Interview: Holly Hunter For Saving Grace

I had the chance to talk to Holly Hunter a few weeks ago, but The Olympics have been on the brain, so it’s taken me a while to post this! She was very sweet, and I do love her series Saving Grace. And, a congratulations are due as she was nominated for an Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama, yay! Check out Saving Grace tonight at 10/9c on TNT.

Nads: What are some of your favorite things about playing Grace?

Holly: I think, you know, probably the most thrilling thing about her, about how alive she is. You know, she’s truly, she’s truly alive in a way so many people are asleep, um, for long periods of time in their days and their lives. I think Grace spends an extraordinary amount of her time, really awake to possibilities and awake to a real true curiosity about why people do what they do. And, I think you know, she also is a real tester of what people are capable of and what she herself is capable of. This is one of the things that I believe attracts her about crime and attracts her about her job is she wants to understand why these people do what they do.

Nads: Now that you’ve got a season under your belt, have you learned from your character Grace?

Holly: I would love to be as alive as she is, you know. I mean, that’s a difficult thing to do. You know, like right now I’m definitely not as alive as Grace, cause I just spent a night working till six this morning. I think her generosity. I think so often Grace doesn’t think of herself. She so often doesn’t. She so often is thinking about how can I make this better, for this person in the way that she is capable of. In the way that she knows how and her skills are different from other people’s skills and her instincts for how to solve problems are different from other people.

Nads: Did you talk to any friends that made the transition into TV before doing this character, playing Grace?

Holly: I called Dillon McDermott who’d done The Practice, you know, and I called Dillon because he’s a buddy and because I so respect him, uh, and also because he had done a David E. Kelley series. That’s very particular, because, you know, basically I was asking him something I’d never asked an actor before, which was, how do you memorize all those lines? You know, and suddenly that was a very pertinent question, for the first time in my career. Was, with David E. Kelley the actors never stop talking, I mean, it’s just incredibly sophisticated and fast paced dialogue. And, I just asked him, you know, what gives? How do you do this every week? Because that had never been a concern of mine, um, on a, you know, I’ll memorize the entire script before I start shooting a feature, um, it’s no big deal. Or, or a play. But, you know Dillon just said look, you know, it’s a scary ride when you first get on and you’re going to be able to do it and, you know, your memory is going to become a really well used muscle. Very early on and, you know, it’s not going to fail you the way that you’re afraid of. And, you know, he’s right, he was right. Uh, it is, it’s, it has fear inside it thought all the time. The idea of memorizing a script, you know, for two days, having only two days to memorize it and then just shoot it. It’s a, it’s dicey. That’s the technique I’ve ended up using. I just take two days and memorize half the script one day, half the script the next and then just start shooting.

Nads: What are some of your favorite TV shows you like to watch?

Holly: The Sopranos, The Shield, Weeds, uh you know, I think Rescue Me has just been kind of an amazing thing and uh, Mad Men. The Wire is kind of incredible. The Wire is amazing.

I want to thank Holly for taking the time to talk to me! Check out Saving Grace tonight at 10/9c on TNT.