Holly Hunter: The Incredibles’ Elastigirl is metaphor for modern motherhood
The actress reprises her role as the superhero in the animated sequel.
Holly Hunter has said she sees her character in The Incredibles 2 as a metaphor for working mothers.
The Oscar winner, who reprises her role of superhero Elastigirl for the animated sequel, told the Press Association: “There’s a real female there; she is not a man. It’s one of the things that I love about the fact that she is a super heroine – is that her approach to everything has a womanliness about it.
“I think that women must exercise a kind of flexibility that maybe men don’t necessarily have to hone to the degree that women do. So I just think is emblematic in every way of a woman.”
She added: “I think that socially we’ve been geared that way. You have to say ‘yes’, you have to be able to change your mind a lot as a woman.”
Hunter returns to the part 14 years after The Incredibles was a box office hit, but the actress said she feels she has never been far away from the role.
She said: “That movie gets seen by people that have kids, their kids get older and then their grandkids or their nieces and nephews [see it].
“The first movie was often in somebody’s house over those 14 years. So in a way it was like the movie didn’t go away, like maybe a traditional movie might.”
She added: ” I’m seeing a lot of people who are in their twenties coming up to me about this one [the sequel] because they saw the first one when they were little and now they’re seeing this one in their twenties and they love it.”
It has been 25 years since Hunter starred in The Piano, the film that landed her a best actress Oscar, as well as a supporting prize for Anna Paquin and a screenplay gong for director Jane Campion, but Hunter is in two minds over how she feels about the passing of time.
Asked if she feels like a different actress now, she replied: “Both, yes and no.
“Of course I’ve been through so many different experiences since that time, and at the same time there’s something fundamentally unchanged about me.
“One of the great, great things, the gifts of that movie is Jane Campion.
“She remains a great friend of mine and that’s one of the great things about a career – that you take people with you.”
The Incredibles 2 is out in UK cinemas now.
