Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter is an American actress known for her extensive work across film, television, and theater. Born on March 20, 1958, in Conyers, Georgia, she is the youngest of six children of Marguerite, a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a farmer and sporting goods representative. Encouraged by her parents, she took on her first acting part as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. A childhood case of mumps left her unable to hear in her left ear, which later required minor script adjustments for some movie scenes. During the early 1970s, she acted in Rockdale County High School productions of Oklahoma!, Man of La Mancha, and Fiddler on the Roof. She subsequently earned a drama degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and performed in local theater before relocating to New York City.

In New York, Hunter lived with fellow actress Frances McDormand and began performing on Broadway. After a chance encounter trapped in an elevator with playwright Beth Henley, Hunter was cast in Broadway's Crimes of the Heart and Off-Broadway's The Miss Firecracker Contest. She made her film debut in the 1981 horror movie The Burning and moved to Los Angeles in 1982. She appeared in television films, supporting feature roles, and provided an uncredited voice role in the Coen brothers' Blood Simple (1984). Hunter gained widespread recognition in 1987 after starring in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona and earning an Academy Award nomination for Broadcast News.

Hunter continued to build her career with projects such as Miss Firecracker, Always, Once Around, and the television docudrama Roe vs. Wade (1989), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award. In 1993, she achieved double Academy Award nominations in the same year, earning a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Firm and winning the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Jane Campion's The Piano. Her portrayal in The Piano also earned her a BAFTA Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Golden Globe Award, an AACTA Award, and a Silver Bear. That same year, she won a second Primetime Emmy Award for the television movie The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Hunter starred in feature films including Home for the Holidays, Copycat, Crash, A Life Less Ordinary, Living Out Loud, Jesus' Son, Woman Wanted, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Levity, and Moonlight Mile. She earned another Academy Award nomination for her role as Melanie Freeland in the 2003 film Thirteen. Hunter also voiced Helen Parr (Elastigirl) in the animated superhero film The Incredibles (2004), reprising the character in the Disney Infinity video game series and Incredibles 2 (2018). On television, she executive produced and starred in TNT's drama Saving Grace, earning Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Hunter later appeared in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), HBO's Succession (2019), NBC's Mr. Mayor (2021), and the sci-fi film The Electric State (2025). She was also cast in the film Hurricanna and secured the lead role of Captain Nahla Ake in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (2026). Her achievements include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008 and the Women in Film Lucy Award in 2009. Hunter was married to cinematographer Janusz Kamiński from 1995 to 2001. She has been in a relationship with actor Gordon MacDonald since 2001, and the couple welcomed twin sons in January 2006.