Alan Ball has hit the mother lode, tapping Oscar winner Holly Hunter to play the matriarch in his new tragicomic family drama for HBO.
The Six Feet Under and True Blood boss’ untitled series focuses on the contemporary multi-racial Black-Bishop family: a philosophy professor, his lawyer wife (Hunter), their three adopted children from Somalia, Vietnam and Colombia, and their sole biological child. This seemingly perfect, progressive family is in actuality harboring deep rifts. Then, one of the children begins to see things others cannot. Is it mental illness? Or something else?
Hunter’s matriarch character, socially conscious idealist Audrey Black, decided — along with husband Greg — to build a family by adopting children from Vietnam, Somali and Colombia before having their own child in their forties. Once a therapist in private practice, she now reluctantly utilizes her skills as a psychologist in the corporate world, balancing her more progressive personal philosophy with the need to make money. Audrey is a smart, caring woman who believes she knows what’s best for everyone and has no problem telling them. But with her husband now fighting depression and her children mostly grown, she finds herself somewhat adrift.
Hunter’s previous TV credits include the TNT drama Saving Grace and Sundance Channel’s Top of the Lake.
