Ella Hunt On Creativity, The Importance Of Dreaming and Season Two of 'Dickinson'
Photography & Direction by Alison Engstrom for ROSE & IVY; Styling by Sarah Slutsky at Studio SES; Hair by DJ Quintero at The Wall Group; Makeup by Carolina Dalí-Trites at The Wall Group; Styling Assistant Gina Brase at Studio SES
Ella is wearing a Khaite blouse; Grace Lee earrings and ring; Ashley Zhang ring
I am trying to think back as a child and my early moments of creativity because I was so born into it. My older brother had real issues with sleep, he just couldn’t sleep at night. My parents finally decided they were going to make a room for him in the attic where one half would be his bedroom sleeping area and the other half would be filled with paint supplies and tapes that he could listen to so that my parents could sleep through the night. I was born into a household where if there were any issues, the solution was creativity. I grew up super rurally as well in North Devon, about 40 minutes away from the first real town. There was a much higher population of sheep than humans (laughs). Whenever my brothers or me got bored, my parents would suggest that we make art, put on performances, or write a song. It was such a part of my upbringing, earlier than I can remember that I don’t have one conscious memory of, I am doing art! This is what I want to do.
I have a memory of being in the car, on my way home from school, and my mom asked my older brother and I what we wanted to do as adults. I don’t know why she asked that question but she did, my older brother went, I think I’ll be an artist, and I was like, I think I’ll be an artist, too. I remember being nine and having a conversation with a group of girls from the choir that I was in and we were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I said, I want to be a singer, and I asked one of the other girls what she wanted to do and she said, maybe I’ll be a vet or a nurse. I said, but you have a beautiful singing voice why wouldn’t you want to be a singer? She said, oh Ella, you can do that, I can’t. I hold onto that memory very strongly because where I think I was super lucky. I had parents who infused in me from such a young age that I could do anything that I wanted to do and that a career in the arts was just as meaningful as a more predictable career path. I feel super lucky for that because I know so many kids who loved it just as much and were just as good, or far better (laughs), who were just conditioned from a young age that it probably wasn’t going to be possible for them to do that. It struck me. I recognize that I come from a background of real privilege. I come from a middle-class background where my parents weren’t struggling to put food on the table. They worked very hard and we went to good schools and they were able to teach me that anything is possible. I think it’s the job of the school, as well as the job of the parent, to teach children that they can do anything they want if they work hard enough at it.
If COVID-19 has taught us anything it’s just how easily redundant we can all be made. Imagination and creativity have become so essential during these times of lockdown because maybe we aren’t going out to work. How do we occupy ourselves and give ourselves a sense of purpose and so many people’s solutions have been creativity.
I think like everyone I had good days and bad days. At first, I felt like I had gone into a deep creative drought, where I felt so anxious about the world I was spending hours on my phone each day reading the news and scrolling through social media. After a couple of weeks, that got old for all of us; I went through a period of being quite depressed and in that period I really turned to art and songwriting. I spent most of the days in my bedroom writing poetry and songs. I have this really fantastic sort of loop pedal where you can record up to eight tracks on it, so I would make vocal loops. Or my partner would send me piano melodies that he was writing in New York and I would write over them. I spent a lot of hours writing songs trying to channel my feelings about loss and anxiety.
Absolutely, I mean we are being showered in examples of people being incredibly productive over lockdown. I just don’t think that’s the common experience of it. I think that’s one in a million people who have had huge amounts of productivity coming out of this time but it wasn’t the case for me. I feel like since I have gotten back to New York and I have spent some time with my safe happy face and seeing some friends I got reconnected with my home and I am feeling very stimulated and creative having gone through this time.
A pivotal moment for me was making Anna and the Apocalypse when I was 18. I shot two films back-to-back, one being The More You Ignore Me and Anna and the Apocalypse. They were my first two leads and I shot them over a period of five months in North England and Scotland. On Anna and the Apocalypse, it was a group of young creatives who were all coming together to make this film in memory of their friend who had birthed the idea of the film and had passed away. I had gotten so used to being on sets where people were relatively jaded and decided on how art and films specifically were made like, you can’t be friends with your director and there has to be hierarchy and power dynamics. On that movie, it was a very collaborative environment and we all did become incredibly close and are still close today. I think that was when I really fell in love with acting because I realized it was part of creative collaboration. Also, Anna and the Apocalypse is kind of the reason that I got Dickinson. It was a tiny, indie, Scottish movie that then got bought by a major American studio and from there a lot of producers saw the film and one of them happened to be Michael Sugar, who is one of the producers on Dickinson. We had a call where he asked what I wanted to do in my career and then Dickinson came around.
