Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter
Hunter at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	(1958-03-20) March 20, 1958 Conyers, Georgia, U.S.
Education	Carnegie Mellon University (BFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Janusz Kamiński ​ ​ (m. 1995; div. 2001)​
Partner	Gordon MacDonald (2001–present)
Children	2
Awards	Full list

Holly Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ada McGrath in the 1993 drama film The Piano. She earned three additional Academy Award nominations for Broadcast News (1987), The Firm (1993), and Thirteen (2003). She won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for the television films Roe vs. Wade (1989) and The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993). She also starred in the TNT drama series Saving Grace (2007–2010).

Hunter's other film roles include Raising Arizona (1987), Always (1989), Miss Firecracker (1989), Home for the Holidays (1995), Crash (1996), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Incredibles (2004) and its sequel Incredibles 2 (2018), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and The Big Sick (2017), the latter of which earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

Early life

Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, the daughter of Marguerite "Dee Dee" (née Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250-acre farm. She is the youngest of six children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. She is unable to hear with her left ear due to a childhood case of the mumps. The condition sometimes leads to complications at work, and some movie scenes have to be altered from the script for her to use her right ear. She is irreligious. She began acting at Rockdale County High School in the early 1970s, performing in local productions of Oklahoma!, Man of La Mancha, and Fiddler on the Roof. Hunter earned a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and for a while performed in local theater, playing ingenue roles at City Theater, then named the City Players.

Career

Hunter at the 1989 Emmy Awards

Hunter moved to New York City and roomed with fellow actress Frances McDormand, living in the Bronx "at the end of the D (subway) train, just off 205th Street, on Bainbridge Avenue and Hull Avenue". A chance encounter with playwright Beth Henley, when the two were trapped alone in an elevator, led to Hunter's being cast in Henley's plays Crimes of the Heart (succeeding Mary Beth Hurt on Broadway), and Off-Broadway's The Miss Firecracker Contest. "It was like the beginning of 1982. It was on 49th Street between Broadway and Eighth [Avenue] ... on the south side of the street," Hunter recalled in an interview. "[We were trapped] 10 minutes; not long. We actually had a nice conversation. It was just the two of us."

Hunter made her film debut in the 1981 slasher movie The Burning. After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, Hunter appeared in TV movies before being cast in a supporting role in 1984's Swing Shift. That year, she had her first collaboration with the writing-directing-producing team of brothers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, in Blood Simple, making an uncredited appearance as a voice on an answering-machine recording. More film and television work followed until 1987, when she earned a starring role in the Coens' Raising Arizona and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Broadcast News, after which Hunter became a critically acclaimed star.

Hunter went on to the screen adaptation of Henley's Miss Firecracker; Steven Spielberg's Always, a romantic drama with Richard Dreyfuss; and the made-for-TV 1989 docudrama Roe vs. Wade about the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Following her second collaboration with Dreyfuss, in Once Around, Hunter garnered critical attention for her work in two 1993 films, resulting in her being nominated for two Academy Awards the same year: Hunter's performance in The Firm won her a nomination as Best Supporting Actress, while her portrayal of a mute Scottish woman entangled in an adulterous affair with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion's The Piano won her the Best Actress award. Hunter went on to star in the comedy-drama Home for the Holidays and the thriller Copycat, both in 1995. Hunter appeared in David Cronenberg's Crash and as a sardonic angel in A Life Less Ordinary. The following year, Hunter played a recently divorced New Yorker in Richard LaGravenese's Living Out Loud; starring alongside Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, and Martin Donovan. Hunter rounded out the 1990s with a minor role in the independent drama Jesus' Son and as a housekeeper torn between a grieving widower and his son in Kiefer Sutherland's drama Woman Wanted. Following a supporting role in the Coens' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Hunter took top billing in the same year's television movie Harlan County War, an account of labor struggles among Kentucky coal-mine workers. Hunter would continue her small screen streak with a role in When Billie Beat Bobby, playing tennis pro Billie Jean King in the fact-based story of King's exhibition match with Bobby Riggs; and as narrator of Eco Challenge New Zealand before returning to film work with a minor role in the 2002 drama Moonlight Mile. The following year found Hunter in the redemption drama Levity.

Hunter at the 2010 Metropolitan Opera opening night of Das Rheingold

In 2003, Hunter had the role of a mother named Melanie Freeland, whose daughter is troubled and going through the perils of being a teenager in the film Thirteen. The film was critically acclaimed along with Hunter and her co-stars and earned her nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2004, Hunter starred alongside Brittany Murphy in the romantic satire Little Black Book, and provided the voice for Helen Parr (also known as Elastigirl) in the animated superhero film, The Incredibles. She reprised the role in the Disney Infinity video game series, and in the film's long-awaited sequel Incredibles 2 in 2018. She also voiced Chicken Little during the early production of the 2005 film Chicken Little until the character's gender was changed and was replaced by Zach Braff.

