Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, the youngest of seven children whose father was a part-time sporting goods company representative and part-time farmer

She is the daughter of Oscar winning actor Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand, used her middle name as her last name (French translation of beautiful), probably in order to succeed independently of her father's success as an actor.

In 1992, Holly Hunter made her Broadway debut in Beth Henley's "Crimes of the Heart," and followed that with another Broadway production of a Henley play, "The Wake of Jamey Foster." Other New York stage appearances include "The Miss Firecracker Contest," "Battery," "The Person I Once Was," "A Weekend Near Madison," and 1998's "Impossible Marriage" at The Roundabout Theatre.

In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).

Proving she could do more than rapid-fire dialogue and comedy, Hunter nabbed the 1994 Oscar for her performance in The Piano (1993, directed by Jane Campion). Since then she has appeared in a variety of movies, including Copycat (1995, with Sigourney Weaver), Crash (1996, based on the novel by J. G. Ballard), Living Out Loud (1998) and as George Clooney's wife in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).

Hunter won an Emmy Award for her performance in "Roe VS. Wade," and then went on to win another Emmy for Best Actress in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom."

Hunter is married to Janusz Kaminski, the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Schindler's List (1993, directed by Steven Spielberg).