{"id":1992939,"date":"2026-06-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1992939"},"modified":"2026-06-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1992939","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tHOW ELLA HUNT MADE IT \u2013 AND MADE IT WORK<\/span>
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Between her debut album Blindspot<\/em> and her hot new show on Hulu, this might be the biggest month in actress-musician Ella Hunt\u2019s career. It\u2019s also only the beginning.<\/h3>\n
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Photography by Kaki Kirk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

There\u2019s an old adage that brings small relief in the face of unforeseen circumstances: You make plans and God laughs. <\/em>It\u2019s a reminder to surrender, and applicable to many different scenarios; family tragedy, scheduling conflicts, two of the biggest projects of your career colliding in one week. Or, if you\u2019re Ella Hunt, it\u2019s all the above.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This month, Ella Hunt released her debut album, Blindspot<\/em>. A decade in the making, the record is the culmination of years spent finding herself at the piano in her childhood home in North Devon, as well as a devastating, raw excavation of grief following the recent passing of her half-sister, Emily.<\/p>\n

Concurrently, following standout performances in period pieces, Hunt is making her television return with a Mindy Kaling-produced contemporary comedy. Not Suitable for Work <\/em>is an ensemble following a group of ambitious young professionals in New York City \u2013 a role Hunt landed after a Zoom meeting with Mindy, squeezed into a two-hour sleep window during night shoots for another film. Filming wrapped one day\u00a0 after her bachelorette party (her friends helped her run lines, dildo and drinks on standby), and a mere two weeks before her December wedding. Hunt initially scheduled her album to drop a month after the show\u2019s premiere, presuming any press and palaver would subside before the Blindspot<\/em> rollout began. Instead, shifting release dates meant both projects arrived the same week. You make plans, and God laughs.<\/em><\/p>\n

But Ella is not new to this. The 28 year-old has been acting since age 11, performing across TV, film and theatre, while penning her own plays and releasing a series of EPs and singles. She excellently embodied SNL <\/em>legend Gilda Radner in Saturday Night<\/em>, which caught the attention of Mindy and NSFW <\/em>showrunner Charlie Grandy. She was the first cast member to join the show, which is already number one<\/a> on streaming giant Hulu, portraying a first-year associate at an investment bank who is self-aware enough to know isn\u2019t cool enough to survive in Brooklyn. By contrast, Ella \u2013 who splits her time between Brooklyn and London \u2013 is very<\/em> cool, and as of this week, that\u2019s something you can listen, watch, and now read to find out. At least, that\u2019s the plan.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s talk chemistry. I know that with Adults<\/em> they all went and lived in a house in Toronto for a month \u2014 I was curious if there was a process in place for you guys.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They wanted to make sure that we hit it off. One of the real delights of this process for me was that I got to read chemistry with [castmates] Avantika [Vandanapu] and Will [Angus]. I didn\u2019t get to chemistry read with Jack [Martin] because he was one of the missing puzzle pieces that came in very late in the day. Will and Jack knew each other beforehand and they lived together while we were shooting. Me and Avantika \u2013 I\u2019d say it was a love-at-first-sight match. She came into the room and it was immediately electric.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you ever experienced the opposite, where you feel friction or you feel like people weren\u2019t looking out for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s very rare that people actually come into this kind of environment knowingly and willingly wishing to pull other people down. I think a little bit of competitiveness is natural, but it\u2019s pretty rare that somebody knowingly acts like a shit on a film set. That being said, I definitely have had experiences where I\u2019ve worked with people where we haven\u2019t had that natural chemistry, or we\u2019ve had to work for the chemistry.<\/p>\n

How do you work for it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s building out trust and showing each other over and over\u2026 though not in this instance. I think we were very bonded by how anxious we were to do well\u2014all five of us were really nervous before we shot the pilot and we were very transparent about those feelings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did it feel like stepping into the shoes of Friends<\/em>? Is that where the nerves come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think comparison is always a kind of agitator of nerves. But I think we were all fans of the \u201cMindy-verse\u201d and all felt that this was something special\u2014a real opportunity, both individually and collectively, to make something memorable. Our writers\u2019 room was also on set with us every day, which was amazing because it meant that we would map out a scene, we\u2019d rehearse, and then they\u2019d bring a bunch of alts to us. So the scene would really evolve from take one to the last take, but it required us to be on our toes. At the beginning, that was pretty nerve-wracking.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re learning lines on the fly, basically.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. By the end of the shoot, I felt so match-fit. I think all of us did. I had scheduled my bachelorette party for what was supposed to be a week after shooting finished, but shooting extended.<\/p>\n

