Kathryn Hunter

Kathryn Hunter
Kathryn Hunter as Richard III at the Globe, 2003
Born	9 April 1957 (1957-04-09) (age 60) USA
Occupation	Actress, director

Kathryn Hunter is an award-winning British actress and theatre director.

Hunter is believed to have been born Aikaterini Hadjipateras on 9 April 1957 in New York to Greek parents but was raised in England. She trained at RADA where she is now an associate, and regularly directs student productions.

In her stage work, Hunter is particularly associated with physical theatre, having even been described as a "virtuoso physical performer."

She has worked with renowned companies in that field including Shared Experience and Complicite. She won an Olivier Award in 1991 for playing the millionairess in Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit.

Critics have noted Hunter for her unusual physical presence and her range. Charles Spencer of The Telegraph describes her as "diminutive in stature, and slightly lame, she has a deep, guttural voice, eyes like black olives and the most expressive of faces. Almost nothing seems beyond her range, from farcical clowning to deepest, darkest tragedy."

Hunter's "uncommon ability to shape shift" has led her to play roles typically reserved for male actors. Hunter was the first female British actor to play King Lear professionally.

Her portrayal of the aged male character Lear conscientiously challenged the audience to separate character and performer: her voice and clothing read as male, but she physicalized lines such as "Down from the waist they are Centaurs/Though women all above" to remind the audience of the female body playing the part. Hunter has played a number of other male characters including in The Bee, directed by Hideki Noda, which played at the Soho Theatre in June 2006 and 2012.

Carrying her physical abilities further, Hunter has taken on the roles of animals and other creatures. In Kafka's Monkey, a solo piece based on Franz Kafka's "A Report to an Academy," Hunter played a monkey delivering a speech to a scientific society about its transformation from a monkey to a man. The piece was a highly acclaimed sell-out success at the Young Vic in 2009, where it was reprised in May 2011. It toured to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York in April 2013. According to Charles Isherwood of the New York Times, she played the role with "wry wisdom, a touch of cheeky humor and, above all, a sense of dignity."