That was a lovely surprise. With Anna especially, since I had a few experiences before where I thought I was going to work on something that was going to do really well and get that sort of attention and they didn’t. With Anna I went into it incredibly open-minded: this is a tiny indie movie, I doubt anyone is going to see this but I really believe in this and I am excited to do it. I had so much it was lovely icing on the cake for the hard work that the whole team put in to make that character.
I was so thrilled by it, so excited to see how bold a show Alena (Smith) was envisioning. To see a show about a female genius who has so much relevance to today and to be exploring this time in a way that I don’t think had been explored before. It just thrilled me. I am a nerd, so it really appealed to the nerd in me (laughs). I got to do so much research and such a deep dive into Emily.
In my career, I have played two characters who have gone through miscarriages. In The More You Ignore Me, my character went through a miscarriage on screen where as on Dickinson, we see the after effects of it and how Sue carries her pain and grief throughout the season. It was really striking to me how many of the women around me whether in production or family and friends who have been through them.
I find it an emotional thing because so often it is something that women go through silently on their own and it’s not talked about. There are some amazing women like Megan Markle and Chrissy Tiegan who have spoken about miscarriages openly, which I think is extraordinary. Prior to that so few conversations about the pain and how common they are for women. I feel privileged to have gotten to play characters and have women confide in me about their experiences.
It is such a joy to work on a show where all of the female characters—I would say all of the characters in the show—are so three dimensional and they are not just strong but they are flawed and they all have their own internal intricacies and difficulties that they struggle with and strive towards, which is really special. I love Alena for writing those characters. In terms of my experience of working on the show and what it has given to me as a woman, I just feel super empowered by working on the show. I have gotten to do so much study on women’s history and with this season in particular I did a lot of study on salonnières, which are female hostesses through the ages and the social roles they play in women’s liberation. Before women’s liberation was an openly talked about thing, the way for a certain demographic of women to having any sort of political power or real social or intellectual stimulation was to throw extravagant soirees where they were in charge of who came and what the conversation was and they were able to dictate in every other way in their lives they weren’t able to.
They can expect a fairly wild ride with Sue. There will be many moments when people don’t understand the reason why she is behaving like she is because she completely reinvents herself this season. She went from being destitute to being very surface in mourning. In this next season she buries it all deep inside of her and becomes this extravagant hostess, but all of this pain and the additional grief of the miscarriage; it bubbles up in side of her and it’s a really exciting season for Sue, things really boil to the surface for her in an exciting way.
I take music equally as seriously as acting. Before I moved to New York I had sort of a mindset that I pursue it in an Emily Dickinson way, where I didn’t share it with anyone. Music is so comforting to me that it’s sort of a safe place that I would keep from people. I also was advised by various kinds of agents and industry professionals in my mid-teens that doing music and acting just wasn’t a way to go. It was a silly thing I got told as a teenager and when I moved to New York I was just completely empowered by being here and by the community of artists I was around and am still around and realized I do want to do music on a professional level. I play the piano and I have been working on an album for the past year or so. I would say expect music to be released in the next year or so.
Ella is wearing a Dolce & Gabbana dress; Jenny Bird jewelry
I read a lot I try to always have a book going. I always feel charged by reading a great book. I also surround myself with artists and people I admire and who remind me that having creative lulls and not constantly making is alright and that we all go through it. Working on Dickinson is so wonderful because I am surrounded by an incredible group of creatives who inspire me and make me feel like anything is impossible and that I can do anything in my career, which is really wonderful. It’s important to be reminded that the possibilities are endless, there are no boundaries.
Ella is wearing an Adeam dress; Spanx tights; Louboutin platforms; Eva Fehren jewelry
