For decades, she’s epitomized spitfire wit and emotional grit.
The Oscar-winner looks back with EW on her career of positively true adventures.
I kinda had a backdoor Broadway debut, she says.
Victoria Will/Invision/AP
People achieve their dreams in unorthodox ways, man, she says.
Im one of those people.
At 59, Hunters still in peak form as she proved during our look back at her extraordinary career.
JIM RUYMEN/AFP/Getty Images
My boyfriend at the time was best friends with her boyfriend.
Joel Coen and McDormand married in 1984.
Fran was a great roommate, Hunter says, smiling at the memory.
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And then sometimes we would smoke and drink coffee until it was time to smoke and drink wine.
Those were magical days.
The baby-crazy police officer named Ed was a role theyd written for her.
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I was not an entity at all.
I had no profile, she says.
We were all living in a house in L.A. together, and they gave me this script.
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I could hear my voice in it, and I could almost see the movie.
Then they cast Nic Cage, who Id seen inValley Girland I totally adored.
She recallsRaising Arizonas theatrical release: It was not a big hit.
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You know, Joel and Ethans success has been very cumulative.
Its a much more recognized movie now, but it took it a while to gain legs.
He opened the floodgates, and I was one of the floodgate actresses."
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“And Albert Brooks opened the door with champagne in his hands,” she says.
“Cool, huh?
Thats how I got the part.
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Director Brooks changed Craigs background to accommodate Hunters Georgia accent.
There is prejudice against people from the South, that they are ignorant or lack education.
Roe vs. Wade(1989)
Nowthatsa cool photo, Hunter says.
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Thats a 70s shirt, 70s hair, definitely a 70s belt.
I had no sense that going to TV was a punitive action.
In fact, the success ofBroadcast Newsafforded me the chance to do this.
HBO
I loved doing it.
I just wish we could say the story was an anachronism.
How about that hair, huh?
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Those were the days.
Ive never gotten so much attention on the street as when I was that color.
You say blondes have more fun?
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No, Im telling youred!
Always(1989)
Oh, man, Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg has absolutely no conflict about enjoying himself on a movie set.
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Im not saying its his social hour or something, but he loves the engagement.
Hes doing what he truly, deeply always wanted to do.
And hes an Everyman.
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Thats the soul of his movies.
“Man, I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but Busey is a fun guy.
On the set, it was always like, ‘Mi trailer, su trailer.'”
Anne Marie Fox/Fox Searchlight
Well, its not my best feature, Hunters character responds.
I think it was [director] Sydney Pollack who came up with that, Hunter says.
He loved little improvisations.
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I was certainly not alone in my recognition of how beautiful and intimate Janes script was, she says.
But I just worried that the movie was going to be so tiny that maybe nobody would see it.
Apart from sparingly used voice-over, Hunter has no dialogue in the film.
TNT
Oh, God, thats right!
Talk about surreal, huh?
But yeah, obviously I wanted Anna to win.
Parisa Taghizadeh/Sundance Channel
I loved her to no end.
I had a lot to say, and this girldefinitelyhad a lot to say.
It was a great antidote, a wonderful yin-yang that I got to do.
Nicole Rivelli/Lionsgate
Whenever Im in a hotel during the holidays, its on TV.
It got a lukewarm reception at the time, but that was not fair.
I really pursued that one, entirely because of [director] David Cronenberg, she says.
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I had a bit of scar makeup, though I was hardly defaced at all for a Cronenberg movie.
Come on, what the heck is that?
One of my rare totally non-Southern roles, she says.
But I just fell in love with that character.
And I felt that movie was a very private expression for me.
Simpson trial, Clark put away the murderer of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, Silberling’s then-girlfriend.
“And Jake Gyllenhaal (pictured with Hunter) is one of the really rare ones.
He’s so warm and welcoming as a person.
Just open arms.”
Oh, I love this photo, she says.
Evan was 14 at the time, and shes been showing off her acting chops ever since.
But she was too young to hang out on the set for the number of hours we worked.
So often I did my work opposite [director] Catherine Hardwicke.
The Incredibles(2004)
In Europe Im recognized mostly forThe PianoandCrash, Hunter says.
But here in the U.S., its Elastigirl.
He said, I want Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter, and thats what he got.
The schedule was hellacious; it was otherworldly, she says of doing a weekly series.
However, I had a huge appetite for playing a cop.
Maybe it goes back toRaising Arizona.
Hunter will be back on the small screen soon.
“Oh, wait until you hear about this,” she says of the family drama.
“It’s beyond provocative.”
How much fun is Jane?
Well, here you go: Theres beautiful Moke Lake behind me in this photo.
We would finish all this filming s— and then wed all go jump in the lake.
Me and all these postmenopausal women.
And Jane, of course, leading the charge.
In the smallest comic details lies the universe.
She’s not bedridden, shes not eating handfuls of anti-depressants.
But it’s deceptive she hasn’t moved on at all.
And revenge for her not really a way out.
Its more like a cul-de-sac.
