Catching a wave with Helen Hunt
Helen Hunt won laughs, and a lot of fans, during the '90s sparring with TV husband Paul Reiser in "Mad About You." In her new movie, her sparring partner is nothing less than the Pacific Ocean ... which was where we caught up with her for this Sunday Profile:
On a golden morning in Venice Beach, California, recently, the waves were playing host to a traffic jam. Surfers of all ages positioned themselves in the lineup, while actress (and surfer herself) Helen Hunt looked on from the beach.
"Oh my God, that's a huge wave! That makes me want to throw up!" she said, "In case this piece is selling me as some sort of jock. That makes me want to throw up!"
"So you like smaller waves, more ankle biters?" asked Cowan.
"Yes. I want a wetsuit that says, 'I just don't want any trouble,'" she laughed.
The "Mad About You" star got plenty of trouble during the making of her latest movie. It's called "Ride," although for a good part of the movie Hunt is doing more falling than riding.
So how much of it was her actually surfing? "I think it's fair to say every time I'm surfing in the movie it's me," said Hunt. "When I wipe out in the movie, it's me. When I wipe out so badly that you think she must be dead, that's a brilliant stuntwoman who stepped in and helped me out."
The story begins in New York City, where Hunt plays a harried magazine editor. But when she learns her son has dropped out of college to surf and "find himself," the disapproving mom is on the first plane West.
Jackie (Helen Hunt): "You're father's just fine with this?"
Angelo (Brenton Thwaites): "You don't want to know."
Jackie: "What did he say?"
Angelo: "'Just be happy.'"
Jackie: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Hunt accepted her character's description as cranky: "Well, cranky about the West Coast in general, that we're all sort of un-read, uncultured people who like to do nothing.."
Jackie softens a bit, thanks in part to her surf instructor, played by Luke Wilson.
If she seems at home in this part, she is -- Hunt wrote and directed the whole thing.
"Piece by piece, you get to make this little painting," she told Cowan. "It's a pretty fun job, especially for a multi-tasking, controlling person like me, it's a really good job!"
It's the second movie Hunt has written, directed AND starred in, and neither was easy. Her first, "And Then She Found Me," with Bette Midler, took 10 years to make.
"My friends call me the Rabbi because I just work very slowly and chew on things forever and then hope that seven people will see it, but it's very meaningful to me."
Millions, of course, saw her in her Emmy-winning run as Paul Reiser's other half on the hit NBC sitcom, "Mad About You."
We got so used to her TV life playing out in our living rooms for seven seasons that, when Hunt slowed down to have a REAL life with writer Matthew Carnahan, and raise their now-11-year-old daughter, Makena 'lei, we felt she'd gone away altogether.
"Do you get tired of that -- people saying, 'Oh, where's she been all these years?'" Cowan asked.
"What can I say? I made a whole person. A whole entire human being came out of my body; that's one thing. And I've made about 10 movies they just haven't been -- you know, they've been movies some people have seen, not movies everybody has seen, and I'm not on TV every week right now, so that's very different."
"But there did seem to be a conscious choice that you made that family was going to be your priority."
"It was sort of semi-conscious," Hunt said. "The way it's painted, it's like I made this grand, beautiful, selfless decision. I just like being home with her, and I like working. And I've just sort of slalomed my way through the two."
Hunt started acting at age nine. Her father, Gordon Hunt, was a respected director in New York City, and she was surrounded by artistic people all her life.
Although she was cast in a host of roles at a young age, Hunt felt she never really broke through.
Cowan asked, "As you moved into your late teens, early 20's, were you getting the kind of roles that you wanted?"
No, she replied: "This whole thing happened where 'The Breakfast Club' happened, and I didn't get it. And then the movie 'St. Elmo's Fire' ... I just didn't get any of them. I was up for ALL of them and I was too young for that one and too old for that one, and too pretty for that one, and not pretty enough for that one. Someone said that I didn't seem virginal enough for one of them.
"They were wrong in their assessment of me!" she laughed.
But she never gave up, and once "Mad About You" hit, everyone, it seemed, was mad about Hunt, and not just for that wry wit. Steven Speilberg cast her to dodge flying farm animals and pickup trucks in the summer blockbuster, "Twister."
And then she more than held her own opposite Jack Nicholson, as a waitress who cracked the hardened shell of a cranky old man, in "As Good As It Gets."
She seemed she could do it all, winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the film, plus an Emmy for "Mad About You," in the same year.
"So many people have described you as being somebody who is sort of the Every Person," said Cowan.
"Is that a good thing?" she laughed. "That seems boring to me. That's a nice way of saying boring -- I'm every person!"
"Whatever you are, resonates with a pretty large group of folks."
"I know when I go to a movie or read a book or see a play, I just want to feel not alone. I want to feel like, Her too! He feels that way, too! So when I can work in a way that does that for anybody, that's a good thing."
She found a way to show that again in "The Sessions." Her revealing portrayal of a real-life sex surrogate for a man stricken with polio won her critical acclaim, and her second Oscar nomination.
"In a sea of movies where women are shot while wearing their underwear, or whatever horrible thing is befalling them, here's a movie about healthy sex," she said. "It's kind of incredible to me that it got made and that people saw it."
Cowan said, "There's these moments that seem to come along that maybe you're not right for, maybe you're not being considered for ...."
"Or I'm the fourth choice for, which has happened a lot, including 'As Good As It Gets.'"
"But it's almost like you seem to will your way into some of these opportunities."
"Yeah, I guess so. Not giving up and begging are two key ingredients, I found, and I'm still doing it."
She's already working on her next project, but for now she's traded her surfboard in for a paddle board.
The calmer water, she says, gives her a bit more time to think. "Someday really soon I'm going to get back where the waves are, I swear to God."
At 51, Hunt isn't searching for the perfect wave -- just the next challenge, even if it's as big as the ocean.
"If there's any grand design to why I'm drawn to this giant blue thing and why I made a whole movie about it, it's because it's humbling, and that's good. That's a good thing," she said.
To watch a trailer for "Ride," click on the video player below. The film debuts in theatres and VOD on May 1.
For more info:
- "Ride" (Official site)
- Follow @HelenHunt on Twitter