Holly Hunter

Quotes

"Acting, for me, is the last vestige of doing something that I would like to feel really na?ve about."
- Holly Hunter

Why Is She Famous?

It's hard not to like a celebrity like Holly Hunter. Her infectious personality and spunky energy shine through in interviews, while her command of her craft permits her to keep those traits -- like all her others -- under control if the part she's portraying demands it.

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. Following her second collaboration with Dreyfuss in Once Around (1991), Hunter once again garnered a wealth of critical appreciation for her work in three 1993 films, two of which resulted in her being nominated for Academy Awards as both Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress in that same year. Hunter's performance in The Firm won her a nomination for the former and her portrayal of a mute Scottish woman entangled in a treacherous affair with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion's The Piano won her the latter. Unfortunately, over the next couple of years, Hunter found herself starring in vehicles that ranged from underrated to dreadful, with Home for the Holidays (1995) at one end of the spectrum and the thriller Copycat (also 1995) at the other. Her work in David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) did win her strong notices, but it was swallowed by the controversies surrounding the film, and her appearance as a sardonic angel in A Life Less Ordinary suffered a similar fate. However, the actress rebounded the following year with her portrayal of a recently divorced New Yorker in Richard LaGravenese's Living Out Loud. Starring alongside Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, and Martin Donovan, Hunter won overwhelmingly positive reviews for her performance, convincing critics and audiences alike that she was back in the saddle again. Hunter rounded out the 1990s with a minor role in the indie drama Jesus' Son and as a housekeeper torn between a grieving widower and Kiefer Sutherland's little-seen character-driven drama Woman Wanted (1999).

Hailing in the new millennium with a memorable performance in the Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), the talented actress took top billing in the same year's television production Harlan County War, a powerful account of labor struggles among Kentucky coal-mine workers. Hunter would continue her small screen streak with a role in When Billy Beat Bobby 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 drawing favorable reviews for her role in the otherwisecritically maligned redemption drama Levity.