In 2005, Hunter starred alongside Robin Williams in the black comedy-drama The Big White. Hunter became an executive producer, and helped develop a starring vehicle for herself with the TNT cable-network drama Saving Grace, which premiered in July 2007. For her acting, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and an Emmy Award nomination. On May 30, 2008, Hunter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award. In 2016, Hunter played Senator Finch in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Hunter's likeness was used to portray Senator Finch in the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice tie-in prequel comics released by Dr. Pepper on February 3, 2016. In 2019, she took on a recurring role in the HBO series Succession as CEO Rhea Jarrell, leader of a rival media conglomerate. Hunter subsequently starred opposite Ted Danson in the 2021 NBC comedy Mr. Mayor.

In 2023, Hunter was cast in Hurricanna alongside Sylvia Hoeks. It is a dramatization of the final days of Playboy model and reality TV actress Anna Nicole Smith. Hunter portrays Smith's therapist. Production took place in late 2023.

Personal life

Hunter was married to Janusz Kamiński, cinematographer of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan from 1995 until 2001.

She has been in a relationship with British actor Gordon MacDonald since 2001. The couple met in San Jose Repertory Theatre's production of playwright Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats, in which she played a woman abandoned by her lover of 14 years, played by MacDonald. In January 2006, Hunter gave birth to the couple's twin sons Claude and Press.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	The Burning	Sophie
1984	Swing Shift	Jeannie
	Blood Simple	Helene Trend	Voice, uncredited
1987	Raising Arizona	Edwina "Ed" McDunnough
	End of the Line	Charlotte Haney
	Broadcast News	Jane Craig
1989	Miss Firecracker	Carnelle Scott
	Animal Behavior	Coral Grable
	Always	Dorinda Durston
1991	Once Around	Renata Bella
1993	The Piano	Ada McGrath
	The Firm	Tammy Hemphill
1995	Copycat	M.J. Monahan
	Home for the Holidays	Claudia Larson
1996	Crash	Helen Remington
1997	A Life Less Ordinary	O'Reilly
1998	Living Out Loud	Judith Moore
1999	Jesus' Son	Mira
	Woman Wanted	Emma Riley
2000	Timecode	Renee Fishbine
	O Brother, Where Art Thou?	Penny Wharvey McGill
2001	Festival in Cannes	Herself
2002	Searching for Debra Winger		Documentary
	Moonlight Mile	Mona Camp
2003	Levity	Adele Easley
	Thirteen	Melanie Freeland	Also executive producer
2004	Little Black Book	Barb Campbell-Dunn
	The Incredibles	Helen Parr / Elastigirl	Voice role
2005	Nine Lives	Sonia
	The Big White	Margaret Barnell
	Chicken Little	Chicken Little	Voice role; deleted scenes
2011	Portraits in Dramatic Time	Herself	Documentary
2012	Won't Back Down	Evelyn Riske
	Jackie	Jackie
2013	Paradise	Mrs. Mannerhelm
2014	Manglehorn	Dawn
2016	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	Senator Finch
	Strange Weather	Darcy Baylor
2017	Breakable You	Eleanor Weller
	The Big Sick	Beth Gardner
	Song to Song	Miranda
2018	Incredibles 2	Helen Parr / Elastigirl	Voice role
TBA	Hurricanna	TBA	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Svengali	Leslie	Television film
	An Uncommon Love	Karen
1984	With Intent to Kill	Wynn Nolen
1987	A Gathering of Old Men	Candy Marshall
1989	Roe vs. Wade	Ellen Russell/Jane Doe
	The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs	Narrator (voice)	Television short
1992	Crazy in Love	Georgie Symonds	Television film
1993	The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom	Wanda Holloway
2000	Harlan County War	Ruby Kincaid
	Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her	Rebecca Weyman	Segment: "Fantasies About Rebecca"
2001	When Billie Beat Bobby	Billie Jean King	Television film; also executive producer
2007	Peep and the Big Wide World	Robin (voice)	Episode: "Big Bird/Chirp Flies the Coop"
2007–2010	Saving Grace	Grace Hanadarko	46 episodes; also executive producer
2013	Top of the Lake	GJ	6 episodes
	Bonnie & Clyde	Emma Parker	2 episodes
2018	Here and Now	Audrey Bayer	10 episodes
2019	Succession	Rhea Jarrell	6 episodes
2019–2020	Bless the Harts	Marjune Gamble (voice)	3 episodes
2020	The Comey Rule	Sally Yates	2 episodes
2021–2022	Mr. Mayor	Arpi Meskimen	Main role
2024	Mulligan	Sheila (voice)	2 episodes
TBA	Star Trek: Starfleet Academy	Captain and chancellor	Upcoming series

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2013	Disney Infinity	Helen Parr / Elastigirl
2014	Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes
2015	Disney Infinity 3.0

Theme parks

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2018	Incredicoaster	Helen Parr / Elastigirl	Voice

Awards and nominations

See also: List of awards and nominations received by Holly Hunter

In 1999, Hunter received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2016, Hunter was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree by her alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University.

External links

• Holly Hunter at IMDb 
• Holly Hunter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Holly Hunter at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• "What people don't know about Holly" (interview), The Guardian, November 22, 2003