THE SCENARIO SEEMS familiar: Holly Hunter stars in edgy movie directed by strong-willed, forthright woman and the movie becomes an award-winning hit.
No, it's not The Piano, Jane Campion's high-profile 1993 film that won Hunter a best actress Oscar (after her nomination for Broadcast News). It's Thirteen, a tiny US$2-million movie by first-time director Catherine Hardwicke, where Hunter more often than not wears her own clothes. Academy voters have been impressed too, bestowing her with a best supporting actress nominations for Hollywood's February 29 showpiece. Hunter is as stunned as anyone.
'So often it's surprising how movies are received by an audience. I get used to not even thinking about it, because you can never predict it,' the diminutive actress says, in her booming Southern drawl. 'If you do you will end up spending most of your life as an actor terrifically disappointed. The planets have to be aligned, the distribution company has to know exactly how it wants to market it, the director has to know exactly how he or she wants to edit it. So the whole thing is beyond my control. The best thing I can do is immerse myself in the movie and then let it go.'
She says Thirteen has caught on in a way she never expected, 'because it's a tiny examination of family life'. All the more startling is that the film's in-your-face story of the lives of two tattoo-loving 13-year-old girls wasn't really Hunter's to begin with, yet she built up her character to the extent that her recovering alcoholic divorcee, who is struggling to raise her kids on very little money, becomes the heart of the film. And this, when Hunter has never been a mother herself.
'I thought the screenplay had a real authenticity,' she says. 'It's a kind of shocking expose of how we can tell ourselves a lie - a portrait of an intelligent woman who wants to understand her daughter, but treats her only as a friend. Being a friend to a child is not a bad thing, but she's also got to be a parent. I think many people can relate to this. 'Raising a kid is really difficult, according to all my friends - and according to my mum,' she says.
Hunter is famously choosy about roles, but nudity is not one of her taboos. 'Bad scripts are,' she quips. She readily took on nude scenes in Thirteen. 'Somehow it's not an issue for me. The nudity I've done has been called for. When I first read the scene, Catherine had me holding a pillow to shield my nakedness from my boyfriend. But it tells a lot more about their relationship if she doesn't even think about nudity. It's not the thing that's going on between them.'