Linda Hunt

Linda Hunt (born April 2, 1945, Morristown, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American stage, film, and television character actress known for her resonant voice, small stature, and magnetic performances in a wide variety of roles. For her performance in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Hunt won an Academy Award.

Early life and start of theater career

Hunt grew up in Westport, Connecticut, and she became entranced with the idea of acting when she saw a stage performance of Peter Pan. She studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and at the Goodman School of Drama (now the Theatre School of DePaul University) in Chicago, where she focused on directing, fearing that her unusual physique (she had hypopituitary dwarfism and was not conventionally pretty) would limit her acting opportunities.

Hunt then moved to New York City, where she directed and stage-managed at small community theaters before joining the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. Hunt made her professional debut in the theater’s 1972 production of Hamlet, playing Lucianus. She first appeared on Broadway in 1975, playing Norah in Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, and she also performed in the Long Wharf production of The Rose Tattoo in 1977. She appeared in 1978 in the television movie Fame, written by Arthur Miller, and she won praise for her performance in A Metamorphosis in Miniature (1982), an off-off-Broadway production.

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Films and other stage work

Hunt made her film debut in a small part in Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980). In her second movie appearance Hunt was cast as the diminutive male Chinese-Australian photographer Billy Kwan in Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), set in 1965 in Indonesia near the end of the Sukarno regime. Hunt’s portrayal of the complex and contradictory character, who serves as the dramatic center of the film, earned her an Academy Award (making her the first person to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex).

She performed in two Off-Broadway productions in 1983, playing Joan of Arc in Little Victories and Pope Joan in Top Girls. She won praise for her performance in the title role of a 1984 staging by the Boston Shakespeare Company of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, and she was nominated for a Tony Award for her leading role in the 1984 Broadway production of Arthur Kopit’s End of the World. In addition, she appeared in the Merchant and Ivory film The Bostonians (1984) and in David Lynch’s Dune (1984). Hunt played a saloon hostess in Silverado (1985), Alice B. Toklas in Waiting for the Moon (1987; part of the American Playhouse television series), and Aunt Dan in the Off-Broadway premiere of Wallace Shawn’s Aunt Dan and Lemon (1985).

Later work

Hunt’s later films included She-Devil (1989), based on a novel by Fay Weldon; the comedy Kindergarten Cop (1990), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter (1994; Ready to Wear). She voiced Grandmother Willow in the Disney animated feature Pocahontas (1995). She played Commander Chennault on the short-lived sci-fi television series Space Rangers (1993–94) and had a recurring role as a judge on The Practice (1997–2002).

Hunt also became a well-known narrator, serving in that capacity in the TV miniseries Auschwitz: The Nazis and the “Final Solution” (2005), several episodes of American Experience (1993–2006), and, most notably, for the God of War series of video games, beginning in 2005. She lent her voice to the film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Hunt later became best known for her role as the enigmatic Assistant Director Hetty Lange on the series NCIS: Los Angeles (2009–23).

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