Hunter was born inConyers, Georgia, the daughter of Marguerite "Dee Dee" (née Catledge),[2] a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250-acre farm. She is the youngest of six children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. She is unable to hear with her left ear due to a childhood case of themumps. The condition sometimes leads to complications at work, and some movie scenes have to be altered from the script for her to use her right ear.[3] She isirreligious.[4][5] She began acting atRockdale County High School in the early 1970s, performing in local productions ofOklahoma!,Man of La Mancha, andFiddler on the Roof.[6] Hunter earned a degree in drama fromCarnegie Mellon University inPittsburgh and for a while performed inlocal theater, playingingenue roles atCity Theater, then named the City Players.[7]
Hunter moved to New York City and roomed with fellow actressFrances McDormand, living inthe Bronx "at the end of the D (subway) train, just off 205th Street, on Bainbridge Avenue and Hull Avenue".[8] A chance encounter with playwrightBeth Henley, when the two were trapped alone in an elevator, led to Hunter's being cast in Henley's playsCrimes of the Heart (succeedingMary Beth Hurt onBroadway), andOff-Broadway'sThe Miss Firecracker Contest. "It was like the beginning of 1982. It was on 49th Street between Broadway and Eighth [Avenue] ... on the south side of the street," Hunter recalled in an interview. "[We were trapped] 10 minutes; not long. We actually had a nice conversation. It was just the two of us."[8]
Hunter made her film debut in the 1981 slasher movieThe Burning.[9] After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, Hunter appeared in TV movies before being cast in a supporting role in 1984'sSwing Shift. That year, she had her first collaboration with the writing-directing-producing team of brothersEthan Coen andJoel Coen, inBlood Simple, making an uncredited appearance as a voice on an answering-machine recording. More film and television work followed until 1987, when she earned a starring role in the Coens'Raising Arizona and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance inBroadcast News, after which Hunter became a critically acclaimed star.
In 2003, Hunter had the role of a mother named Melanie Freeland, whose daughter is troubled and going through the perils of being a teenager in the filmThirteen. The film was critically acclaimed along with Hunter and her co-stars and earned her nominations for theAcademy Award andGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2004, Hunter starred alongsideBrittany Murphy in the romantic satireLittle Black Book, and provided the voice forHelen Parr (also known asElastigirl) in the animatedsuperhero film,The Incredibles. She reprised the role in theDisney Infinity video game series, and in the film's long-awaited sequelIncredibles 2 in 2018. She also voiced Chicken Little during the early production of the 2005 filmChicken Little until the character's gender was changed and was replaced byZach Braff.
In 2023, Hunter was cast inHurricanna alongsideSylvia Hoeks. It is a dramatization of the final days ofPlayboy model and reality TV actressAnna Nicole Smith. Hunter portrays Smith's therapist. Production took place in late 2023.[14]
She has been in a relationship with British actor Gordon MacDonald since 2001. The couple met inSan Jose Repertory Theatre's production of playwrightMarina Carr'sBy the Bog of Cats, in which she played a woman abandoned by her lover of 14 years, played by MacDonald. In January 2006, Hunter gave birth to the couple's twin sons.[17][18][19]
^Conner, Lynne (2007). Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater. University of Pittsburgh Press. pg. 247.ISBN978-0-8229-4330-3. Retrieved July 15, 2011.
