HELEN HUNT
Ten years after starting work on her directorial debut, Helen Hunt has finally made the leap from actress to director, as she explains to Georgina Wilson-Powell
t‘s appropriate. given that Then She Found
Me is about mothers. daughters and babies.
that the film itself is actor Helen Hunt's baby. and it‘s one that has taken over a decade to be bom. The film is April Epner‘s story. a tale of a woman betrayed by her husband. bereaved after losing her adopted mother. and then bombarded by her over-zealous birth mother. a brash. glitzy talk-show host. played to perfection by Bette Midler. April learns the age-old lesson — that you can choose your friends. but not your family — and although she may think she has a choice in the beginning. she quickly discovers that family ties will always bind.
In the flesh. Hunt is tall. but with a delicateness that doesn't always come across on screen — where she often looks lean and every bit the equal of any male actor she is partnered with. There‘s also an incredible earnestness when she talks about her film. Hunt has never courted the press. and although actors often have to grow a
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thick skin regarding rejection. she has taken a very different type of risk. Making the jump from actress to director is more than just a career move for her; it‘s obviously a lot more personal than that.
The film started life as a novel by lilinor Lipman. which Hunt decided to rewrite and use for her directorial debut. But even with an ()scar on her mantlepiece (for As (ioml As It Gets). funding and lilmmaking is never easy. ‘An ()scar
gives you a meeting: it gives you a shot. btit if
they don‘t like the movie or they don't think they‘re going to make their money back. then it‘s hard. People may like your work but they've got to trust you with millions of dollars. But it did get me the chance to send the script to great actors.‘ she explains.
She also found that adapting a novel is not as easy as it looks. and getting it right took her the first half of the decade. 'I had a beautiful adaptation of the novel. I gave it to certain
Clockwise from right: three scenes from Then She Found Me, with Paul Reiser in Mad About You; with Jack Nicolson in as Good As It Gets; in the director’s chair
studios to try and they all said it‘s better than most things. but it‘s not quite a movie.‘ she recalls. ‘I realised they were right. so it took me time to understand what was missing. lt was so hard to drop characters that are beautifully drawn. There's also no wish for a baby in the novel. and it seemed to me that if I was going to play the part. a woman of my age would either have had a baby. want one or couldn't have one. She didn‘t ‘nothing' a baby and it seemed like a perfect thing for her to go after in this story of mothers and daughters.“
Not only did lltmt go back to basics with storytelling as she puts it. "the main character has to want something' - and work towards fulfillng that want. she also developed another theme over and above the basic mother-daughter angle: the theme of betrayal.
‘I couldn‘t say exactly what the movie was about really. The best filmmakers