E-mail a friendHelen Hunt
original airdate May 8, 2008
Helen Hunt's accomplishments include winning a Golden Globe, Academy Award and Emmy in the same calendar year. The daughter of a respected director and acting coach, she's been in the business since her days as a child actress in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and has worked steadily in films, theatre and TV. Hunt's credits include her multi-Emmy-winning turn in the sitcom Mad About You and an Oscar-winning role in As Good As It Gets. She wears the star, producer, writer and first-time film director hats with Then She Found Me.
Actress describes the jump from directing a television show to a feature film and how she focuses on the little things (2:23)
Full Interview. (11:31)
Helen Hunt
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Helen Hunt to this program. Her outstanding career in film and television includes an Oscar for her role in "As Good As It Gets" and four Emmys for her work on the hit series "Mad About You." And Helen, I am just that - mad about you.
Her latest project is the new film "Then She Found Me," in which she serves as cowriter, producer, and director, and star - the film now playing in New York and L.A., more cities coming this weekend. Here now, a scene from "Then She Found Me."
[Clip]
Tavis: Not bad casting, Helen Hunt and Bette Midler?
Helen Hunt: Mm-hmm, and Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick. I'm very proud to say that these actors - somehow I hypnotized them and they agreed to be in my movie.
Tavis: Yeah, that's a great cast. It's a good project, too.
Hunt: I feel very proud of it. It's 10 years in the making; I'm both humiliated and very proud of that. (Laughter) What could possibly take - it's not "Dr. Zhivago," I don't know why it took that long. But it took a long time. (Laughter)
Tavis: But I am always blown away by how long - you're not the first person that's told me a similar story of how long it takes for a project to get off the ground. So in this case, Helen Hunt, why 10 years?
Hunt: First it took that long for me to feel that the writing was in a place that I could actually hand it to someone with a checkbook and say, "I like it, do you?" And then I handed it to them and everybody said a different version of "No. We love you, but no." "We love it, but no." "We don't love you or it, so no." (Laughter)
And finally, somebody said, "I see this movie. I see that this movie isn't a troop movie and isn't a romantic comedy, that it is some other thing that maybe doesn't have a name yet, a funny about people hurting each other a lot." And someone was willing to write me a very petite but steadfast check, and I took it and ran.
Tavis: But when you're an Oscar-winner and a multiple Emmy winner and a Golden Globe winner -
Hunt: Nobody cares. Nobody cares. (Laughs)
Tavis: You're not supposed to have these kind of travails, are you?
Hunt: Maybe if I won it, like, the night before, they would - (laughter) I don't know. But about 45 seconds after you win it, it's still - somebody's got to write a check and hand it to you and say, "I trust that you're going to get a movie made that people will go see," so.
Tavis: So on a project - this is inside baseball, but I'm curious about this - so on a project like this, what, as you look back on it in retrospect, what is the primary reason you think that it took so long to - why didn't they say yes earlier on?
Hunt: I think because it isn't sum-uppable. It's like with the -
Tavis: That's a new word.
Hunt: Sum-uppable.
Tavis: Can I use that in Scrabble?
Hunt: Throw it away immediately. (Laughs)
Tavis: Is that Scrabble -
Hunt: I think you'll get challenged on that word.
Tavis: Is that Scrabble-safe? Sum-uppable.
Hunt: Well, I feel like, and I've heard you talk about people reducing the news to a sentence or two whilst everything gets lost? I don't mean to equate this movie with that kind of importance, but it isn't something you can describe in a sentence. It is a comedy and it's upsetting and it's surprising, and my life is funny and upsetting, rapidly changing every day. So that's the kind of movie I wanted to make.
Tavis: So because you're on PBS, you get more than a sentence.
Hunt: Yes, exactly.
Tavis: To explain what the movie is. So here's your moment - explain it.
Hunt: I play a woman raised by parents who adopted her at birth, and at the beginning of this movie, her birth mother, played by Bette Midler, finds her and tries to forge a relationship with her. And at the same time, she is in an incredibly painful and I hope funny love triangle with Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth.
