Huntergatherer
‘Incredibles 2’ star Holly Hunter on turning 60, how she picks her roles and how Hollywood is changing for the good, especially for women
In 2004, Holly Hunter punched her way into The Incredibles, the Pixar-Disney superhero film that grossed some $630 million (Dh2.3 billion) worldwide and won an Oscar for best animated feature.
Fourteen years later, she’s back in Incredibles 2, now showing to rave reviews, and displaying no signs of wear and tear. As the ultra-bendy, walloppacking Elastigirl — undercover identity: Helen Parr, wife of Bob and mother of Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack — Hunter acts and sounds as if all the previous super-excitement happened but a minute ago, in a scenario that picks up where the original film ended. Albeit revved up with an eye-popping costume, a midcentury-modern mansion and an enviably sleek motorcycle.
Incredibles 2 gives Helen a feminist storyline that boots her into the field to fight crime and relegitimise superheroes, while leaving her hubby (Craig T. Nelson) at home to tend to chores and kids. Including their infant’s nascent superpowers.
It also keeps Hunter — who broke through in 1987 with the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona before winning a 1994 Oscar for The Piano; she was also nominated for Broadcast News, The Firm and Thirteen — in the spotlight, to the delight of fans.
More recently, she has played the mother of an ailing grad student with a Pakistani-American romantic interest in The Big
Sick, and a mother embarking on a great experiment with four children of different races, three of them adopted, in HBO’s now-canceled Here and Now.
In a phone interview from New York, the famously private Hunter spoke about Elastigirl’s latest incarnation, the state of her career and a milestone birthday while quipping about her family — “I shall neither confirm nor deny the existence of my children” — and even the neighbourhood she lives in.
“You can say that I’m moving to St. Marks Place between Second and Third,” she said. “I’m totally kidding but that would be kind of cool advertising. Wow, Hunter’s so hip!”
Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Where do we find the Parr family this time around?
I think it’s so funny that the movie starts 30 seconds after the first one ends. And I also think that it’s a fun thing that there is such a revelation at the end of the first Incredibles, with our child Jack-Jack, who manifests his superpowers 9,144 feet
up in the air with the bad guy. We don’t know that he has superpowers, so at the beginning of Incredibles 2 the parents are still in the dark about what that youngest son is capable of.
Elastigirl gets a storyline perfectly suited to the current zeitgeist. Does the director, Brad Bird, have crystal-ball superpowers?
Yeah, the timing is rather impeccable. This was obviously a long time coming so Brad was thinking about what story he wanted to tell, where he wanted the family to evolve to. We’re just lucky. But it’s a wonderful thing because Mrs. Incredible, in the first movie, was a real reluctant hero. She was into being a mother and loved the domestic life. So this is really fun to see her revel in her own autonomy, in her own independence, in her own kind of private life. It really is a room of one’s own for Mrs. Incredible.
What about the improvements in the animation itself?
The articulation that the animators have at their disposal is, yeah, the word is radical. I remember when we were doing The Incredibles that they were having an unbelievably challenging time trying to figure out how to make Violet’s hair move so that she could hide behind it. It was, animation-wise, uncharted territory. Now I think that’s nothing.
Here and Now, the series created by Alan Ball, wasn’t renewed after its first season. At any point did you have a sense of foreboding?
Alan is a real artist, and when we all took Here and Now, it was based on the pilot and Alan. So there was nothing really known about where the story was going to progress. That was a discovery process for the actors. In no way did I ever feel that for whatever reasons the series would not be picked up. I totally thought that it would.
Are you actively searching for something new?
Always on the hunt. I live up to my last name but, you know, my last name could also be Drifter. Instead of a Hunter-Gatherer, I’m a Hunter-Drifter. I get stuff and I normally say no to stuff, and at the same time that’s a bit of a crap shoot. It’s not like you’re getting a royal flush very often. You work with what you’ve got.
You turned 60 in March. How’s that?
"I'm a working actress and so there are times when yes, I’m unemployed. [But] I’ve still got a process that’s happening. I’m still the little engine that could.” HOLLY HUNTER | Actress
I’m certainly aware of my own mortality in a way that I wasn’t when I turned 50. You’ve moved one step closer. It’s like wow, it’s a big chapter. And at the same time, I feel that there’s a lot of power that women have available to them now in a way that maybe we never have had. And granted, we’re operating at a deficit, and a steep deficit, just in terms of how many roles there are for women, how many studio executives are women, how many directors, how many grips, gaffers — you know, we’re heavily deficient in all of those areas. At the same time, I feel hopeful. And I don’t feel utterly foolish for the hopefulness because I think strides are being made.
A 2013 Atlantic story was titled, ‘20 Years After The Piano, We’ve All Failed Holly Hunter’, about the lack of leading roles you were offered. Do you feel like we’ve failed you?
[Laughs] I mean, I can’t really comment on another article. You would have to ask John Q. Public about have they failed me. I think that’s a question for the public and I’m interested in hearing what they have to say.
There are also rumours of your “resurgence.” Are you riding a comeback?
It makes sense that people think about a career in those terms. There are exceptions, and those exceptions are the people that the public is most familiar with, where you’re talking about people who are almost superstars. But for the rest of us — and I certainly include myself in that group — I’m a working actress and so there are times when, yes, I’m unemployed and, yes, I do things that don’t take off, that maybe they don’t even reach an audience. Doing movies that don’t get distribution is something that’s not uncommon in the industry at this moment. Or if I do a play, I kind of fall out of the greater public consciousness. A lot of people won’t have seen any of these projects and therefore can feel that I’m not working or I’ve got a lower profile. But the fact is I’m still answering whatever challenges that those particular projects present to me. I’m still working and I’ve still got a process that’s happening. I’m still the little engine that could.