Linda Hunt

Hunt was a well-known live-stage actress before she entered film and television. She made her Broadway debut in a 1975 production of Ah, Wilderness.[8] She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her work in the 1984 play End of the World. She also received two ensemble Obie Awards for her work Off-Broadway in Top Girls and A Metamorphosis in Miniature.[9]

Hunt created the role of Aunt Dan in Wallace Shawn's play Aunt Dan and Lemon. She was a member of the Long Wharf Theatre Company in Connecticut. There, she played the Player Queen in a production of Hamlet, among other roles. She portrayed Sister Aloysius in the Pasadena Playhouse production of John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt. Hunt was praised for her performance as the title character in Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children.[10] Hunt also appeared as Pope Joan in Caryl Churchill's Top Girls when London's Royal Court Theatre's production was staged at the Public Theater in New York.

In an interview with writer Craig Gholson and actor Vincent Caristi, Hunt said: "Acting onstage is like an explosion each night. And what comes in at you all the time as you are trying to . . . create something which is a tremendous act of organization and concentration."[11]

Known for her small stature,[12][13] Hunt made her film debut in 1980 in Robert Altman's musical comedy Popeye.[14][15]

Two years later, Hunt co-starred as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously, Peter Weir's film adaptation of the novel of the same name. For her work in this film, Hunt won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1983, becoming the first person to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.[16][17][18] In her screen test, Hunt wore a hairpiece, a fake moustache, and "paste-on pieces above her eyes to [appear] Asian."[19] To play the role, Hunt had her hair dyed and cut short, had her eyebrows shaved, wore padding and makeup, and wore something in her shirt pocket.[19][20] In her 1986 interview with the Bomb magazine, Hunt remarked that Billy Kwan "is supra-personal [with] layers of sexual ambiguity[.]"[11]

Hunt also played Shadout Mapes in Dune (1984 film), a nurse in She-Devil (1989), an austere school principal opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop (1990), and assassin Ilsa Grunt in If Looks Could Kill (1991).

Hunt's television appearances include recurring roles as Judge Zoey Hiller on David E. Kelley's series The Practice[21] and as Dr. Claire Bryson on Without a Trace.[22][23] She has narrated several installments of The American Experience on PBS.[21][24][25][26] Since 2009, she has co-starred as Operations Manager Henrietta "Hetty" Lange on the CBS show NCIS: Los Angeles. Her co-stars on that show have included Chris O'Donnell, LL Cool J, Daniela Ruah, Eric Christian Olsen, Miguel Ferrer and Barrett Foa.[27][28][29] Hunt has won two Teen Choice Awards for her work on NCIS: Los Angeles.[30]

Hunt is known for her husky voice.[13] She has narrated numerous documentaries, cartoons, and commercials. She is the on-air host for City Arts & Lectures, a radio program recorded by KQED public radio at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco.[31] Hunt voiced the role of Grandmother Willow in the animated musical film Pocahontas (1995)[17] and its direct-to-video sequel Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998).[32]

Hunt narrated the National Geographic documentary The Great Indian Railway (1995).[33][34] In 1998, she narrated the Discovery Channel documentary "Titanic: Untold Stories."[35] Hunt's voice work also includes the character of Management in Carnivàle (2003, 2005)[17][36] and the narrator for God of War video game series.[37] She narrated a PBS Nature special entitled Christmas in Yellowstone (2009).[38][39]

• God of War as Narrator
• God of War II as Gaia/Narrator
• God of War: Chains of Olympus as Narrator
• God of War III as Narrator
• God of War: Ghost of Sparta as Narrator
• God of War: Ascension as Narrator