Kathryn Hunter Steals The Show as All Three Witches in ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’

There is no shortage of Oscar-worthy performances in The Tragedy of Macbeth, which is now streaming free on Apple TV+. After all, this Macbeth adaptation from director Joel Coen stars multiple Academy Award-winning titans Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand—which is pretty much a guarantee of terrific acting. And while Washington and McDormand more than deliver on this promise, the surprise stand-out of Macbeth is not either Hollywood behemoth, but instead Kathryn Hunter, whose interpretation of the three witches is unforgettable.

While theater fans likely know Hunter as a celebrated and prominent stage actor, cinephiles may be less familiar with her name. (That said, Harry Potter fans may recognize her as Mrs. Figg from Order of the Phoenix.) An American-born British actress, she is known in the theater world for her unusual physicality and her tendency to play roles typically reserved for men—King Lear in King Lear, Richard III in Richard III, and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, Hunter takes on a role usually played by multiple women: the witches.

The witches serve as the catalyst of Macbeth’s great tragedy. They appear to Macbeth (Washington) and his friend Banquo (Bertie Carvel) after the two men successfully lead King Duncan’s army to victory. In the dusty, desolate battlefield following the fight, Hunter appears as a creature who seems beyond human, despite her lack of outrageous costumes or prosthetics. Her lips are horribly chapped and her movements resemble a contortionist—she holds a sailor’s thumb between her toes, and twists and turns her too-thin limbs in impossible ways. It’s upsetting, disturbing, and yet impossible to look away from.

Saying lines of all three witches, Hunter gives off an air of an old woman you might see muttering to herself on the subway. At a certain point, she starts singing her dialogue, though there is no particular melody. She retches and caws like a bird, flapping her arms like a crow. Just when you’re thinking of looking away, feeling that you ought to give this uncomfortable display some privacy, she picks up a cloak and stands up straight. Quite suddenly, she commands power instead of pity, and she wryly recites to Macbeth and Banquo their fates—that Macbeth shall be king, and that Banquo shall father kings. It’s the kind of blink-of-an-eye transformation that only a truly great actor could achieve.

Later, Hunter appears as the witches once more to concoct an eery potion for Macbeth—double double toil and trouble, and all that jazz. Coen stages the scene not over a cauldron but over an imagined reflection pool, with the witches towering above Macbeth in the rafters. Again, Hunter delivers her lines with a sardonic authority, knowing Macbeth’s fate and pitying him for his foolish ambition. She makes one final appearance at the end of the film, as the old man who cared for young Fleance after the boy fled his attackers. Though she has no lines, it’s just another example of her uncanny ability to shape-shift.

Hunter has already earned ample critical acclaim for her performance, including winning the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actress. That said, in a year of many brilliant supporting actress performances, the chance of Hunter getting an Oscar nod from the Academy may be a long shot. Still, never say never. Academy members can’t resist a Shakespeare adaptation, and The Tragedy of Macbeth is now conveniently streaming on Apple TV+. If anyone deserves that Oscar buzz, it’s Hunter.

Watch The Tragedy of Macbeth on Apple TV+