What the Hell Happened to Helen Hunt?
Helen Hunt started her career as a child actor in the seventies. After two decades in the business, she finally got cast on a hit TV show. She won the Emmy for four consecutive years and won a Best Actress Oscar during the same time frame. A few years later, she practically disappeared.
What the hell happened?
Helen Hunt started working as an actress in 1973 at the age of 10. As a result, there are a lot of embarrassing photos and clips of Hunt as a child appearing in cheesy 70s TV movies.
If you have ever seen Hunt on a late night talk show, you have probably seen her squirm as they played a clip of her on The Bionic Woman or some other relic of the era. Don’t worry. That won’t stop me from dredging those things up all over again here.
It is not uncommon in these articles for me to skip over some movies or TV shows that weren’t especially important to the subject’s career. In Hunt’s case, I am going to have to skip over dozens of projects. Because she paid her dues and then she paid them some more.
I can’t possibly cover every cheesy TV movie and canceled show. But I will do my best to make sure we hit all the lowlights.
Hunt’s first role was in the 1973 TV movie, Pioneer Woman. Yep, the guy with the mustache is Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. That alone makes Pioneer Woman at least a little awesome.
And here’s Hunt smiling her way through the 1974 Ironside spin-off, Amy Prentiss. Hunt played the title character’s daughter.
The next year, Hunt got a recurring role on the Swiss Family Robinson TV show. Those promotional pictures all look the same. Let’s watch the show’s opening:
I think it’s about time for that Bionic Woman clip, don’t you?
The clip is dubbed over in German. But I don’t think you lose a thing in the translation. The Bionic Woman actually stops a dude with a head of lettuce. I’m sure it was bionic lettuce.
TV in the 70′s was really something. This was a hit show!
In 1982, Hunt appeared in the infamous anti-drug TV movie, Desperate Lives. Be sure to stick around for the end of the trailer to see a hopped-up Hunt hysterically jump out of a window.
Remember kids, just say “no”. I can’t tell you how many drug-related window-jumpings there were at my school in the 80′s.
In ’82, Hunt joined another short-lived TV family for the sitcom It Takes Two. I wonder if the same guy took all these promotional pictures. The cast included Richard Crenna (of Rambo fame), Patty Duke and a pre-ER (and pre-bald spot) Anthony Edwards.
I could go on for pages and pages with this stuff. Hunt appeared in so many TV movies and after-school specials. I remember seeing a lot of them. We watched the anorexia TV movie, The Best Little Girl in the World (starring Jennifer Jason Leigh) in school. And who can forget Hunt as a high school football player in Quarterback Princess? It was based on a true story, you know.
Hunt even starred in an anti-polygamy movie, Child Bride of Short Creek. I would have been about 10 years old at the time. What the hell was I doing watching an anti-polygamy TV movie? I don’t know. But for whatever reason, we watched them all.
Okay, let’s take one more look at Hunt as an alien princess on The Bionic Woman and then we’ll move on.
That was the problem with the failed 2007 Bionic Woman relaunch. Not enough alien princesses.
In 1985, Hunt made the jump to the big screen with the teen dance comedy, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
Girls co-starred Sarah Jessica Parker and featured Jonathan Silverman and Shannen Doherty in smaller roles. Cyndi Lauper makes an uncredited cameo as does Hunt’s future husband, Hank Azaria.
Girls was completely ignored at the box office. But it has played on basic cable ever since. As Hunt, Parker and Doherty rose to fame, the movie gained a cult following. There are even plans for a remake because Hollywood is remaking everything these days.
Just about every Hollywood star has an old horror or sci-fi movie from before they were famous that they would like to forget. For Helen Hunt, that movie is most likely the 1985 time travel movie, Trancers.
Trancers is goofy even by genre standards. It’s about a cop from the year 2247 who is hunting down a bad guy who can turn people into zombies. The cop, named Jack Deth (of course), can identify these zombies by scanning them with a bracelet.
The bad guy escapes by using a drug-fueled form a time travel that places him in the body of an ancestor in the year 1985. Deth follows the bad guy back into the past and winds up in the body of one of his ancestors as well.
In 1985, the cop from the future gets help tracking down the bad guy who turns people into zombies from his ancestor’s girl friend, a punk rocker named Leena played by Helen Hunt.
