Cinema – Hunting and Shooting

By Steve Pratt

Actress Helen Hunt took ten years to bring Then She Found Me to the big screen as star, co-writer, producer and director.

Steve Pratt reports

THERE was a time when Helen Hunt was everywhere.

Seven times nominated for an Emmy for the TV series Mad About You. An Oscar winner for As Good As It Gets. Films opposite Kevin Spacey, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson to name four A- list leading men.

Then she seemed to disappear, with occasional appearances in small films like Bobby and A Good Woman. Then She Found Me isn?t exactly a comeback, but does mark a fresh start for Hunt who arrives back in cinemas as star, co-writer, producer and director of this romantic drama.

Her absence may be explained partly by the arrival of a daughter, Makena Lei, four years ago.

?Maybe, ? she responds when asked if concentrating on motherhood has swayed her career choices. What I said for a long time to the closest people in my life was that I want to make stories that I really care about, to be home with my family. That?s really what I want to do, and now that?s happening.

?A nd occasionally I panic and think I should be out there like other actresses I see who have film after film after film and have the next one in the bank in case that one isn?t good.

?So, once in a while, I have to be brave enough to enjoy the life I?ve actually picked for myself. It wasn?t only that I wanted to stay at home and be with her, there weren?t three parts that you?d die to play. If there were, I might very well have said to my family, ?can we pack up and do this? ?. ? Being away from acting gave her the time to sit down and write the script for Then She Found Him. All the same it took ten years for the project to come together. Half that time was getting the script right, with Hunt taking over after another writer had tried adapting Elinor Lipman?s novel. Hunt showed it to several studios who liked it but felt it wasn?t quite a movie.

She took what she knew about storytelling ? that it?s good for the main character to want something really badly. In the novel, she wants subtle things like family and a sense of home, not a baby.

?It seemed to me, aside from my own wish for a baby, that if I was going to play a woman of my own age who either had or didn?t have a baby, it was the perfect thing for her to go after, particularly in a story about mothers and daughters, ? says Hunt.

Then she spent five years trying to get the movie financed. ?It takes a long time to get somebody to invest in a movie that isn?t extreme. It?s not extremely silly and funny, it?s not extremely dark and indie in the classic sense. It?s not two people shooting up in a bathroom.

?To me, it comes easily.

It?s a small movie with bigger-named actors, so people just kept saying, ?it?s going to have to be good?. I said, ?I?ll do my best?. So finally I found a company that was willing to give me the money to do it. ? With Hunt as star, writer and director, some will see the story as being autobiographical. So how much of herself did she bring to the character of April? ?Everything I?ve ever had, ? she says. ?On the surface it?s not autobiographical, I?m not adopted and I don?t have an adopted child. But if you pull back and look at the whole movie, it?s totally autobiographical. It?s about everything I care about.

There are pieces of me in every character in the movie. So underneath, it?s completely me. ? She says that her daughter hasn?t seen a film or TV in her life, so the chances of her seeing the movie at this point are remote. ?But it?s dedicated to her, at the end of the film, so some day I hope she will get a sense of how much I wanted her. ? She?s consciously kept TV and film from her daughter. ?It?s just never felt right because I?ve had the luxury of being at home, ? she says.

?If I were a single, working mother and had to go to work, she?d be watching a video and I would be very proud and fine with that. But I?ve worked so hard up until the time she was born, so I?ve been able to have help when I needed it and be home most of the time.

?It?s never felt right to see their little heads and the size of these screens, and it doesn?t feel right turning it on yet. Some day. ? Then She Found Me (15) opens in cinemas tomorrow

(c) 2008 Northern Echo. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.