In less than three decades, Helen Hunt has gone from the very top
of the film industry to, well, a lot of places.
Both in and out of Hollywood, breakups are a common part of adulthood. Even so,
Helen Hunt surprised many in 2017 by calling things off with her
boyfriend of 16 years, producer Matthew Carnahan.
The two had been together since 2001, and even welcomed a daughter together in 2004. And yet,
despite In Touch Weekly reporting that Hunt and Carnahan appeared to be crazy for each other,
they couldn't keep their spark alive forever. According to a source who spoke to the tabloid,
their separation was pretty turbulent.
That same source revealed that the pair had done this several times before, recalling,
"Matthew moved out a few times over the years. Helen would always take him back,
and then time would pass and she'd kick him out again."
Now, however, it seems they're done for real and even their mutual love for their daughter,
Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, couldn't keep them together any longer.
On May 13, 2004, shortly before her 41st birthday, Helen Hunt gave birth to Makena.
Given this was such a big change in her life, it's unsurprising that Hunt pulled
back from the Hollywood grindstone for a while. After four decades without kids,
it's completely understandable that Hunt wanted to stay home more to raise her firstborn.
In fact, even during her rare forays back into the public eye during Makena's childhood,
her focus was still very much on her daughter. She even spent the entire duration of a 2013
interview with The Independent knitting a doll for her daughter while fielding
questions about how a movie she starred in would do in the upcoming award season.
Now that Makena is a legal adult, we may start to see more of her mother in the celebrity world
again. However, given that Makena remains her only child, we wouldn't be surprised if Hunt continued
to dedicate massive amounts of her energy toward the continued love and support of her daughter.
Makena is already embarking on her own creative endeavors as a songwriter,
and as a fellow artist it would only make sense that Hunt would want to continue a
close relationship with her daughter as she transitions into adulthood.
"The two of them write the songs together and they — I just hear them downstairs,
like laughing, or they'll write some sad lyric and then I hear 'That's cool!'"
In the time since her heyday at the turn of the century,
Helen Hunt never outright stopped making movies. However, with a few exceptions,
odds are a large portion of her long-time fans may not have heard of most of those projets.
At the height of her career, Hunt starred in films like 1997's As Good As It Gets,
and the combination of her charisma and chemistry with co-star Jack
Nicholson netted the rom-com almost $315 million worldwide. A year before that,
she was in Twister, a disaster epic that grossed almost $500 million.
Right after her sitcom, Mad About You ended, she starred in 2000's What Women Want and Cast Away,
which took in $375 million and $430 million, respectively.
“I’m gonna miss the excitement but I’ll handle it.”
Throughout the aughts, she also starred in films like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion,
Dr. T & the Women, and Bobby, all of which failed to impress moviegoers. Critically,
her rock bottom moment has to be 2010's Every Day, which opened in three theaters, never made it past
four, and ultimately grossed a paltry $46,029 over ten weeks. This film in particular was a
pretty serious disappointment, as it marked Hunt's return to the screen after a three-year hiatus.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Helen Hunt said that part of the reason she shifted into low
gear after her late '90s boom was due to her Oscar win for As Good As It Gets. She explained that,
after making an arrangement with Sony, she began writing heavily between acting gigs.
Around this time she received a copy of Elinor Lipman's novel Then She Found Me,
and she began working hard to adapt it against the changing tide of the film industry. Hunt recalled,
"I'd just been in the last big wave of movies about people talking to
each other and trying to love each other, so as that was shrinking,
I was trying to make one of those movies. So I kept rewriting it subtly."
As a result of the public's changing taste, studios stopped funding the style of movies
Hunt was known for. The actress elaborated that, in turn, she got pretty tired of making
romantic comedies herself, so it was pretty apt timing for a change in her creative pursuits.
Despite the changing time, Hunt wound up using her adaption of And Then She Found Me as her first
foray into directing and starring in a film. Unfortunately, the 2007 dramedy, and Hunt's
performance in particular, fell flat with critics. One reviewer for The Los Angeles Times wrote,
"The problem isn’t so much the character of April as it is the way Hunt plays her — a
little too whiny, a little too angry to be very sympathetic. Hunt has a tendency to
play up those characteristics in just about everything she does."
Hunt's debut as a director was also criticized,
with Christy DeSmith of the Minneapolis Star Tribune calling her direction "heavy-handed"
before expanding that her acting performance was also lackluster.
After her feature-length directorial debut failed critically, Hunt took a long break from directing,
Then, over the past decade, she began pursuing the artform in earnest once again.
"Any thoughts on how?"
Recently, she's focused mainly on television,
overseeing an episode of Californication, two episodes of Revenge, two of Life In Pieces,
and one each of House of Lies, This Is Us, and Feud: Bette and Joan.
