Personal Life
Helen Elizabeth Hunt was born on June 15, 1963 in Culver City, California–a 15-minute drive from Los Angeles and home of the filming of Mad About You. By the time Hunt reached the age of six she knew she wanted to be an actress and by age nine she had already studied acting, hired an agent, started several projects, and was bringing home pay checks. Even at her young age she was still very professional; she had her lines memorized and was ready to begin.
Hunt, the daughter of DGA Award-winning director Gordon Hunt and photographer Jane Novis Hunt, attended Cadman Elementary School in Manhattan, New York City. Hunt and her family moved back to California in 1972 and she attended Laurel Hall in North Hollywood, California. Hunt graduated from Burbank’s Providence High School in 1981, and briefly attended UCLA in 1982 until she dropped out after two months to pursue her art.
When you start to talk about Ms. Hunt’s personal life she will turn a bit cold and try to change the subject. “I feel strong as a horse and so fragile I could lose it at any moment,” says Helen Hunt in Talk Magazine’s September cover story. She is fiercely protective of her privacy. Especially when on the subject of her divorce from actor Hank Azaria, Hunt seems more intent than ever on keeping walls around her private life. “It just feels wrong to bring something up that is the most precious thing in my life and use it as a way to promote myself. I’m going to stand like a warhorse to keep the press out of my friends and personal life.”
Career
An actress since she was nine, Helen Hunt has been acting for over 30 years. The renowned actress has more awards and experience than actors twice her age, but for Hunt acting isn’t about the awards or movie-star fame; it’s about the work she loves. On MSNBC’s Headliner’s & Legends, she stated that she does not want to be known as a movie star, but rather wants to be known as an actress.
The 70’s and 80’s brought Hunt a handful of made-for-TV movies. Such examples are the critically acclaimed The Miracle of Kathy Miller and Quarterback Princess, which inspired Steven Spielberg to send Helen Hunt a fan letter. After playing small parts in television series like It Takes Two and St. Elsewhere, Hunt wasn’t ready to jump into another series until actor and comedian Paul Reiser caught her attention in 1992. “Paul called me at home to discuss the role as his wife in his new pilot,” says the actress. “I saw that he had a passion about marriage. He talked about things like, `Once you set up shop in a married relationship, how do you set the rules and still keep the magic going?’ And I responded favorably.”
Reiser asked her to meet about Mad About You, a new series surrounding the lives of a married couple (Hunt auditioned and beat many actresses for the role, including Teri Hatcher.) Reiser said, “I thought she had all the qualities that would make the show really work. She’s wildly intelligent, she’s very grounded, she’s fiercely loyal to her friends, and she’s a pretty cool woman.” Over 25 million people tuned in for the 1997 season finale “The Birth” of Mad About You. Helen Hunt was the highest paid actress in television history, earning $1 million per episode, and the first actress to reach that mark. After being nominated seven times by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Hunt holds the record for the most Emmy® Awards won; four consecutive wins for her portrayal as Jamie Buchman. Her Oscar® win in 1998 made her the only actress in film history to win an Academy Award® while starring in a weekly television series.
1992 also brought The Waterdance, in which Helen was given another chance to show her remarkable acting skills. Hunt says she pursued this role like a bloodhound. This movie was once considered her best film work to date and after starring in the movie, many critics predicted an amazing acting career.
Although Hunt had dozens of projects under her belt, she did not become a household name until the latter half of the 1990’s when Twister was released, one of the top-grossing movies in cinema history. “I had quite a bit of input into ‘Twister.’ I wasn’t going to make my character quiet and demure, since I’m not either,” she tells Entertainment Weekly. Hunt also got the lead in the highly acclaimed As Good As It Gets after actress Holly Hunter turned it down. After her Academy Award® win for this film, Helen Hunt could do just about anything she wanted. Instead of starring in more summer blockbusters, she went off to pursue her love for Shakespeare and played Viola in Twelfth Night at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
Helen Hunt starred in 4 major films in 2000 including, Dr. T & the Women with Richard Gere, Pay It Forward with Kevin Spacey, What Women Want with Mel Gibson, and Cast Away with Tom Hanks, respectively. The latter two performances garnered her two Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. But she swears she is not a workaholic. “Just being a human being is keeping my hands full,” she explains.
“Helen is an original,” says the director of What Women Want, Nancy Meyers. “A role model for what women can be - strong, sure of herself and sensitive. It’s because of Helen’s innate strength and intelligence that I wanted her for the part of Darcy. I thought it would be fun and challenging to get inside her head.”
In 2001 Hunt starred opposite legend filmmaker Woody Allen in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. “I’ve always been a fan of hers,” says Allen, “but I was amazed how effective she was. Helen is such an amazing actress; she really made the character so much more than it was written.” Helen Hunt has always been known as one of the hardest working actresses in Hollywood, and presently she’s also one of the most in demand.
Helen Hunt appeared on Broadway again in 2003 with Yasmina Reza’s Life x 3. She finished filming Empire Falls, an HBO movie that premiered in May 2005, and the film A Good Woman which was picked up by Lions Gate Films in 2004. Hunt’s first feature film to hit theaters in five years, Bobby, was greeted with a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. The critically acclaimed film was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards (2006), and won Best Ensemble Cast at the Hollywood Film Festival. Recently, Hunt co-wrote, directed, produced, and starred in an adaptation of Elinor Lipman’s Then She Found Me, which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Very much a labor of love, the project took Hunt nearly a decade to complete.
In the past Helen Hunt has stated that she doesn’t know if she wants to direct or act. “I’m able to do more than one thing at a time,” she says. “The kind of acting that interests me most is when your center of gravity changes. It’s that subtle. The differences are emotional and energetic, rather than linear or tangible.” That kind of acting has attracted so many admirers of her work. LA Times writer Amy Wallace wrote, “She doesn’t so much read a script as unravel it, testing whether each beat truly leads to the next, searching–always searching–not just for what the characters, as written, are doing and feeling, but for what they ought to do and feel. Hunt sees this as necessary. Others, though not eager to criticize her on the record, admit that sometimes it just feels difficult.” Professionally, she can do anything and has everything, except another Oscar® to balance her bookshelf. The only question left is will the statuette be for acting or directing?
© 2005,2007 Jacob Peterson. Last edited September 3, 2007. Sources available upon request.
