Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993 TAG: 9309240343
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BERNARD WEINTRAUB THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Long
But then Hunter made several disappointing movies. A serious as well as an offbeat actress, which is rarely a formula for success among women in Hollywood, Hunter saw her career stall and never quite gather the momentum that the town expected.
Until now.
``I suppose I'm on my own personal trip,'' Hunter said quietly in an interview the other day in a Beverly Hills hotel. ``You're so easily categorized here. After `Broadcast News,' I could have played that same part, but I didn't want to. So I didn't follow it up with a hit. Well, that kind of stuff bores me. Actors are thought of vertically here: You're on the A list or you're off. And I never cared. I thought of my career as horizontal, playing diverse parts. All I want to do is stretch. All I want to do is move out to different territories as an actress.''
Quite suddenly, the territories explored by Hunter have turned bountiful. The 35-year-old actress recently won the best-actress award at the Cannes International Film Festival for her work in Jane Campion's movie ``The Piano,'' a lavishly praised film that also won the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or. In the film, which will open in November, Hunter plays a mute woman in New Zealand in the 1850s who has an affair with an illiterate settler, played by Harvey Keitel.
Hunter now appears in the small, if choice, role of Tammy Hemphill, a zany secretary, in the new movie ``The Firm.'' Moreover, Hunter recently received lavish reviews for her almost over-the-top performance as Wanda Holloway, the Texas housewife accused of trying to arrange the murder of the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival. A black comedy based on fact, ``The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom'' was shown on HBO in April.
``We all have this quest in us for status and control, just like Wanda,'' said Hunter. ``This was just pushed to a grotesque degree. She was a freak, but she lives in all of us, whether we like it or not.''
Hunter is now starring in a stage drama, ``Control Freaks,'' by Beth Henley, the author of ``Crimes of the Heart.'' The play, which Hunter is also helping to produce, is to open on July 16 at the Met Theater in Los Angeles.
``I'm co-producing because it's really the only way to get it off the ground,'' said Hunter. ``A play is a hard thing, particularly in LA. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.''
An intense, private and obviously strong-willed actress, Hunter sat, nervously smoking cigarettes. She lives in Los Angeles, is unmarried and seems totally consumed by acting. At moments, she's unusually candid.
``I don't have any regrets,'' she said. ``I just want to continue making diverse decisions based on different things. I don't make decisions just on the character I'm supposed to play. Sometimes it's based on the director, sometimes it's based on the story, sometimes I need money or sometimes I'm just starved to work. Sometimes I'll take something that I don't think is the most inspired thing I've ever done but will give me a sense of accomplishment.''
Hunter was nominated for an Academy Award for ``Broadcast News'' and also won the New York and Los Angeles film critics awards for her performance in that movie. She made her debut in the comedy ``Raising Arizona,'' which was released after ``Broadcast News,'' and has also appeared in Steven Spielberg's ``Always,'' a fey comedy that disappointed critics; ``Once Around,'' directed by Lasse Halstrom, in which Hunter played a repressed Bostonian, and ``Miss Firecracker,'' based on Henley's Off Broadway play ``The Miss Firecracker Contest.'' Hunter also starred in that play and in the Broadway productions of two other Henley plays, ``Crimes of the Heart'' and ``The Wake of Jamey Foster.'''
It is on television, however, that Hunter has especially made her mark. She won an Emmy for her performance in the television film ``Roe vs. Wade'' and drew praise for her work in ``Crazy in Love,'' a drama about three generations of women living on an island in Puget Sound.
Despite her impressive acting credentials, Hunter is fully aware that she and Hollywood are not - and will probably never be - a perfect fit. For one thing, she's not glamorous. For another, she's difficult to categorize, which is the way she likes it.
``I manage not to feel touched by Hollywood,'' she said. ``I don't know who the studio heads are; I don't know their names. My nucleus of friends or something protects me from the machinery that is Hollywood. I don't think I'm on the same quest that a lot of people are. I guess that could be a limitation.''
``It's very difficult to find good parts in this so-called Year of the Woman,'' she said with a derisive laugh. ``It's not happening. Good female parts are hard to come by. So I go all over the place to find them: cable TV, network movies of the week, foreign films, independent American films, studio films, the stage.''
``These are hard to find,'' she went on, lighting another cigarette. ``Part of it is luck, part of it is tenacity, part of it is skill and part of it is, man, I just don't know.''
She still speaks in a thick Georgia accent, having grown up in Conyers, Ga., 60 miles southeast of Atlanta, one of seven children. After high school she attended Carnegie-Mellon University, where she majored in acting, and then went to New York.
``I don't want to cancel the South out in my life,'' she said. ``I carry my Southerness with me. God knows, it's a great place to come from. It's also a place I had to get away from. It is just an endless world for me, so much culture and eccentricity.''
Asked if her her parents supported her acting ambitions, Hunter said: ``I had such total, unequivocal, enthusiastic encouragement to be an actress. Looking back, I really find that to be a total mystery. Don't ask me why. My father was just in love with the idea that I would be an actress.''
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