This is a movie that actually got made! In fact, it inspired 5 sequels.
In 1986, Hunt had a small role opposite Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage in the time travel comedy, Peggy Sue Got Married.
Peggy Sue got good reviews and was a hit for Turner. But Hunt’s role was too small for it to matter all that much. It’s just another interesting footnote in her climb to fame.
In 1987, Hunt finally got a chance at a lead role in a mainstream movie. She starred opposite Matthew Broderick and a chimp in Project X.
Project X was about an Air Force pilot assigned to work with a chimp on some top-secret project. Hunt plays the research assistant who taught the chimp sign language.
Project X was sort of an ET rip-off with a chimp instead of an alien. It’s part comedy, part sci-fi thriller, part animal rights infomercial. Thanks to Broderick’s popularity at the time, it broke even despite the mixed reviews.
In 1988, Hunt was still paying her dues with bit parts in movies like Stealing Home and Miles From Home. She also had a lead role in little-seen fairy tale, The Frog Prince.
In 1989, Hunt starred opposite Patrick Swayze in Next of Kin. I have to admit, I have never seen this movie. But based on the summaries I have read, it doesn’t appear that Hunt had a very large role in it. It is interesting to note that her future Twister co-star, Bill Paxton, also appeared in Next of Kin.
Okay, maybe not all that interesting. But I haven’t seen the movie. Next of Kin got bad reviews and did poorly at the box office.
In 1991, Hunt made a long-awaited sequel to Trancers. She looks like she is asking herself, “Where did my career go so wrong?”
In 1992, Hunt was all over the place. She appeared opposite Andrew Mc Carthy and Kelly Preston in Only You. She had a small roles in Billy Crystal’s directorial debut, Mr. Saturday Night and Tim Robbins’ mockumentary, Bob Roberts. She also co-starred with Eric Stoltz and Wesley Snipes in The Waterdance. The Waterdance is about a paraplegic writer’s physical therapy. But the internet being what it is, all my searches returned was pictures of Hunt’s nude scenes.
Since Hunt was not yet famous, she also had to endure Trancers 3. You can hardly blame her for wanting to complete the trilogy. She owed it to Trancers fans everywhere. Plus, the check cleared.
Oh, and she got a regular role in a sitcom co-starring the asshole from Aliens, Paul Reiser. A romantic comedy starring Burke and Leena? Yeah, that will never work…
Reiser and Hunt had a natural chemistry and Mad About You turned into a big hit for NBC. In 1993, Hunt got her first Emmy nomination for the show. She would go on to be nominated every year until the show ended in 1999. She won her first Emmy for Mad About You in 1996 and kept on winning Emmys for four consecutive years (96-99).
Emmy voters are sometimes accused of rewarding the same shows and actors over and over again out of habit. But Hunt had the difficult task of making Paul Reiser cuddly. Four Emmy wins sounds about right.
In 1995, just before those Emmy wins started rolling in, Hunt returned to the big screen with a small role in the crime thriller, Kiss of Death opposite David Caruso and Nicolas Cage.
Caruso famously left his high-rated TV show, NYPD Blue, to try to make it in films. Although Kiss of Death got decent reviews, it was not a hit at the box office. Caruso’s big screen dreams came crashing down and eventually he returned to TV with CSI: Miami.
Hunt, on the other hand, kept her day job while testing the waters in movies. It was a strategy that worked. There were no crime procedurals in her future.
In 1996, Hunt starred opposite Bill Paxton in Jan de Bont’s disaster movie, Twister, about a group of “storm chasers” tracking a tornado.
Twister was an infamously troubled production. It was de Bont’s first film as a director after having a hit with Speed. And apparently, that hit went to his head. At one point during production, the camera crew left claiming that the director was out of control. A new camera crew needed to be hired.
There were several injuries on the set of Twister. Hunt seemed to get the worst of it. At one point, she and Paxton had their retinas burned by special lighting. They were both temporarily blinded. Later, both stars were required to get hepatitis shots after filming a scene in a contaminated ditch. Hunt was repeatedly hit in the head and possibly suffered a concussion. De Bont attributed these injuries to Hunt’s “clumsiness”.