What was your bachelorette plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friends surprised me with a scavenger hunt around all my favourite places in the city, which was amazing. [\u2026] I\u2019m quite introverted. I mean, I love a girls\u2019 trip, but I didn\u2019t want to fall prey to the wedding-industrial complex. I hate it when your friends are encouraged to spend so much money; it\u2019s just really off-putting to me. But I got sent \u2013\u00a0I shit you not\u00a0\u2013 five pages of revisions at 8:00 PM that day. I\u2019m drunk, having \u201cgirl dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

I probably would\u2019ve cried. <\/p>\n

<\/strong>I\u2019m kind of a junkie for it. I think I thrive in high-pressure environments. I did a lot of sports growing up, and there is an athleticism to some of the things that crop up in this profession, and I enjoy it.<\/p>\n

Do you like to be all the way on or all the way off?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m much happier in the extremes. That\u2019s also why I\u2019m much happier living in New York City or living on a farm in Devon where I grew up, where there are no people. Suburbia is my speed.<\/p>\n

How does music factor into that? It can obviously be very introspective and reflective.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>I think music has been at the centre of my life since I was a child. It\u2019s been how I processed everything. I\u2019ve said this before, but it holds true: for me, acting is kind of an inhalation in that it\u2019s a lot of taking in information and listening. And for me, making music is kind of an exhalation. It is a kind of release, relief, and catharsis that I really crave. In the case of this album, it\u2019s predominantly a grief record. Largely, the catalyst for a lot of the songs was my half-sister Emily passing away in June of 2023.<\/p>\n

I know, and that was so recent.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is. I took some time off after Emily died. In that time, I think if there is a silver lining to that experience, it was that I felt like I\u2019d been given permission to not give so much of a fuck. It was really freeing as a musician. So, I think I was able to make music that sounded like me for the first time. It was a really beautiful, sad period of time writing this record, and it was a slow period in a way that I\u2019m really grateful for.<\/p>\n

How did you come back to music in the wake of her passing? Creating can be extraordinarily vulnerable, I imagine there was a part of you that would shy away from that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lovely question. I think in very early grief, I felt very reluctant to write about it. I was doing morning pages all the way through Emily\u2019s palliative care. I think I was so struck and moved by the light that palliative care cast on my family. I\u2019m really, really close with my family and I love them all to bits, and I felt like I knew them very well going into that period, but it brought out such different colours and textures in each of them and in each of their love languages. It was really beautiful to witness. So yeah, initially I was really reluctant to write about it. And then, to begin with, I felt very strongly that if I was writing about it, it couldn\u2019t be poetic\u2014it needed to be very matter-of-fact and dry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve had a crazy few years. When you fully birth this record, when everything feels done, you\u2019re going to be like, \u201cWhoa, I am going to need to process.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to need to sit down and process for sure, yeah. Somebody asked me what kind of summer I was going to be having yesterday and I just said, \u201cI\u2019m going to be having a very emo summer.\u201d Something that I have come to love about myself is I feel like I have this little pot of sadness in my pocket and I love it. I love bringing it out when I\u2019m playing music. I\u2019m okay with its existence. I feel like a relentless optimist, but my sadness is something that I\u2019m friends with and that I feel like I have permission to have as a musician.<\/p>\n

This show has been heralded as the Gen Z version of these iconic shows of yesteryear, but you don\u2019t seem very Gen Z, and I think that\u2019s where a lot of critics are going to trip up because they have a very narrow idea of what this generation is. I\u2019m curious what you think people get wrong about this generation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I love that question. I really love that question, and I also appreciate you seeing that in me. Thank you. I think these delineations of generations have a place. They certainly have a place in marketing and in the corporate world. But I personally really struggle with it as a way of categorising people. I think that we are all so much more expansive than any kind of box could describe. I wondered how I would talk about being in a Gen Z show with that in mind. People will trip up on maybe some of the realities of being a young person in New York right now; our apartments are very aspirational, for example. But I think the thing is that it\u2019s a tremendously relatable experience to be a young person arriving in a city with ambition, naivet\u00e9, and drive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the thing: Gen Z is often represented as having no drive, and being subordinate.<\/strong>
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<\/strong>Which is just crazy to me.<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s just kind of an impossible generalisation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Impossible. Given late-stage capitalism, this rhetoric around Gen Z being a \u201cdo-nothing\u201d generation couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. I think it\u2019s just that for a lot of Gen Z, we have discovered that the Internet is a place where we can work.<\/p>\n

