Interview: Helen Hunt
The Direct Approach
Haven’t heard much about Helen Hunt lately? You’re not alone. The former sitcom star and Oscar winner drifted from the spotlight years ago. But now the no-nonsense actor is returning to the big screen, and with her directing debut, no less
By Ingrid Randoja
Helen Hunt was eight years old when she started studying acting with her father, Gordon Hunt, a director and acting coach.
By 38 her list of acting awards included an Oscar, four Emmys, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and four American Comedy Awards.
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Helen Hunt in Then She Found Me
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She had mastered the art of TV acting — her sitcom Mad About You
was considered “must-see TV” for most of the ’90s — tackled Broadway,
and proved she was big-screen worthy, winning a Best Actress Oscar in
1998 for her nuanced turn as a waitress coping with a sick child and an
irrational Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets.
So you understand why Helen Hunt was ready for a new challenge, like
writing and directing a movie of her own. It took 10 years for the now
44-year-old Hunt to complete Then She Found Me, based on the novel by Elinor Lipman.
The dramedy stars Hunt as April Epner, a 39-year-old school teacher
whose mother dies the day after her new husband (Matthew Broderick)
leaves her. If that’s not stressful enough, April, who was adopted,
learns larger-than-life TV personality Bernice Graves (Bette Midler) is
her birth mother and wants to be part of her life. Plus, April is
desperate to have a baby, and is falling for divorced dad Frank (Colin
Firth).
Hunt was on the phone from L.A. when we spoke about her directing debut.
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Then She Found Me screened at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival where it made a splash and was bought for $2.5-million [U.S.]. How did that make you feel?
“It was wonderful. I thought it was entirely possible that I would fly home after what would be the first and last screening of the movie, but when 2,000 people gave it a standing ovation and it was bought that night at 2:30 in the morning, it was a pretty terrific Cinderella moment for me.”
Your movie’s very different from the novel.
“I tried to get it made as a faithful adaptation of the book for a long time, and when I wasn’t able to do it I put it away for a while. And then one of the things that occurred to me that might be missing was a real sense of what the protagonist, April, wanted. And then it occurred to me that if you are a 30- or 40-year-old woman you either have a baby, don’t have a baby, or either want a baby or don’t want a baby. You don’t feel ‘nothing’ about a baby, so probably she should want a baby. Once that piece fell into place and once I got clear that I was interested in telling a story about betrayal and trust it suddenly became less of an effort.”
The movie is about April dealing with control. At some points she takes complete control of her life, and at other moments she gives up control.
“Right, total control or no control. I feel like I do a dance with those two issues myself, and the more I make peace with not having control the better off I am.”
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Hunt directs
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And at one point April realizes it’s her body that’s really in control of her life.
“Yeah, that’s the ultimate of not being in control — wanting a baby and not knowing if you are going to get it.”
Tell me about working with Bette Midler. I think people forget she starred in a movie like The Rose, which really demonstrated her acting talent.
“I knew I needed someone who had an iconic quality because her
character in the movie isn’t as famous as Bette Midler, but she thinks
that she is. So it couldn’t be just any actor. And I did look at The Rose
again because it’s the movie of hers that’s similar in tone to this
movie, and I just saw the power of that performance. And that doesn’t
happen because someone gets lucky, or is manipulated by a director,
that’s talent and she’s just got megadoses of talent. And she is so
smart, she heard the subtlety I wanted to bring to her character and
how I wanted her character to be betraying us as an audience constantly
by being trustworthy one moment and then diabolical the next. She was
scared of that, but willing.”
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Any surprises about the directing?
“I can’t say I was surprised, but just the sheer volume and intensity of effort, there is no way to quantify that until you are in it. I will say that it is sort of a psychotropic experience to deal with that many different personalities at one time, and to be the person who is the container for everyone else’s personalities. You’ve got an introvert over here, an angry extrovert over there, and on your right a superprepared person, on your left a forgetful guy, and you have to be big enough to contain all of it. That was a challenge.”
You starred in Bobby two years ago, which was Emilio Estevez’s dream project. Did you watch him, study the way in which he directed?
“I have not stopped staring at directors trying to figure out how they do what they do for the last 10 years. Then She Found Me was close to getting made when I did Bobby, and I saw Emilio make, in a way, the same thing as me — I made a big movie on a little budget, he made an enormous movie on a little budget. And I just watched him handle it with such grace and kindness, and talk about containing personalities, he had Martin Sheen and Lindsay Lohan and Sharon Stone and me. It doesn’t get more diverse than that. And I remember saying to myself, ‘This is setting the bar, you have to be this kind and this graceful with the people who show up to make your movie.’”
Are you going to direct again?
“I am. I wrote another movie and I have no objectivity about how mediocre it is [laughs], but I am going to do it again.”
Think it’ll be easier the second time?
“I think the bait that I will bite on is that I think it will be easier the second time, and it will probably turn out that it will not be easier in ways that I cannot even imagine.”
There aren’t many female directors in Hollywood. What’s your take on that?
“Why has it been 200 years before a woman’s run for president? I have no idea why it’s all so backwards, I really can’t shed any light. I just have to believe, hope, pray, wish that the world, or our bizarre little portion of it, is moving towards some version of gender-racial blindness.”
Ingrid Randoja is the deputy editor of Famous.
Did ya know?
You might not realize it, but Helen Hunt holds Gretzky-like records in the entertainment world. A few performers have matched some of her achievements, and undoubtedly others will come along and do the same, but will one actor — male or female — ever match the Helen Hunt hat trick?
• Only the second actor (after Cloris Leachman) to win an Oscar while appearing on a TV series.
• Only the third actor (with Helen Mirren and Liza Minnelli ) to win a Golden Globe, Oscar and Emmy in the same year. She did it in 1998 — the Oscar and Globe for As Good as it Gets, the Emmy for Mad About You.
• The only actor to win four Emmys in a row (1995-1998 for Mad About You).