Tavis: Why this project for your film directing debut? We all know you directed any number of episodes of "Mad About You" and other stuff, but why this project for your film debut?
Hunt: It's about everything I care about. It's about being a mother, it's about being a daughter, it's about loving someone, it's about betrayal. Mostly it's - the sentence that I had in my head, I knew I needed one sentence to hang on to in the middle of the storm that making this movie would be. You can't really love until you've made peace with betrayal.
That alone took a year for me to land on, and I put it on the top of my computer and I told it to everyone involved with the movie. This is what the movie's about. It looks like it's about adoption or it looks like it's about love. It's about loving in the face of betrayal. By God for this character, by the person you love the most, by your parents.
That you perpetrate, that we all perpetrate a version of betrayal. So that's - and it's a comedy. So, ha-ha-ha-ha. (Laughter) Nothing funnier. So that's what - that's probably why, 10 years later, it was still interesting to me.
Tavis: We just met, but I kind of feel like now I'm on your couch. Is that my problem?
Hunt: Okay. (Laughs)
Tavis: Is that my problem?
Hunt: I am - you're feeling how star-struck I am, try to ignore it. Just proceed. (Laughter)
Tavis: Is that my issue, that I haven't gotten past my betrayal?
Hunt: Maybe, I don't know. We all - it just feels very universal to me.
Tavis: To your point, though, or to the issue we're discussing now, are there lessons here for the viewer, or it's not that deep?
Hunt: It is, but I certainly don't know how to say what the lesson is. People have written to me and said that they took away a sense that they are not alone in their imperfection. If people send 90 minutes in the movie theater feeling less alone in their imperfection and they laugh, I will feel like it was all worth it.
Tavis: So because you invest so much in this project - I don't mean just financially, I mean you've got your energy, your time, your effort, your hopes, your dreams. This is your directorial debut. The standard of measurement for success on this project for you is what?
Hunt: It's really confusing, to be honest. I don't know.
Tavis: I want to hear it, though.
Hunt: Well, I will happily promote the fact that we got some beautiful reviews. "The New Yorker" just wrote a beautiful review. So I read that and I feel all puffed up. And then I go to pick up my kid at school and one of the moms says, "Oh, I saw your movie, it was cute." And so who do I believe, you know what I mean? (Laughter) And there's always - you can look some direction and feel inflated and wonderful, and another direction and feel like it was a waste of time.
So my boyfriend said to me, "You made a movie that's in the movie theaters." And I said, "Oh, right, that's a huge deal." So I'm taking that as a big success. I'm taking the fact that people have told me what I just told you, that they felt like they had some company in their imperfection, that's a big deal.
And I've heard people laugh watching the movie. So I'm hanging on to those three things and then putting in earplugs, wanting to be woken up when it's over.
Tavis: Now if the investor feels the same way, you're okay.
Hunt: Yes, that would be nice. I hope I did him proud.
Tavis: The jump from directing - back to our earlier point - the jump from directing episode of TV - "Mad About You -" great show, by the way.
Hunt: Thank you.
Tavis: We'll come back to that in a second.
Hunt: Thank you.
Tavis: The jump from doing that to feature film for you was what?
Hunt: Enormous. (Laughter) When I did "Mad About You," I tried to wear these different hats. Now I'm rewriting a line, now I'm directing, well, now I'm acting in a scene. And for this movie I just took all of the hats and threw them in the garbage and said, "I am making this movie. I am giving birth to this story that I really, for whatever reason, am compelled to share with people."
So whether I was acting in a scene or rewriting a line or picking out a color of wallpaper for Matthew Broderick's house in the movie, it all felt like one thing. and that was a more enjoyable way to look at it.
Tavis: You keep saying things that pique my interest. In a project like this, or in any project, for that matter, it really matters that much, the color - I'm being serious about this - the color of the wallpaper in his house?
