Some of our favorite actresses from the 1980s have found new life on cable television. Glenn Close is collecting Emmys for her work on Damages. Holly Hunter was spectacular on TNT’s Saving Grace, until the show met its demise. And if not for the films of James Cameron, I’m pretty sure Sigourney Weaver would he headlining a medical-crime drama on FX or Showtime … and it would be incredible.

But Hunter, an Oscar winner for her mesmerizing role in The Piano, appears to be heading back to the big screen after a six-year hiatus, signing on to one project and lining up another. Deadline reports that Hunter has joined Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal in director Daniel Barnz’s production of Still I Rise. She’ll play the head of the teacher’s union in a dramatic story about an instructor and a mother who join forces to improve the quality of education in an inner-city Pittsburgh school. 20th Century Fox owns distribution rights to Rise, and currently plans a 2012 release.

Hunter’s not quite finished, either. Deadline adds that she’s “in negotiations” to join True Grit standout in Romeo and Juliet. The latest adaptation of The Bard’s prose would work from a Julian Fellowes script and be directed by Carlo Carlei. Excellent. I’m not even going to complain too much that Hunter’s landing melodramatic empowerment stories and Shakespeare rifts. I’m just happy to hear she’s returning to the big screen, where her oversized talents belong.