Helen Hunt directed and stars in the film Then She Found Me, in which she plays a 39-year-old school teacher who is desperate to have a baby. (TVA Films)
She has won an Oscar, several Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award. Actress Helen Hunt is now hoping for success in another discipline: directing. Then She Found Me, a comedy-drama based on Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name, features the former sitcom star (Mad About You) both in front of and behind the lens. The story revolves around April Epner (Hunt), a 39-year-old New York school teacher whose biological clock is loudly ticking as she comes to terms with the death of her adoptive mother and the reappearance of her birth mother (Bette Midler). Also complicating matters are April’s feelings for her immature estranged husband (Matthew Broderick) and romantic stirrings for the father of one of her students (Colin Firth). By far her biggest quandary, however, is whether to have a baby by birth or adoption.
Hunt’s most significant film role to date was her award-winning turn as a single mother in James L. Brooks’s 1997 comedy As Good As It Gets. The quick-witted humour and pathos of Then She Found Me reveal a close study of Brooks’s work, but Hunt’s picture stands on its own, thanks largely to her evocative script. Hunt recently spoke to CBCNews.ca about her reasons for choosing Lipman’s tale, the difficulties of writing her first screenplay and bringing a 10-year project to completion.
Q: You have been quoted as saying, “Everything I think or care about is in this movie.” How so?
A: People have asked me if the movie is autobiographical, and I think on the surface, not at all, and underneath, totally. Except I’m not just my character: I’m the guy sleeping on the floor of his kids’ room; I’m the person breaking somebody’s heart; I’m the person getting their heart broken. I’m all of them. So underneath the story itself are sentiments that I care a lot about, like betrayal, motherhood and topics that mean a lot to me.
Q: Many of your films — including Twister, As Good as It Gets, Pay It Forward — revolve around a character struggling with divorce or being a mother. Why do you choose these roles?
A: I chose all these roles for different reasons. But mostly I choose them because the story is good. You know, that’s really it. That’s why when the writers were on strike here, I lose. I’m very much in support of them and myself as a member of the Writers Guild, because really there’s nothing without a story. All those stories you just mentioned, they weren’t really about [me wanting to play] the specific characters as much as they were about wanting to be a part of telling that story.
Then She Found Me marks Hunt's first foray into directing. (TVA Films)
Q:
What are you trying to say in Then She Found Me about adopting children?
A:
I don’t have much to say about adoption, but I do have something to say about betrayal, about making peace with betrayal, about how you can’t really love until you’ve made peace with betrayal. You can’t really love until you’ve made peace with the fact that life doesn’t happen the way you want it to happen all the time. That’s really what I want to say. I don’t have a specific agenda about adoption or the other things in the movie. They’re just ways to tell a story.
Q: The film features Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth. Why did you cast the actors that you did?
A: I asked Bette to be in it because I looked at The Rose again and remembered how wonderful she was in that movie. And I thought it would be funny to have someone as famous as her being seen with someone who is not glamorous. Purposely, her character is dressed in very fancy clothes; my character is dressed in very simple clothes. Her character has expensive hair and makeup; my character has none of those things. We were like the odd couple, and it’s just funnier when people are different.
Q: The pairing of you and Matthew Broderick in the film seemed very odd and awkward. Was that intentional?
A: It was very intentional. I think he is a brilliant actor. He’ s able to be both boyish and someone that you fall in love with.
Q: How difficult was it to direct and play the lead role?
A: In general, it’s very difficult. In this particular case, the movie was so close to my heart that it didn’t really feel like separate jobs: acting and directing and writing. It was actually easier to be in it than trying to explain it to somebody else.
Q: How did you find the experience of adapting the script?
A: To me, writing is the hardest and most rewarding job of all. I asked for help and it took me years and years. It was a novel, then somebody did an adaptation of it, then I rewrote it, then I put it aside for a few years and then I rewrote it and rewrote it again and again and again. It was a long process.
Q: What do you want people to take away from this movie?
A: I want people to feel less lonely. It’s about very imperfect people. I hope people leave feeling they’re not the only ones who are imperfect.
Then She Found Me opens April 25.
Maria Nguyen is a Toronto writer.
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