In 2014, she directed her second film with Ride. While it wasn't
her best creative effort to date — earning only 52% on Rotten Tomatoes,
she's clearly working hard to get better at her new profession and will only improve over time.
Before Bobby and Then She Found Me, critics also tore apart A Good Woman,
a film adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play. Speaking to Paste Magazine,
Hunt explained that she drew great inspiration from the play and its lead role, saying,
"It has all the earmarks of a really good part. I certainly saw in there
the potential for a character I haven't seen in a little while."
Hunt played the seductive Mrs. Erlynne. While the part in question may have been juicy,
critics didn't exactly love what Hunt did with it. A review by The A.V. Club criticized
the actor's performance as "embarrassingly out of place," with many of her mannerisms
lacking the sensual allure the role called for. Another harsh review in The Seattle Times noted,
"[Hunt] is completely at sea here, flatly intoning her lines as if she'd memorized
them phonetically [...] It's a mystifyingly bad performance, and it drags down the entire movie."
With reviews like that coming in,
we'd probably consider taking a step away from the big screen as well.
Even before her film career blew up, Helen Hunt slowed her professional pace in the wake of Mad
About You. One possible explanation for why she did this is that she'd simply made a lot
of money. With a successful show already under her belt, she had little need to work unless she
really wanted to. For this reason she could also afford to be picky regarding potential roles.
Hunt's wealth increased magnificently in May 1998, as she and her Mad About You co-star
Paul Reiser negotiated pay raises from $250,000 an episode to an incredible $1 million per episode.
Though this pay grade only lasted them through the final season,
its 22 episodes still netted both of them over 8 figures.
Once you factor those paychecks in with the money she'd made starring in Hollywood blockbusters,
you can see how acting has given her wealth beyond most anyone's wildest dreams. So next time you're
wondering why Helen Hunt isn't everywhere anymore, the answer might just be: she doesn't have to be.
One of the hardest things for anyone to face is the death of a family member,
and in 2016, Hunt suffered the loss of her father.
On December 17 of that year, Gordon Hunt, famed director of cartoons and live-action television,
passed away at the age of 87. According to the Hollywood Reporter, he had been
suffering from Parkinson's disease prior to his death.
Gordon Hunt had his foot in many doors of the entertainment industry,
and even worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood today.
"Gordon hunt was my acting teacher when I was in LA for a couple years."
It may not surprise avid Hunt fans that Gordon actually directed 31 episodes of Mad About You.
In fact, he even directed the episode in which his daughter's character gave birth,
which must have been quite a surreal experience for both the actress and her father
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Hunt said of her father,
"If you asked 100 people who knew him, 100 of them would say he was the kindest man they ever knew."
Even before his death, she honored him by dedicating her 2014 surfing film Ride to him.
Reportedly, Gordon was an active bodysurfer from the 1930s until just a few years before his death.
In addition to her illustrious film and TV career, Hunt has also been a very public advocate
for women's rights. In 2012, Hunt appeared on NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, a show showing
celebrities learning about their family tree. During her appearance on the show, Hunt learned
that her great-great-grandmother was a pivotal figure in the battle for women's equality.
This revelation must have ignited a spark in Hunt, as she's been vocal about women's rights,
both in and out of Hollywood since. During a 2015 interview with the Huffington Post,
Hunt was openly critical of the limited range of roles available to women of all ages.
She criticized the industry for its lacking amount of stories with strong female leads,
and how even projects as simple as billboard advertisements
often try to sexualize models and actresses for no logical reason.
She later made her stance further known by joining the Women's March to protest
the inauguration of Donald Trump in response to the derogatory things he
said about women before and during his campaign. Even if Hunt never acts again,
she's certainly got plenty of work ahead of her in philanthropy.
In 2017, Helen Hunt was primed for a cinematic comeback after being tapped for a major role
in a new film. Written and directed by Louis C.K, the black-and-white I Love You, Daddy starred C.K.
as a TV writer who doesn't know what to do when his young daughter, played by Chloe Grace Moretz,
starts to date a significantly older and famously sleazy filmmaker played by John Malkovich. Hunt
co-starred in the film, playing the ex-wife to C.K.'s character and mother of Moretz's.
I Love You, Daddy was set for a star-studded premiere in New York on November 17, 2017,
but the event was canceled at the last minute after the New York Times' published accounts
of five women who accused C.K. of sexual misconduct. A subsequent theatrical release
was immediately taken off the table as well, as C.K. bought back the rights to the film.
In November 2019, Helen Hunt returned to the role of Jamie
for the reboot of Mad About You. Her time on the original show not only
made her famous, but netted her four Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes.
"Once we got into the space, it felt wildly familiar."
