the last
vestige of doing something that I would like to feel really naive
about. - Interview, November 1995.
[on the importance of rehearsal for Thirteen (2003)] : I mean, some
movies I walk in, "Hi, nice to meet you", we get in bed and we do a
love scene. And that does happen. That happened with me with Billy
Crudup on Jesus' Son (1999). Actors talk about that a lot, but it's
not uncommon. And we could not have done Thirteen (2003) that way.
It would not have worked.
I always feel that I am the advocate for my character. More than
anyone else on the set, including the director. I'm there to protect
my character, in a way.
I often get asked to direct and I've never taken anyone up on it. It
would be very interesting and I would learn so much. But it's a very
confrontational job - I mean, directors are forced to confront
themselves, and I don't think there's really a way to prepare for
the pressure of directing. And I have seen quite a few good people
crash and burn at the job. Nervous breakdowns, crying, screaming
fits - people buckle, so it's always scared me. But it's intriguing.
It just seems that abortion rights never ceases to be a hot topic.
It's a shame. It feels to me an anachronism. I mean, why are we
still talking about this? Why is this not just a woman's right,
period? I find it boring and very frustrating that it remains such a
high profile subject.
Actors do movies because you want to make a connection, you want an
audience to recognise themselves in what it is that you're
depicting. The portrait, you want it to be a reflection of some
aspect of humanity that people understand, that they see in their
own lives. And so, when a movie makes a connection like that,
there's simply nothing better. And in some ways, an Academy Award
does validate that actual hook-up.
I was trying to get as much experience as I could. But very early
on, I was always extremely particular. From the beginning, I was
never desperate. I did other things for money; you know, the normal,
boring stuff - I temped, I did waitressing. But I actually quit a
play early on in my career - it was one of the first things that I
ever got cast in, but I quit because there was something about it
that I didn't like. I didn't think the director was the right guy to
be directing it. So I've never felt that every situation was great
for me and therefore I would have to stay. To me, being creative is
a very fragile thing, the environment in which one can create is a
very particular one, and somehow I've always felt the need to be
very protective of that.
[on how her career as an actress began] : ....Joel and Ethan (Joel
Coen & Ethan Coen) had just finished the script of Raising Arizona
(1987), and they asked me to read it and said that they'd written
this part for me and would I be interested in doing it? So that was
the beginning of my feature film career.
I'm just always looking for the best stuff. And also, there are
things I want to do that I can't get - they want someone else.
Often, in the movie business, they need somebody who will garner box
office because they need to pay for the movie. So the people who are
in movies that make a lot of money are the people who most often get
cast in studio pictures. In my career, I've never been a box office
name. Granted, a couple of my movies have made a lot of money but
I'd do other movies which make very little money or they're not seen
that much.
Actors are beggars and gypsies, that's just the way it is. And in
many ways, I take what I can get. But I do search high and low for
stuff that interests me.
Well, I think that an Academy Award has a certain kind of business
shelf life. People have different speculations but definitely for a
couple of years, your price is raised and there are more plentiful
offers. Which only makes sense - it is a business. And the Academy
Awards is a business, it enhances everything when you win one. But I
think the most significant thing for me was, one, it was presented
to me by Al Pacino, which I just loved. And two, that it was given
to me for a role and an experience that I felt was a profound
influence in my life. I know this because I was nominated for The
Firm (1993) that same year and I don't feel the same way about The
Firm (1993) that I do about The Piano (1993). So if I'd won for The
Firm (1993) it would have been a whole different deal for me. I
never actually saw The Firm (1993), so for me it would have been
like... [grimaces] |
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Holly Hunter - Filmography |
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My Boy (2007) .... Philomena
Lynott
Frost Flowers (2007) .... Cora
"Saving Grace" (2007) TV Series
The Big White (2005) .... Margaret Barnell
Nine Lives (2005) .... Sonia
The Incredibles (2004) (voice) .... Helen Parr/Elastigirl
Little Black Book (2004) .... Barb
Thirteen (2003) .... Melanie 'Mel' Freeland
Levity (2003) .... Adele Easley
Moonlight Mile (2002) .... Mona Camp
Eco Challenge New Zealand (2002) (TV) .... Narrator
When Billie Beat Bobby (2001) (TV) .... Billie Jean King
... aka Billie contre Bobby: La bataille des sexes (Canada: French
title)
Harlan County War (2000) (TV) .... Ruby Kincaid
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) .... Penny
... aka O' Brother (France)
Timecode (2000) .... Renee Fishbine, Executive
Woman Wanted (2000) .... Emma Riley
Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000) .... Rebecca
Waynon (segment "Fantasies About Rebecca")
Jesus' Son (1999) .... Mira
Living Out Loud (1998) .... Judith Moore
A Life Less Ordinary (1997) .... O'Reilly
Crash (1996/I) .... Helen Remington
Home for the Holidays (1995) .... Claudia Larson
Copycat (1995) .... M.J. Monahan
The Firm (1993) .... Tammy Hemphill
The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas
Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993) (TV) .... Wanda Holloway
The Piano (1993) .... Ada McGrath
... aka Leçon de piano, La (France)
Crazy in Love (1992) (TV) .... Georgie Symonds
Once Around (1991) .... Renata Bella
Always (1989) .... Dorinda Durston
Animal Behavior (1989) .... Coral Grable
Roe vs. Wade (1989) (TV) .... Ellen Russell/Jane Doe
Miss Firecracker (1989) .... Carnelle Scott
Broadcast News (1987) .... Jane Craig
End of the Line (1987) .... Charlotte
A Gathering of Old Men (1987) (TV) .... Candy Marshall
... aka Aufstand alter Männer, Ein (West Germany)
... aka Murder on the Bayou
Raising Arizona (1987) .... Edwina 'Ed' McDunnough
Blood Simple. (1984) (voice) (uncredited) .... Helene Trend
Swing Shift (1984) .... Jeannie
With Intent to Kill (1984) (TV) .... Wynn Nolen
... aka Urge to Kill
An Uncommon Love (1983) (TV) .... Karen
Svengali (1983) (TV) .... Leslie
The Burning (1981) .... Sophie |
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Holly Hunter - Related Links |
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Wikipedia: Holly Hunter
YouTube: Holly Hunter
Holly Hunter at Babemania.com
Top Celebrities Sites:
The Celebrity
Cafe |
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