Twister went over-schedule and over-budget. Paul Reiser actually delayed shooting of Mad About You by two weeks to accommodate Hunt’s movie schedule. All the hard work and suffering paid off. Twister was a massive hit at the box office despite mixed reviews.
Hunt had a hit TV show, her first Emmy win and a box office hit under her belt. It seemed like there was nowhere to go but down. But first, Hunt had to win an Oscar.
In 1997, Hunt starred opposite Jack Nicholson, Greg Kinnear and Cuba Gooding Jr. in James L Brooks’ comedy/drama, As Good As It Gets. With the age difference between them, Hunt and Nicholson were an unlikely pairing. I think it is a testament to Hunt that for the most part, she makes it work. Especially considering that Nicholson’s character is pretty reprehensible for most of the movie. Hunt makes you believe she could inspire him to “be a better man”.
As Good as It Gets got mostly positive reviews and was a hit at the box office. It was nominated for several awards. Nicholson and Hunt both took home Oscars and Golden Globes. Hunt also won another Emmy for Mad About You that year. I imagine she had to buy a larger mantle in 1997.
After As Good As It Gets, Hunt took a break from movies to finish out her time on Mad About You. I guess when you have scored an Oscar and have a steady stream of Emmys, you might as well.
Like most TV shows, Mad About You started going downhill. Originally, it was a show about newlyweds. But when the honeymoon was over, they started relying on stunts to goose the ratings. Mad About You had celebrity guests, cross-overs with other NBC shows like Friends and Seinfeld, and finally they had a baby.
By the end, the show was more soap opera than sit com. There was a seemingly endless storyline where the couple separated. The final episode featured Janeane Garofalo as the Buchman’s grown-up daughter telling the story of her parent’s break-up. It ends with them reuniting. But by then, most of the audience had moved on. Still, Hunt kept winning Emmys up till the bitter end.
Around the time Mad About You was coming to an end, Hunt married character actor (and Mad About You guest star) Hank Azaria. Although they had been a couple since 1994, the marriage was short-lived. They divorced in 2000.
In 2000, Hunt returned to movies with a vengeance. She appeared in four movies that year. The first was the truly dreadful melodrama, Pay It Forward.
Pay It Forward stars Haley Joel Osment as a saintly little boy who has the revolutionary idea that the world would be a better place if everyone did random acts of kindness. One of his acts is to try to set his single mom up with the teacher who inspired the “pay it forward scheme”. The teacher was played by Kevin Spacey.
Pay It Forward is the worst kind of manipulative crap. Spoilers for the next sentence. It ends with Osment dying Christ-like for our sins. Instead of being moved, the audience just feels jerked around by such an obvious attempt to elicit an emotional response.
Reviews were not kind. And Pay It Forward bombed at the box office.
Later that year, Hunt appeared in another bomb, Robert Altman’s Dr. T and the Women.
Richard Gere played a successful gynecologist and Hunt played one of the many women in his life. The cast included Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson, Liv Tyler and Tara Reid.
Hunt’s luck improved in the latter half of 2000. First, she starred opposite Mel Gibson in Nancy Meyers’ comedy, What Women Want.
Gibson played a male chauvinist ad exec who suddenly finds he has the ability to read minds. Hunt played his rival at the ad agency. At first, Gibson reads her mind to get a leg up at work. But soon, he begins getting in touch with his feminine side. As this is a Nancy Meyers movie, the two eventually fall in love.
What Women Want got mixed to positive reviews and was a hit at the box office.
Hunt ended the year with a very small role opposite Tom Hanks in Robert Zemeckis’ shipwreck drama, Castaway.
How small was Hunt’s role? The volleyball, “Wilson” was more central to the story. But it was a chance to work with Hanks. And Castaway was liked by both critics and audiences.
In 2001, Hunt dodged a bullet. She had filmed a scene for Paul Reiser’s comedy, One Night at McCools. But her scene was cut. One Night was a critical and commercial flop.
But Hunt’s luck ran out when she appeared in Curse of the Jade Scorpion.
Jade Scorpion was a lesser Woody Allen film starring Allen, Hunt and Dan Aykroyd. It was in fact the most expensive film of Woody Allen’s career. But reviews were lukewarm and the movie bombed at the box office.