While its initial run on NBC ended in 1999,
it came back to TV on the tail end of the reboot craze that saw other '90s
hits like Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Roseanne return to open-armed viewers.
The 12 new episodes of the series focused on the once-young and newlywed Jamie and Paul wondering
what to do with themselves after their only child leaves for college. Mad About You version 2.0,
however, just didn't click as well as its fellow revived classics,
earning a middling 42% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
If fans wanted to watch it, it was also kind of hard for them
to find. The season aired on Spectrum Originals,
a relatively obscure network that serves as the showcase channel for a cable company.
In 2017, Helent Hunt found herself at the center of an international
controversy. She agreed to participate in an event known as the World Youth Forum,
which took place in Sharm El-Sheikh a resort city in Egypt.
As a high-profile celebrity, Hunt was made a featured speaker at the
opening ceremony. From the outside, her participation seems completely harmless,
or even commendable, as the World Youth Forum presents itself as a humanitarian
group aiming to improve the state of the world for the younger generations.
The controversy stems from the event's ties to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,
who has been labeled as a dictator by activist groups in Egypt and elsewhere in the world.
More than 100 individuals, including many prominent human rights activists,
signed a joint letter condemning Hunt's involvement in the event.
The activists called Hunt out directly by saying,
"As you shake hands with Sisi, smile, take a photo, let history note that you chose to
support a dictator responsible for thousands of deaths, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances."
The arbitrary detentions mentioned in the letter refer to the wrongful imprisonment
of journalists and LGBTQ+ individuals at the hands of al-Sisi's administration.
It is possible that Hunt signed up for what she thought was a
humanitarian event without being aware of the controversy that would follow,
but she was certainly made aware of it after the huge backlash became public. Nevertheless,
Hunt went ahead and gave her speech at the World Youth Forum all the same.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film industry shut down completely,
causing the production of many films to be delayed as everyone went into lockdown. Slowly but surely,
projects with contained locations and limited casts began coming together
again until the industry found its footing once more. One of the first films to come
out of the social-distancing era of the pandemic was How It Ends.
The film was written and directed by Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones,
the latter of whom also starred in the film. As the title implies,
the film is a comedy about the end of the world, but rather than fully embracing the medical threat
of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus was swapped for a meteor headed toward Earth.
"Do you actually believe the news? The meteor is fake."
While most of the small-scale movies made during this first phase of the
pandemic kept their casts as tiny as possible for practical reasons,
How It Ends went in the opposite direction. The film was packed with a slew of stars including
Olivia Wilde, Charlie Day, Bradley Whitford, Colin Hanks, Fred Armisen,
Logan Marshall-Green, Whitney Cummings, Finn Wolfhard, and of course, Helen Hunt.
The film takes place almost entirely outside, with the cast observing social distancing guidelines.
It mostly unfolds like a series of vignettes as Lister-Jones walks through empty streets during
lockdown. It never aimed to be anything more than a bit of harmless fun during a trying time for
the industry, and the film didn't have much of a shelf life beyond the era in which it was made.
What's more, the film's lackluster legacy was surely cemented by the release of Don't Look Up, a
much higher-budget movie with an almost identical concept that came out the very same year.
1996's Twister was one of the biggest box office hits of Helen Hunt's career. The film
was the second highest-grossing movie of the year, blowing all of the competition out of
the water except for Independence Day. More than two decades later,
a potential sequel looms on the horizon — but not the one Hunt would have liked.
After working on the original film in front of the camera only, Hunt wanted to expand her involvement
in the sequel. She wrote a script for Twister 2 alongside her Blindspotting collaborators,
Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. Hunt also planned to direct the sequel herself,
but could not find a studio willing to play ball.
Hunt and Diggs both pointed to the script's emphasis on diversity as the possible reason
why it was a non-starter for the studio. Speaking to Insider, Hunt explained,
"I tried to get it made, with Daveed and Rafael and me writing it,
and all Black and Brown storm chasers, and they wouldn't do it."
Later on in the interview, Diggs elaborated that a factor for why the movie was never made was
for a quote, "shady" reason that he found to be a typical issue in the contemporary film industry.
A completely different Twister sequel titled Twisters is currently in the works with an
expected release date of summer 2024. The plot is said to revolve around the
daughter of the main characters played by Hunt and Bill Paxton in the original.
The bulk of the cast of Twisters has already been publicly announced, but Hunt's name is
not on the list. While a reason for Hunt's absence has yet to be publicly announced,
it's possible she simply wasn't asked to return, or that she chose not to reprise her role after
her own sequel script was rejected. For all we know, she could even be involved with Twisters
in an unexpected way, but her presence is being kept under wraps for the time being.
Regardless, it seems that Hunt's initial vision for a Twister sequel will never come to life.