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Playing a 422-year-old
Holly Hunter’s character in Starfleet Academy is 422 years old, a detail she clearly relishes. What intrigued her wasn’t just the number, but what it implies about a life stretched across four centuries. She started imagining the sheer amount of information, experience, and perspective someone would accumulate over that span.
To get into character, Hunter focused on qualities that might come with living that long. "The amount of patience that you could accrue about life,” Hunter said in the same interview, and the empathy you’d develop toward both humans and “others.” That approach became her way into what she calls the “daunting idea” of playing someone who has existed for more than four centuries. (Continued...)