Around this time, Hunt remarried to TV producer, Matthew Carnahan. Hunt’s output as an actress greatly slowed down as the couple started a family. They had a daughter in 2004.
Considering the fact that Hunt had been steadily working since she was a child, the decision to scale back her career is perfectly understandable. She already had more awards that any reasonable person could ever dream of. She was in the rare position of being able to have it all.
Hunt still works occasionally. She recently directed an episode of Californication. And has appeared in movies like Bobby, Soul Surfer and The Sessions. She also directed her first feature film, 2008′s Then She Found Me.
In 2012, Hunt stepped back into the spotlight with a leading role in The Sessions.
Hunt played a sex surrogate hired to help a paralyzed poet lose his virginity. The film premiered at the Sundance Festival where it won several awards. Hunt received a ton of nominations including nods from the Golden Globes and Oscars.
So what the hell happened? Helen Hunt started working as a child, paid her dues for decades, succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination and then decided to raise a family. Around here, that’s what we call a happy ending.
More “What the Hell Happened?”
Kim Basinger Thora Birch Matthew Broderick Nicolas Cage Chevy Chase Kevin Costner Geena Davis Bridget Fonda Brendan Fraser Mel Gibson Cuba Gooding Jr. Heather Graham Melanie Griffith Steve Guttenberg Daryl Hannah Helen Hunt Michael Keaton Nicole Kidman Val Kilmer Jude Law Jennifer Jason Leigh Penelope Ann Miller Demi Moore Rick Moranis Eddie Murphy Mike Myers Michelle Pfeiffer Molly Ringwald Meg Ryan Winona Ryder Arnold Schwarzenegger Steven Seagal Elisabeth Shue Alicia Silverstone Christian Slater Mira Sorvino Wesley Snipes Sharon Stone Mena Suvari Uma Thurman John Travolta Kathleen Turner Robin Williams Debra Winger Sean Young Renee Zellweger
Posted on September 8, 2012, in Movies, What the Hell Happened? and tagged as good as it gets, entertainment, mad about you, movies, TV, twister, what women want. Bookmark the permalink. 36 Comments.
Great article! I had forgotten how she got to be an A-lister in the first place. I remember Twister (meh) and As Good As It Gets (awesome) of course.
But the last time I thought about Hunt was when What Woman Wants came out. I liked that movie, and it was before Crazy Mel.
And that was over a decade ago.
I knew she didn’t have a dramatic departure from Hollywood. It’s more interesting when you have someone like Sean Young or Val Kilmer who implodes. So every time I thought about writing up Helen Hunt, I put it off in favor of a Kim Basinger or a Meg Ryan. Or one of my youthful crushes like Mira Sorvino. (Although I had a crush on Hunt too.)
What I had forgotten was all of the crappy TV movie Hunt made for decades! Once I realized there was so much great material in Hunt’s slow rise to fame, I couldn’t wait to dig in.
She is a smart cookie who got out when the getting was good- dodging the slings of aging- wonder if she will direct more- while I have always been lukewarm about her- I cannot deny her creds-
You know, sadly she is still a target. As I did my research, I came across tons of pictures of her current day where she dared leave her house without make-up. The coverage seemed split between showing lines on her face and the fact that she still rocks a bikini. Americans are a really messed up bunch when it comes to gender and aging!
The continued Emmys through the last tedious years of “Mad About you” seemed like lifetime achievement awards.
I was a huge fan of the show right up through the moment when it was revealed that Hunt’s character was preagnant. It was a beautifully conceived and executed scene. It should’ve been the last scene of the series. Babys are death on TV. But I guess the show’s audience was still big, so we were treated to a couple of pointless, awful years (I opted out just a couple of episodes after the baby showed up).
Hunt is definitely one of those actresses who causes pleasure just by showing up when least expected. I had no idea she was in the cast when I sat down to watch “Rollercoaster,” so when I spotted her in the crowd at Kings Dominion, it was a nice surprise.
I think Emmy voters just keep voting for the same people/shows until they go away. See also Kelsey Grammer and Frasier.
