Top 174 Quotes & Sayings by Holly Hunter
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actress Holly Hunter.
Last updated on September 20, 2024.
I'm too small and too short. I thought that was odd; that should be a non-issue to me.
I like the South: Southern literature and that relationship between grotesqueness and living below the Mason-Dixon line. But I also understand that people view it as a limitation - as an actor and as a person - perceptions that are really wrong: that you are ignorant and possibly illiterate, or that it's cute.
It's always been my way to move about a little more horizontally. My career has never been like a shooting star.
Is there a higher energy? I would say yes, even if the energy is collective. Even if it's kind of Jungian, or the whole thing is collective consciousness, that may be God as far as I'm concerned. So is there an energy that's higher than mine? Yes. But would I claim it as God? I would say no.
'Top Of The Lake' is a great story with a beginning, and a middle and an end, about darkness - it's like the heart of darkness. And everybody has got one. When I was reading it, I couldn't put it down, and I wanted to know what was going to happen next.
I heckled somebody at the U.S. Open once. And you know, tennis, it's not a good place for that.
After I did 'Broadcast News' and got an Academy Award nomination, the first thing I did was 'Roe vs. Wade' at NBC.
People have always searched for answers. That's why we have religion; people have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.
I think Ada in 'The Piano' is the most interior character I've ever had the chance to play, either on the stage or in anything I've done for film or TV.
What people have thought of me, of the turns that I've taken, has never really played into my decisions.
'Saving Grace' was a full stretch-out - literally, physically, spiritually, psychologically. And I needed to take a year-and-a-half off when it was over.
So much European cinema has open arms to stories carried by women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. And America is a little behind in that.
I love fiction, you know? I find it fascinating. So when film really does go into fictional places, that's the most exciting for me. And when the fiction is about the person rather than about the place, that's even more exciting.
I was born and raised on a farm, where boys had chores and girls did not, i.e., drive tractors, bale hay, take care of cattle.
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.
In my real life, I see people who are really enjoying their lives - I mean, really enjoying their lives - and they take joy in their daily obligations; they just do. And I believe that at a certain point, you've got to choose to be that way. You choose to approach your life that way. Or it's all kind of a drag until Friday.
I think that, initially, I was most passionate about music and particularly about playing the piano. I started playing when I was nine, and I was obsessed with it, really. I wouldn't even go spend the night at a friend's unless they had a piano. But I didn't have the chops, the extraordinary talent to be able to play the piano professionally.
With 'Broadcast News,' it became a non-issue, and with 'The Piano,' it became a non-issue. Both parts were written for more statuesque women. It was nice to change people's minds about that, because that's neither here nor there.
The rhythm of my career has always been very static, staccato and then silent, and then a lot of work, and then none.
There's a tremendous amount of humor... in very unexpected places.
Some actors say they don't know themselves at all, and that's why they act: because they can disappear into other people.
I've never worked as much as I would've wanted to, and that's why I end up doing a lot of stage as well, because stage is a full course meal.
Crazy people are my people? Really? I think that's silly. That's another one of those pigeonhole things. Lay somebody on an ironing board and put a scalding hot iron on them, get that going real good: 'Oh, this is who Holly Hunter is.'
I'm not religious. I'm not an atheist. Would I say I'm an agnostic? Possibly. But I would say the collective unconscious is something I'm much more interested in.
I can very much enjoy taking a year off. Whereas some people would feel crippled by that, I can feel enlarged by it. And then I also like to work nonstop, maybe for a year-and-a-half, and then take a year off.
I love wearing wigs because they're instantly transformational.
Characters never live with me in film the way they do on stage, and they have certain ramifications that movies just never have.
As an actor, I always like some tension, some distance, between me and the character I'm playing.
I don't mind at all venturing off to do a television movie if it's gonna give me something new to mess around in my mind, to turn around in.
I've never had a career of that kind of box office power. I've always learned the hard way.
In many parts, I start from the outside and then it triggers things within. For 'The Piano,' I went, 'I'm going to learn these piano pieces. I'm going to learn this sign language, and I'm going to do them all day every day, five days a week.' It was a totally physical thing.
The whole idea of death is something that we tend to kind of really not deal with at all.
People think I disappear sporadically, but I just do projects that don't get international acclaim.
It's a fantastic mirror to us to engage with art, to engage with paintings that are about tragedy, to go see Shakespearean comedies, to read a Greek play... We have always investigated the lightness and darkness of the human soul, in all these forms. So why not do it on television?
Do I believe in God? I don't know what that really means. I don't know what my personal connections with G-o-d are. But spirituality is soulfulness.
I've never directed, but it must be humbling.
Sometimes you have to marinate instead of making a quick decision. I appreciate my instincts, but my instincts can be dead wrong. Circumspection can give you time.
I moved to the city in August of 1980, and someone I thought was a friend had an apartment in this wedding cake of a building, so I slept on her couch for a few days.
There were so many lead roles available when I was in my thirties. Once I hit 45, there was a real downturn. But I got an incredibly provocative, delicious lead role in a television series called 'Saving Grace,' and I loved the character.
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.
I'm not a classically beautiful person, but hopefully it increases my longevity as an actress that my career isn't dependent on my great, great good looks.
I really admire people who are extraordinarily tolerant and patient.
I get cold really quickly, but I don't care. I like weather. I never understand why people move someplace so that they can avoid weather.
If you've had intimacy in your life, you can be intimate onscreen. I mean, come on - I didn't know how to hold a gun, but I could play a cop.
What is God, and how do you believe in him - how do you not believe? It's a question the world continues to tussle with. People's beliefs get them in a lot of conflicts.
Helen Mirren is, I think, one of the fascinating actresses. Period. She captivates people and has tremendous power and charisma because she has never cashed in on being an exquisite beauty, even though I think she is. I can't say I'm anything like her, but I hope something similar will happen with me.
People don't come to New York out of resignation. They come here with a dream. Mine was to be an actress.
The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.
I've always had to move between a couple of years of unemployment, where offers are not provocative enough to take, and seasons where I work nonstop for a year. It's always been an erratic rhythm.
I don't believe in angels, and I'm not a religious person.
To me, being creative is a very fragile thing. The environment in which one can create is a very particular one, and somehow, I've always felt the need to be very protective of that.
Feature films seem geared toward very large budgets, action, broad comedy. That seems to dominate all year where it used to be relegated to summer.
A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. 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.
The forcefulness of life is where vitality kind of intersects.
I love to look at physically beautiful people, and obviously others do, too. But there's such a narrow definition of what that is; the people who are my friends in life, the more I get to know them over the years, the more beautiful they are to me.
Privacy is paradise.
I got a horror film, 'The Burning,' and suddenly I was making crazy money, like a thousand a week, so I moved into an apartment on Amsterdam with a guy who was also in 'The Burning,' Jason Alexander.
I grew up on a farm. The worst-looking chickens are the best layers. The ones that are the scraggliest... those are usually the ones that are really cooking.
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.
With longevity comes, 'Nothing is going to kill me; I cannot irreparably damage my career.' Those days are over. The most I can sustain are fender benders.
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