Happy Birthday Suit: Holly Hunter

In some ways, Georgian peach Holly Hunter was trailblazing.  She was one of the first actresses of her generation to make it big in the movies and bypassed any ego that may have prevented others of her stature to work in television when the role was right.  (Now, you're hard-pressed to find an Emmy-nominee in the Best Actress field who didn't make her name in features first.)  She’s kind of British that way.  But, it’s understandable, considering that she’s barely five feet with a regional accent she never shook and an explosive energy.  Hollywood probably couldn’t handle her just on the silver screen.

Armed with a drama degree from Carnegie Mellon, she got her start in New York theatre.  Her first film was slasher movie The Burning.  She soon started running in circles with Frances McDormand and the Coen brothers, which led to a lead part for McDormand in the neo-noir classic Blood Simple, as well as a small role for Hunter.  They switched seats in Coens' critically and commercially successful madcap comedy (one of my favorites) Raising Arizona.  The same year, she would be nominated for her role as Jane Craig in James L. Brooks much beloved Broadcast News.  After her monumental year that was 1987, two years later, she opened the underperforming Miss Firecracker, as well as Steven Spielberg's Always opposite Richard Dreyfuss.  As a movie star, Hunter returned to TV to play the woman at the center of Roe vs. Wade, for which she won her first Emmy.  Having had little success with Dreyfuss, Hollywood would pair them together again in the even less successful romance Once Around. 

In 1993, Hunter would top her career milestone from six years previously, with not only an Emmy win for The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, but an Oscar, as well as a cascade of other awards, for wowing audiences with her mute Ada McGrath in Jane Campion’s highly cinematic The Piano (Hunter in real life is deaf in one ear).  Not only was she mesmerizing as Ada, but she also provided her skills as a trained ivory player.  Many consider her work in that film to be one of the best acting turns in the 1990's, if not cinema history.  That same year, she was one of few actors to ever be nominated in both acting categories, the other being for supporting in The Firm.  (It was also the only year ever that two actors managed to do it; the other being Emma Thompson)  She used her capital to play opposite Sigourney Weaver in psychological thriller Copycat and under the direction of Jodie Foster in Home for the Holidays.  She was originally slated to reunite with James L. Brooks and Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets, but relented the Helen Hunt role when she couldn't negotiate a paycheck equal to her much older male costar (Nicholson was old enough to be her and Hunts' father). 

Hunter took on less mainstream fare with director David Cronenberg’s Crash (the first Crash, before THAT other Crash) and Danny Boyle in A Life Less Ordinary.  Never that easy to market, Hunter would soon be out-of-demand and/or less interested in bigger ticket items.  But she is always at the top of Coen brother’s list when they need her talent (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)  and landed voice work on the successful animated feature The Incredibles. 

She continues to get recognized for her work both in film (Thirteen) and television (Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, Harlan County War, When Billie Beat Bobby and the TV show Saving Grace), often serving as a producer.  While I am guessing here, I would surmise that very few actors working today have such diversity in recognition amongst the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys.

For six years, she was married to famed cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning DP since Schindler's List, incidentally preceded by Always starring Hunter).  She is currently in a long-term relationship with British actor Gordon MacDonald, with whom she has twin boys.  They costarred together on her Saving Grace.  With her TV series in the can for two years now, she is trying her hand with another show under the direction of Piano helmer Campion in drama mystery Top of the Lake.  She will also be seen opposite the van Houten sisters as their long-lost mother and title character in Netherlands production Jackie.  And she’s currently attached to appear in Diablo Cody’s directorial debut.  Today, she's turns 54.

Previous Actress Retrospectives:

Jennifer Aniston     Drew Barrymore     Glenn Close     Jessica Biel     Juliette Binoche     Geena Davis     Goldie Hawn     Holly Hunter     Eva Mendes     
Rosie O'Donnell     Lena Olin     Meg Ryan     Rachel Weisz