It democratised the corporate environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. I hope people get in on it and don\u2019t feel itchy about the fact that it\u2019s not just a straight-up Gen Z show.<\/p>\n

Are you able to watch shows or films of the moment? From the vantage point of being an actor and possibly seeing a role that passed you by, or seeing how massive a particular project becomes in popular culture \u2013 are you able to engage in the same way a fan would?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. I started when I was 11, so I\u2019ve had a lot of practice at that. Especially since I\u2019m a musician as well, I really strongly feel like what\u2019s meant for me won\u2019t pass me by. When I see shows and films with young casts doing really well, obviously I feel so excited for them and see it as a wonderful thing, but I also find it quite daunting. That level of scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Obsession<\/em> \u2013 seeing a film like that getting made.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen it yet. Me and my brother are going to go this week.<\/p>\n

It was made on $750k, bought for $15 million, and now it\u2019s on track to make $100 million. It is like an industry-saving film.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s really inspiring.<\/p>\n

In the same way, it could also inspire jealousy. When something like that comes out, it\u2019s like, \u201cOh my God, it\u2019s a runaway hit. How exciting!\u201d And then you go, \u201cWhy not me?\u201d Especially breaking through in an industry like film and TV, or music, where it\u2019s one in a million.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Music especially. I think I really understand that feeling, and I\u2019m so familiar with it. I see my friends experiencing this a bunch and I\u2019m not a stranger to that feeling. But what I would say is that my TikTok wormhole is videos of female musicians on tour. I\u2019m obsessed with seeing those \u201cI made it\u201d moments. My heart just swells. It\u2019s a kind of kick that I don\u2019t get from much else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you ever grappled with an inner monologue of, \u201cWow, since I\u2019ve succeeded in this one thing, can I ask for success in this other realm as well?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really flattered that you imagine I might be a person who is able not to think about or factor in public response. I definitely aspire to be that person. I\u2019m very aware, just as a person who consumes culture, of how weird it can be when an actor puts out a music project. It can feel somehow contrived or\u2026 I don\u2019t know. I think audiences can sometimes smell a rat. With actors where we assume they\u2019re playing characters in their films, even when they\u2019re playing someone quite similar to themselves. Whereas with musicians, something we all hunger for is to believe that the musician is the character they play in their music.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that it doesn\u2019t really go the other way as much when you look at Charli xcx acting or The Weeknd acting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s fascinating. We could write a whole piece on it together.<\/p>\n

A PhD thesis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We could. It\u2019s fucking fascinating. And do I sometimes kick myself at night that I didn\u2019t do it the other way around? Abso-fucking-lutely. But I think I just have to make peace with the fact that some people are going to accept this side of my artistry and others might not. I hope this record gives them access to enjoying my music, but I\u2019m okay if that\u2019s not the universal experience of this record. I know that I\u2019ve been making music since I was a kid, and I\u2019ve been dreaming of making an album for a decade.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true to you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It really is. I think anyone who actually listens to even a track from the album, let alone the whole thing, will hear that this is not something that\u2019s been manufactured by a team around me. It\u2019s very personal.<\/p>\n

Words \u2013 Beatrice Hazlehurst<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t16 June 2026\t\t\t<\/div>\n
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Music<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tFans, Friends, and Freedom: A Trip To Madrid\u00a0<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland HOW ELLA HUNT MADE IT \u2013 AND MADE IT WORK Between her debut album Blindspot and her hot new show on Hulu, this might be the biggest month in actress-musician Ella Hunt\u2019s career. It\u2019s also only the beginning. Photography by Kaki Kirk There\u2019s an old adage that brings small relief in the face of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-1992939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1992939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1992939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1992939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1992939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}