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THE PHRASE "passion project" gets thrown around a lot in Hollywood, but in television, where even the brightest ideas can lose luster in the grind of a weekly series, passion like Holly Hunter's can be hard to sustain.
But as the Academy Award-winning actress ("The Piano") returns to TNT next week for Season 2 of "Saving Grace," an offbeat drama in which she plays an Oklahoma City police detective named Grace Hanadarko, Hunter sounds more in love with her character than ever.
In the seven-month hiatus between seasons, she admits having missed Grace, who drinks and smokes and sleeps around, and whose secrets include childhood sexual abuse and a rumpled guardian angel named Earl (Leon Rippy).
"I'm completely in love with her," Hunter said.
In a phone interview last month, she talked about the joy of (portraying) sex on television, our culture's need for stories and why the mere idea of a clean and sober Grace is kind of beside the point.
Q: A year ago, you were talking about Grace as a woman "who kind of revels in literally being alive." And there was a lot of that in Season 1, but we also discovered some reasons why reveling might be harder for her than other people. Given all the things that happen to her in just the Season 2 premiere, do you see Grace changing this season?
A: I don't think that anything is going to change. You know, I think reveling in life, that's the fuel that she runs on literally. I think that's how she digests her food and drink. It comes out with this full-on immersion in the absolute large events and minutiae of her life.
I think that this is the great thing about Grace. I think she loves that first cup of coffee, I think she loves that first drag of the smoke in the morning. I think she loves to feed her dog, you know, and she imagines what it's like for him to not have the food. She'll withhold it and she'll give it to him and have a little game.
I think that so much of Grace's connective tissue is fascinating to her, from, like, taking a shower and entertaining her next-door neighbor while she's doing it to being fully engaged in the seemingly boring details of cop work - the footwork of being a cop. I just think it's all really passionately felt by her.
Q: Do you think that's something she came with, or is it influenced by what's happened to her?
A: Something like that is in someone's DNA. You're kind of born with a certain amount of that. And then as you get older, you know, the people that I encounter . . . in my real life - I see people who are really enjoying their lives. I mean, really enjoying their lives, and they take joy in their daily obligations, they just do. And I believe that at a certain point, you've got to choose to be that way. You choose to approach your life that way. Or it's all kind of a drag until Friday. And Grace is definitely not the drag-till-it's-Friday girl.
Q: This is probably redundant, but what's your favorite part of playing this character?
A: I know I've said this before, but I love the exploration of her sexuality, because it's such a rare opportunity. It's something that we don't see an expression of in the kind of cultural landscape of movies. And it's something that me, and a whole bunch of other actresses, have never really gotten a chance to explore. The real intimacy of it.
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