I was a little reluctant to get into Mad About You at first. I have to admit, I watched it primarily for Hunt. She was a thinking man’s babe on the show. I forget when I dropped it. I’ve never been very loyal to TV shows. Especially sitcoms. Out of curiosity, I tuned in for some of the stunts. I know she kissed someone. Was it Kevin Sorbo maybe? I watched the last episode and thought it was a horrible way to end the show.
I didn’t realize Roller Coaster was shot at Kings Dominion. That is the sister park to Kings Island. I’ll have to try to track that down.
One thing to add to your article, she’s starring in a new movie hitting theaters this fall called the sessions, costar ring John Hawkes (Winters Bone) and William H Macy that’s generating Oscar buzz already. The trailer looks pretty good, maybe this will be the start of a comeback?
I never watched Mad About You, mainly because Paul Reiser is such a weasel. I think Hunt may just be like Rick Moranis, who just wanted to spend time with his family – and got out of the biz.
Nothing wrong with that. We can’t always have Kilmers and Youngs. I am curious about something concerning Kilmer, though. Is he an implosion or just a series of poor choices?
Kilmer’s an implosion. There are still some people out there like Oliver Stone who will work with him. But he burned a lot of bridges. If it was just a matter of making bad career choices, he probably would have continued working a lot more than he did. The weight gain would have pushed him into supporting roles, but he would have transitioned into a character actor. Kilmer is basically the male Sean Young.
I’m surprised by all the Reiser hate.
He was the main reason I started watching the show to begin with. I guess my relationship with him is different than it is for some other people. I’d seen him in “Diner,” and was very familliar with him as a stand up comedian.
His role in “Aliens” was honestly an after-thought to me.
I had seen him in Diner and was familiar with his stand-up as well. Mostly, I am giving Reiser a hard time. But even with his stand-up persona, he’s not really a romantic leading man. Put him next to anyone less beautiful and charming than Hunt in the 90′s and it doesn’t work.
LOL. You know, I’ve heard Tom Sizemore is also a male Sean Young. Is he an A-lister? There was some movie he did that has the lowest recorded gross ever…and it was reported Tom was doing meth on the set.
Sizemore and Kilmer were paired up for Red Planet. i wonder if that was the beginning of the end?
Sizemore and Kilmer were at each other’s throats on Red Planet. To alike I guess.
Paul Reiser is easy to dislike. I never watched his new show, but I heard it didn’t do so well.
“The Paul Reiser Show” (aka “I’m old and Helen Hunt is Nowhere to Be Seen”) was a huge, embarassing train wreck. I’m not commenting on the quality as I have never seen the show. But the reviews were pretty terrible. The ratings were awful and the show was quickly yanked off the air.
You should do a WTHH on Matthew Broderick. I want to know how he went from Ferris Bueller to Sarah Jessica Parker’s wife. I mean, his career is far from extraordinary, but it’s sure as hell better than hers.
lol – Didn’t he cheat on her?
I definitely plan to cover Matthew Broderick. Expect to see his name added to the poll very soon.
I think Matthew Broderick had SJP to thank for his most recent big screen appearance, an uncredited cameo in the abysmal “New Year’s Eve”.
His character’s name?……Mr Beullerton!!
I think I know why you sat through that one!
I’ve always found her to be a likeable on-screen presence and I’m hoping she receives an Oscar nod for her role in ‘The Sessions’. The other day I read that she declined the role of Jean Grey in the original X-Men movie; maybe had she taken that role, she’d have been cemented A-list.
Off-topic, but have you considered illustrating the careers’ of fallen stars from the 1970s? I think Karen Black and Faye Dunaway would be brilliant subjects.
As much as I was a fan of Hunt in the 90s, I don’t think I’d want to see her in X-Men.
I have stuck mostly to 80s/90s celebs. This is who I am most familiar with from growing up during this time. Yes, I have considered going back farther and those are great suggestions. I will probably go back into the 70s and maybe even further. But I don’t see that happening for a while. I’m gettin lots of requests for folks from the 80′s and 90′s I’ve got to get to first.
As a few commenters here have mentioned, Hunt’s new movie The Sessions is coming out soon. I’m going to a preview next week, so I’ll probably blog about it. I’m really excited; the trailer looked great and I love the other actors involved (Hawkes, Macy; I guess Adam Arkin is OK). Admittedly, the only Helen Hunt movies that I’ve seen are Peggy Sue Got Married and Twister, but she was good in them.
