Linda Hunt Talks about NCIS: Los Angeles
Her First Time as a Series Regular
Hetty might be pint sized, but this woman is no-nonsense. She expects things to be done on time and with the proper paperwork. She runs the Office of Special Projects (OSP) headquarters with an iron thumb.
Recently Ms. Hunt talked about the series and her role during a set visit by the Television Critics Association.
The first question posed to the veteran actor was why did she decide to co-star in a TV series? “Not working at all had a lot to do with it,” she says with a chuckle.
Linda Hunt Comes Out of Partial Retirement
“I've been living a life of a retired old person for quite a while. So perhaps I'll just change all of that and work harder than I've ever worked in my life, which, I think, is what this is going to be, judging from my first week. And I'm delighted.” She said that working on a television series has a different rhythm to it than a film. “And I'm learning a whole new rhythm and timing, and I'm going to have to solve the problem of how to do things faster but as well, and it's wonderful. I'm learning. I'm of a certain age and I'm learning something new.”
The sixty-four year old Oscar winner is ecstatic to be part of the new NCIS team and she is very happy with her character.
Linda Hunt Plays Hetty Lange
“This [set] in a way, reflects her a great deal. It is so eclectic. It includes all of her personal pieces and parts. The office, if you were to go in and look at it, looks more like a museum than a room where any work gets done. I guess what I'm trying to say is that she is a woman of many parts.”
Ms. Hunt exclaimed, “I just am surprised constantly by who she is, a woman of enormous curiosity, a woman who's already probably on her seventh life - you know, as in the nine lives of a cat - or perhaps only her sixth. And she is really the manager along with [NCIS Director] Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll). But they have this extraordinary history together, and they have an affinity for things they have in common that they care about and a kind of code of honor about the way they live their lives in absolutely every aspect and that somehow it's all important, and you've got to get it all right.” Her strict, by the book character deep down has down a very soft heart.
“I think she is a kind of moral backbone in this place …”
Co-Star Chris O’Donnell Comes to Her Aid
About all the techno-babble that Hetty has to know, Ms. Hunt said she has a hard time remembering all the words. As a matter of fact, she was very concerned during one scene and her co-star Chris O’Donnell came to her aid by taping on his check the list of tech items she was required to speak. Since his back was to the camera, Linda Hunt could look at his chest and say her tech lines.
“We have begun to work together as a team, just out of sheer necessity. It's wonderful how it works.”
NCIS: Los Angeles premiers Tuesday, September 22, 2009 on CBS.
Linda Hunt in NCIS: Los Angeles
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