Most of us know Linda Hunt as the indomitableHetty Lange from CBS’sNCIS: Los Angeles.
In fact, Hetty has become something of a cult favorite among fans of the show.
But Hunt’s career didn’t begin with Hetty Lange.
And true Hunt fans might even know about her early days as an emerging New York theater actress.
Curious to learn more about Hunt’s journey from bullied child to television star?
Here is the stunning transformation of Linda Hunt.
When she was just six months old, her parents began to worry.
AsThe Bulletinreported, she wasn’t developing motor skills at the normal rate.
Doctors predicted that she would need to be institutionalized.
Hunt’s mother was determined to support her baby.
Elsie and Raymond used books and theater to encourage Linda’s development.
Apparently, Linda’s motor skills were almost normal by the time she started school.
Even though Linda struggled at school, her parents were determined to give her every possible chance in life.
They even hired her a private acting coach and sent her to an excellent boarding school.
By the sounds of things, Linda’s parents made her life full.
“I was so lucky my parents were encouraging on every level,” she said.
As she toldThe Bulletin, “I was totally alienated by school almost from the first day.
I had a bad experience with a teacher and was made to feel stupid.”
Her peers were also unkind.
“Everybody either wanted to take care of me or push me around, you know?
I was teased a lot, sure I was, of course,” Hunt toldCBS News.
“Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, everybody was taking their spurts except me.”
While the bullying was difficult for Hunt, it also gave her a unique kind of determination.
She explained to theDaily Beast, “I was a very determined kid.
This happens to kids who are different in any way.”
Her inspiration came when she was 8 years old and her parents took her to seePeter Panon Broadway.
“She had the power to make others believe what was in her mind.”
Hunt decided that she would devote her life to the theater.
As she put it, she wanted to become “a high priestess of theater.”
Hunt described seeing Martin’s life-changing performance toCBS News, saying, “It was bigger than life.
And that in some sense, I longed to be bigger than life, because I wasn’t.”
Her father encouraged her to study directing and even get a teaching degree, as she told theDaily Beast.
She knew she was passionate about theater, but she wasn’t sure about where to begin.
What followed were a few difficult years.
“I was very young and very lost,” she toldThe Bulletin.
In fact, she felt so lost, she didn’t even consider acting.
“That would have meant getting an agent and going on auditions,” she said.
“I wasn’t capable of doing any of that.
It was truly emotionally beyond me.”
She was also undergoing a range of treatments for her hypopituitary dwarfism, all of which proved unsuccessful.
Eventually, Hunt began to question herself and wonder if she had actually pursued the right path.
She even moved back to her parents' house to regroup.
However, the move ended up being just what she needed to regain her confidence and passion.
She met up with her old acting coach who rekindled her childhood love of theater.
“I had lost myself for a while, and that awareness gave me back to myself.”
Hunt, with newfound confidence, decided that professional acting was her true calling, and she began auditioning.
“Soon I was sending out resumes and reading for parts,” she recalled.
Luckily, she proved to be successful.
In 1972, she appeared inHamletin New Haven.
She even won two Obie Awards and picked up a Tony nomination (viaCBS News).
Hunt was clearly well-suited for a career in theater.
She explained that she learned to stop organizing her thoughts and just let everything that happened inform her performance.
In fact, in between her stage roles, she often found herself dealing with rejection and disappointment.
As she toldThe Bulletin,“I’m working more than I thought I’d be.
I am not working as much as I’d like.”
She went into more detail about missed opportunities in her interview withBombmagazine.
She went on to explain that some periods got so bad, she even collected unemployment.
However, instead of becoming depressed, she soldiered on and even started making her own work.
“Ihadto do it,” she recalled.
Nevertheless, her performance was widely considered to be a spectacular one.
At the time,Roger Ebertwrote, “This is what great acting is.”
She did, however, chop off her hair and shave her eyebrows.
It definitely marked the end of her life as a relatively unknown theater actor.
Soon after her Oscar win, she was taking on more and more major roles.
She starred inDune,Eleni, andThe Bostonians.
InSilverado, she starred alongside Kevin Kline as a “flirtatious vamp.”
InKindergarten Cop, she starred with her “physical opposite” Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Over the years, her screen roles began to follow a certain throw in.
She confessed to theDaily Beastthat she had become bored of her work at that time.
In these films, she felt out of place.
“I never knew what I was really playing.
I was just there for some kind of… ‘Oh, let’s get Linda Hunt.
She’ll do anything.'”
However, a role did come along inNCIS: Los Angeles,and it changed her career entirely.
That year was also the yearsame-sex marriage was legalizedin California.
And remember, legal is only legal in California."
As Kline toldCBS News, she was initially taken by Hunt’s fashion sense rather than her height.
“I was kind of struck [by] Linda’s corduroy’s,” she joked.
Hunt chimed in with her own joke, this one about their slight age difference.
“Karen’s six years younger,” she said, “but I forgive her daily.
I do, I forgive you for being younger.”
As of 2021, over a decade later, she’s still stepping into Hetty’s shoes.
In 2011, she told theDaily Beast, “I’m now 66.
At this time in my life, that this has come along, feels just like a gift.”
The role was the perfect opportunity for Hunt to show off her authoritative presence in an interesting role.
“I love that.”
It might also mean more time spent on her hobbies, like reading, writing, and studying psychology.
For Hunt, acting also comes with a lot of stress.
After a decades-long career, it has become difficult to manage.
As theLos Angeles Timesrevealed, Hunt and her wife share a beautiful but small bungalow in Hollywood.
No wonder she can’t wait to spend more time there!
As theExpressrevealed, her absence from the main cast is due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luckily, the writers on the show found a way around the COVID dilemma.
Maybe Hunt will finally get the retirement she has been waiting for.