If you blog about The Sessions, come back and post a link!
I shall! =)
Sadly I was unable to go to that preview of The Sessions. I’m hoping I can see the film when it’s in theaters, although the chances are slim since I tend to get turned away from R-rated movies when I go to shows by myself. (It’s usually hard to convince friends to see less commercial fare. I doubt that anyone I know wants to see – for example – The Master.) Being 20 but looking like a small child definitely does not work in my favor.
The Sessions is INDEED an Oscar contender
In fact, while Helen’s role is a lead, they decided to campaign her as a supporting so she could have an even bigger chance of winning -.- I found it funny because i thought you put her in this column because of The Sessions and its award buzz 
Also, this is the 1st time i’ve crossed your blog
it is indeed an exciting one 
i didnt see many old movies so it is refreshing to read your blog, reading the wiki is lacking tbh 
and so sad with daryl hannah / geena davis / meg ryan’s career 
Glad you have been enjoying the WTHH series! I enjoy writing them. And the comments section is always fun for these articles.
I frequently go back and update articles after one of my subjects has a new movie released. I’m kind of holding off updating this article until I see how big The Sessions really is. Potentially, this article (and Hunt’s career) could get a second chapter!
…and she’s nominated for an Oscar for The Sessions. Hathaway is going to win, but it’s nice that Hunt got another nomination. She’ll probably get a Marisa Tomei-like career resurgence thanks to this.
Even if she had continued starring in big studio films throughout the 2000s, Hunt’s career in 2013 would still be the way it is because, like I commented on Broderick’s page, the star aspect of Hollywood is virtually dead.
Yeah, I need to update this article for The Sessions. It’s been on my list of things to do.
Some theories that I’ve read on Helen Hunt’s IMDb message boards for why her career cooled down so to speak:
*Word got around that she had become very arrogant after her Oscar win. As a matter of fact, there are rumors that she was unpleasant to deal w/ during her “Mad About You” days too:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showpost.php?p=4509030&postcount=10
*Her supposed 15 minutes ran out before her agent(s) could pair her with yet another Top Rate Male Actor (e.g. Jack Nicholson, Mel Gibson, and Tom Hanks) to put in a movie with. To put things in proper perspective, was Helen Hunt ever in a memorable movie where there WASNT a Top Rate Male Actor to carry the movie?
*She ultimately got to the point in her career in which she started becoming very choosy about what she did. Or more to the point, as she got older (in all honesty, I don’t think that Helen has aged particularly well as of late) the choice of roles declined.
Whatever Happened To Helen Hunt?:
http://www.thirdage.com/parenting/whatever-happened-helen-hunt
If you watched TV in the 90s, youll remember Helen Hunt. She starred for eight seasons in the hit comedy Mad About You as well as movies with A-list leading men: Twister (Bill Paxton) What Women Want (Mel Gibson) and As Good As It Gets (Jack Nicholson).
She hasnt been around much lately, but thats not because her career ground to a halt. Instead, shes taken time off to be with Lei, her four-year-old daughter with her boyfriend, actor Matthew Carnahan.
That amount of work is more than shes done in years. But Hunt doesnt regret her down time, even though its not a typical Hollywood pattern.
“I worked before I had my daughter, enough for three actresses,” she says. “I got so lucky that now I can afford to be with her.”
Now Hunt seems ready to step back into the spotlight with three movie projects. First up is Every Day, opening Friday in New York and Los Angeles. In the family drama, Hunt plays a caregiver for her ill father (Brian Dennehy). She also appears in Soul Surfer, costarring Dennis Quaid, the true story of a teenage surfer whose arm was severed in a shark attack. Finally, this summer she wants to direct an unnamed movie about a womans sad and comic state of mind after her son leaves for college.
“I know youre always supposed to want more of everything,” she says. “But in truth, Im having a nice ebb and flow of being in my daughters life every day and getting to keep my work life alive. Im not nominated for ten thousand things every minute, but I am acting and telling stories I love. I actually have a life I said I wanted to have. I wanted to be with my family.”
