HUNT, HELEN: PAY IT FORWARD

"auditioned for a million movies"

"When I was 18 or 19, I had already been acting for 10 years," says the 37-year-old Oscar-winning actress, "and I had auditioned for a million movies and hadn’t gotten any of them and heard no, after no, after no and watched this parade of women get all these parts that I wasn’t getting. So I thought, ‘that’s it, I’m quitting, I’m done’ and I went into this supermarket and there was a guy who was putting price tags on cans of soup and he said, ‘I’ve seen you in movies, you’re a good actress’, and I said ‘thank you’. And then he said, ‘you’re the kind of actress that’s going to be doing this forever’. And I suddenly felt like it wasn’t a compliment but a command, which was very strange. So I left that supermarket and thought, ‘I guess I’m not quitting’ and I’m still here. I don’t know where my supermarket angel is today, but he helped me!"

When it’s suggested he probably just moved to the produce section, Hunt laughs and insists; "but I really did feel like if I’d rounded the corner that day, he would have really disappeared!"

These days Hunt is beating off those sought-after roles with a soup can. After seven years and four Emmy awards playing Jamie Buchman in the hit comedy series Mad About You, she somehow managed to avoid the post-television unemployment malady suffered by many in her position and instead walked off with the 1997 Best Actress Oscar for her complicated role as a single mother and waitress who becomes involved with the curmudgeonly Jack Nicholson character in As Good As It Gets.

"ready to fulfill another dream"

And in case anyone thinks that was a stroke of luck, consider this. As we speak, Hunt is simultaneously promoting four of her movies being released back-to-back: Pay it Forward, with Kevin Spacey; Dr T and the Women, with Richard Gere; Castaway, with Tom Hanks and What Women Want, with Mel Gibson. And the day after our interview in a Park Avenue hotel suite in New York, Hunt is ready to fulfill another dream, starring in her first Woody Allen movie. "I mean it’s Woody Allen and I grew up with him," she says with childlike enthusiasm. "I can’t tell you what it’s about because I’m sworn to secrecy but my whole life I have been curious as to what it would be like to work with him and I’m about to find out!"

So how does it happen that the unassuming and not especially gorgeous hazel-eyed blonde winds up working with the most sought-after leading actors in Hollywood all in the same year? "I think it’s luck, it’s the director feeling I was the right person for these parts and I guess the Oscar didn’t hurt," she says with a sheepish grin. "It does feel amazing to work with actors like Jack or Kevin or Tom or Richard because as an actress, unless you’re 19 and drop-dead gorgeous, it’s a challenge to find good parts and I’ve had an embarrassment of riches of good parts. But my hope next time we talk is that I have a list of women that I’ve worked with too, like Meryl Streep, Joan Allen, Susan Sarandon and Judi Dench."

"more laid-back and less high-energy"

In person, Hunt is more laid-back and less high-energy than any of the roles she’s made her own. Her speech pattern seems slower, less emotional and her polite chatter never really threatens to turn into a session of soul-searching as she studiously avoids any personal questions that would force her to explain her separation from actor Hank Azaria after less than a year of marriage. Recently described as ‘daring yet introverted’ by one interviewer, Hunt looks almost proud of this label. "I feel creatively I do better when I’m not in my safety zone, like I’m not in my safety zone in Pay It Forward," she explains. "Yesterday I did interviews all day and one person after another came in and went, ‘you looked horrible in this movie!’ so that’s daring – but my personality is pretty introverted at the same time," she adds.

In Pay It Forward, Hunt plays Arlene McKinney, an alcoholic single mother who becomes involved with teacher Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) thanks to a good deed performed by her son Trevor (Haley Joel Osmont), whose philosophy is to perform good deeds for three people and ask them to ‘pay it forward’ to three other people in the hope of eventually changing the world. As Hunt has already mentioned, she has never portrayed anyone with a harder edge, from the crimped platinum hair and bad eye makeup to a heart breaking well of anger that erupts into violence against her own son. "The things I loved about this movie were some of the things I loved about As Good As It Gets," she explains. "I think a movie where people connect because of their flaws instead of where everybody’s flaws get covered in makeup and clothes and funny dialogue, that’s what moves me."

"that’s acting!"

In Dr. T & the Women, Richard Gere plays a gynecologist whose wife has a breakdown that leads to his affair with a golf pro, played by Hunt. "I’m the guy in the movie – the aggressive sexual predator who doesn’t want a commitment," she says with amusement, "but I’m working with Richard Gere who that same week was named Sexiest Man Alive and the director says, ‘you go in there and you are the one who is sexually confident in this relationship’. I went, ‘well that’s acting!’"

In Castaway, the tale of a man (Tom Hanks) who survives alone on an island for four years, Hunt appears as his girlfriend. Although the role was originally written as a cameo, when Hunt lunched with director Robert Zemeckis and heard about the project, she begged him to let her be in the movie. "I thought it sounded bold but I never thought there would be a part for me," she adds. Naturally, when Hunt signed on, the part got bigger. "When you choose to do something based on your instincts, in a way nothing can hurt you too badly because you’re on your own path," she says unapologetically.

But talk of angels resurfaces when Hunt gets talking about her co-star in What Women Want, a romantic comedy about a male chauvinist advertising executive (Mel Gibson) who falls for his chief rival (Hunt) while trying to steal her innermost thoughts. "If you had special X-ray glasses, you could see little angel wings on the back of Mel Gibson’s shoulders," she says with genuine admiration. "He is a guy who does random little acts of kindness for people and then disappears before anybody can thank him or know he’s the guy who did it. I just can’t speak highly enough about him."

"he’s famous for these practical jokes"

While Gibson did some angelic things for Hunt, including delivering a blended health drink to her trailer after she told him she had a headache, she also chuckles at the devilish side of her co-star. "Well he’s famous for these practical jokes," she adds, "so I just basically had to throw myself at his mercy on the first day and say, ‘I’m the wrong person, I can’t handle it, I’m begging you’ and he didn’t. He put a stuffed fake dead rat in a bag for the director to find but somehow I managed to escape!"

Published February 22, 2001