Hunt: Yeah, I'm serious about it, too. I think it does. I have heard really good directors say - Jim Brooke said something like "One bad raincoat can ruin a movie." It's true. I have kids in this movie. I think one bad line reading from a kid and the movie can be over. Someone can drop out and say, "I'm going to go get popcorn," and whatever connection was made is lost.
So I do think the color of Bette Midler's suit and the paintings on the wall in the Colin Firth character's house or Matthew's - what props he used. Those all matter, weirdly. You want to think they don't matter and that you should relax, and the lesson is you can't relax, they totally matter.
Tavis: Speaking of relaxing, how do you relax when you are producing and directing Helen Hunt?
Hunt: You don't relax.
Tavis: In your directorial debut. It's one thing to step up and say, "This is the first film I've directed." But then to produce and direct yourself in that inaugural project -"
Hunt: Yeah, it's totally misguided, actually, and I did no relaxing at all.
Tavis: How do you pull that off, though?
Hunt: A lot of preparation, and not very sexy. It's just a lot of elbow grease and a lot of work and a lot of homework. You surround yourself with good people, and you beg them to help you.
We had a production meeting before the movie, which is usually all about logistics. And I just said, "Everybody, this is 10 years of my life. I'm asking you to take it personally." And they did. I watched the crew do that, so.
Tavis: Back to "Mad About You," which I promised we'd come back to, because I love that show. I still love to see it. I had forgotten until Carolyn, my fine producer, reminded me. I remember this now after she reminded me that when you won the Oscar for "As Good As It Gets," you actually took your statute and went back to work on TV for another year.
Hunt: I did. I didn't bring it right onto the set, (laughter) but I did.
Tavis: I would have. I would have. But you went back for another year of that.
Hunt: I did.
Tavis: Why?
Hunt: It was a great job, and I was smart enough to know that getting to do these 50 pages a week with this wonderful actor about this subject I probably care about the most, which is how do you love another person truly? I knew that that was a rare and fine thing.
And so I was really grateful to have the job the whole time. I knew how lucky I was, is the best thing I can say about myself doing that shot.
Tavis: So now you say something that reminds me of something else. So I was on my radio show, my public radio show this weekend, having a conversation with Al Jarreau - great artist, of course - who we'd just recorded the conversation. So he's on the radio show this weekend, and Al and I were talking about his new CD, which is called "Love Songs." And I had a deep conversation about love.
So now here you come with this love notion again and suggest to me - not suggest, in fact say to me that that's your favorite subject - wrestling with what it means to love somebody else. Why your favorite subject? Why does that intrigue you so much?
Hunt: I can't think of anything - it's that thing they say at the end of the day, what, you're going to look back and say, "Here's the day of 'Then She Found Me,'" or am I going to say I was exploring through that through my relationships through my love of my parents and my daughter this endlessly perplexing, all-important subject.
So I felt that this story and this movie was a particular look at that that I felt uniquely qualified to talk about.
Tavis: So finally, you invest 10 years of your life in this on a variety of levels. You pull it off, it's done, you've done a good job, a fine job here, producing, starring, directing. And do you want to do that again, or are you like "You know what? I don't want to do this again any time soon."
Hunt: I wrote another one with a part for myself. (Laughter) So I am just simply a woman who has not learned her lesson. I love writing maybe the most of all those jobs, and so I sat down at the computer and thought "Uh-oh, here comes another story starring a woman like me, so I think I'll go try again."
Tavis: That's one sure-fire way to stay employed in this business - just keep writing yourself in.
Hunt: Exactly, exactly.
Tavis: We ain't got a problem with that.
Hunt: Thank you.
Tavis: "Then She Found Me" is the new movie starring Helen Hunt, her directorial debut. She did a great job with it, and you don't need my encouragement to go see it, but go see it anyway.
Hunt: Oh, they do.
Tavis: Go, go, go. I feel like Ferris Bueller. Go. Go.
Hunt: Go, go. You can see Ferris Bueller if you go to the movie. (Laughter) Come on.
Tavis: That's why she's a great writer. Helen, nice to see you.
Hunt: Thank you so much.
Back to May 8, 2008