Assessing Helen Hunt: Let’s Jump Into The Final Frontier:
http://www.pajiba.com/career_assessments/helen-hunt-career-assessment-lets-jump-into-the-final-frontier.php
Subject: Helen Hunt, 47-year old American actress
Date of Assessment: April 6, 2011
Positive Buzzwords: Longevity, television, girl next door
Negative Buzzwords: Oscar, limited range, feature films
The Case: This week, we’re dealing with yet another damn Academy Award winner and perhaps one of the greatest indicators that awards don’t matter beyond a short-term improvement of the salary. In 1998, Helen Hunt won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in As Good As It Gets; she subsequently enjoyed a short run in a few high-powered blockbusters but then suddenly dropped off the Hollywood radar. Yet since the tender age of 10 years, Hunt’s been working as an actress, although she didn’t rise into mainstream popular culture until 1992’s debut of “Mad About You.” After seven seasons, a few Emmy awards, and a couple of blockbuster movies (including the aforementioned Oscar-winning role), Hunt pulled a Hollywood disappearing act for the most part. Indeed, the 1990s were hers, but considering how long she’s been around, Hunt really possesses very few notable credits to her name.
As a child actor, Hunt appeared in 21 episodes of “Swiss Family Robinson” and countless one-off appearances on shows like “Mary Tyler Moore” and “The Facts Of Life” before enduring a long string of made-for-tv movies (Quarterback Princess immediately springs to mind). Then, she rose to the world of feature films with Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Before too long, Hunt had a supporting role in Peggy Sue Got Married before moving onto playing “the girlfriend” alongside leading men like Matthew Broderick (Project X) and Eric Stoltz (The Waterdance), but she couldn’t gain any mainstream traction. Fortunately for Hunt, comedian Paul Reiser chose that particular moment to ask Hunt to play his wife, Jamie Stemple Buchman, in “Mad About You,” which kept her’s face on television for a resounding 161 episodes.
Clearly, Hunt had found her calling as a television star at the right moment and with competent writers and an engaging supporting cast. In the midst of the show’s seven-season run, Hunt made another attempt at big-screen glory with two big hits: Twister and As Good as It Gets. Of course, the former was a CGI nightmare that made big bucks, even though almost any actress could have stepped into the female half of a conflicted pair of married tornado chasers. In the latter, Hunt held her own as a waitress and single mother who inexplicably falls for the grouchy old novelist played by Jack Nicholson. For this performance, Hunt’s Oscar win led to an immediate variety of roles, including the pretty damn touching Pay It Forward; the absolutely horrible requisite Woody Allen movie, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion; and two more blockbusters opposite Tom Hanks (Cast Away) and Mel Gibson (What Women Want). Then, from 2001 to 2004, Hunt left the scene only to return with a series of financially unimpressive flops, including A Good Woman and Bobby. In 2007, Hunt made her directorial debut with Then She Found Me; in promotional interviews, she spoke in jaded terms of her Oscar win: “They say it gives you a little more juice for the first year and that’s it. It certainly didn’t help me get this movie made.”
Prognosis: These days, Hunt finds herself in an undeniably precarious position; that is, as a forty-something actress in a land where few roles remain. She doesn’t have the talent of a Meryl Streep; and although she’s in the same age bracket as Diane Lane, Hunt lacks the same sexual appeal to keep audiences interested. Still, she’s making a valiant return effort by appearing in this weekend’s Soul Surfer with another three movies in pre-production (Relative Insanity; Aline & Wolfe; and Serpent Girl). However, perhaps a return to the small screen might be the best possible move for Helen Hunt, for she may have won the Oscar for As Good As It Gets, but Jamie Buchman shall always remain her signature role:
What happened to Thora Birch?–and other actors that seemed to disappear for no reason…:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15161867&postcount=147
Quote:
Leelee Sobieski suffered from the problem of looking like a clone of Helen Hunt at a time when Hunt’s appeal was fading.
I hate to be mean, but Sobieski also suffered from the problem of not being a very good actress. She is very pretty and I’m sure she has some sort of basic acting competence, but in every role I saw her in she was as wooden as a basketball court’s floor.
I tried to watch a movie called Bliss to catch up with Sobieski but I couldn’t make it through. I used to think she had such great potential. I have been considering her for WTHH for a long time now. But I haven’t found a hook yet.
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