🎬 Feature Film

Holly Hunter

1958Directed by American

Holly Hunter is an Academy Award-winning American actress known for her roles in The Piano, Broadcast News, Thirteen and The Incredibles. In Top of the Lake, she played GJ - the enigmatic spiritual leader of the women's commune.

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Quick Answer

Holly Hunter filmed 1 production in Queenstown: Top of the Lake. Holly Hunter is an Academy Award-winning American actress known for her roles in The Piano, Broadcast News, Thirteen and The Incredibles. In Top of the Lake, she played GJ - the enigmatic spiritual leader of the women's commune.

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About Hunter

American actor, 1 production filmed in Queenstown.

Hunter won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Jane Campion's The Piano (1993), making her casting in Campion's Top of the Lake a significant reunion. Her portrayal of GJ brought an ethereal, almost otherworldly quality to the series, filmed against the stark beauty of the Queenstown backcountry.

She has been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one, and has received two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Actor portrait

Films Shot in Queenstown

Every production Hunter filmed in the Queenstown-Lakes region, with characters, roles, and behind‑the‑scenes stories.

More to Explore

Top of the Lake

2013Jane Campion

“Hunter reunited with director Jane Campion twenty years after their Oscar-winning collaboration on The Piano. Hunter requested to stay in a remote cabin near Glenorchy during filming rather than in Queenstown, saying she wanted to feel the isolation her character inhabited.”
Holly Hunter, on filming Top of the Lake

Behind the Camera

Queenstown Stories

Trivia, anecdotes, and inside stories from Hunter's time filming in Queenstown.

Why did Holly Hunter stay in a remote cabin during Top of the Lake filming?

Hunter chose to stay in a remote cabin near Glenorchy rather than a hotel in Queenstown town centre. She said she wanted to experience the isolation and rawness of the landscape that her character GJ - a spiritual leader living in a backcountry commune - would inhabit. The production team accommodated her request.

What is Holly Hunter's connection to New Zealand cinema?

Hunter's most celebrated film role was in Jane Campion's The Piano (1993), which was filmed in New Zealand and won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her reunion with Campion on Top of the Lake - two decades later and back in New Zealand - was widely noted as one of the most significant actor-director returns in recent memory.

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