Helen Hunt The Best Actress

Known for: As Good as It Gets / Twister / What Women Want
Birth name: Helen Elizabeth Hunt
Birthday: 15 June 1963, Los Angeles, California, USA
Height: 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Hunt screened her directorial debut for the first time at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada last September (07), and she confessed that she was terrified when she learned it would be watched by as many as 3,000 film fans.

“We were on our way to the premiere, and I was really nervous. I didn’t know what to expect because I hadn’t brought my own film somewhere before,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

“My boyfriend (Matthew Carnahan) had, so he said, ‘It’s probably 200-300 seats.’ And the driver from Canada said, ‘Sorry, it’s 2,000-3,000 seats.’ So I started to sweat,” she said.

The actress revealed that as the evening proceeded, things started going from bad to worse.

“I sat down in this big, beautiful theatre and the movie was out of focus. But I don’t mean a little out of focus. I don’t mean filmmaker, picky, out of focus. I mean when we ran upstairs and asked them to put it in focus the audience cheered,” she stated.
Lucky for her, things started to improve after sometime.
“Then something happened and people started laughing and crying and standing and clapping and now it’s in theatres so it was a very lucky night for me,” she added. (ANI)

Hunt Hates Playing Boss
Hollywood actress HELEN HUNT was so scared of appearing bossy in her directorial debut THEN SHE FOUND ME, she took on the lead role herself.The Oscar winner admits working both sides of the camera allowed her to spend less time frantically instructing actors.She says, "I had 27 days to make the movie, and I literally
Hunt's Premiere Nightmare

HELEN HUNT had to tackle the projectionist at the premiere of her new movie AND THEN SHE FOUND ME, because the picture was completely out of focus.The actress screened her directorial debut for the first time at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada last September (07), and she confesses she was terrified.



Oscar-winner Helen Hunt Showcases Directing Debut, 'then She Found Me,' At Toronto Film Fest
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Helen Hunt has a new job: directing. ''Then She Found Me,'' the filmmaking debut for the Academy Award-winning actress, will play at September's Toronto International Film Festival.

BIOGRAPHY

Helen Elizabeth Hunt was born June 15, 1963 to Gordon and Jane Hunt. Her father is a director and acting coach, and her mother is a photographer. Hunt decided she wanted to be an actress when she was six years old. Her debut performance on television was on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW as Murray Slaughter's daughter. She then landed a television role in the movie PIONEER WOMEN at the age of ten. From then on she acted in successive television movies, series and Hollywood films.

After years of steady employment on television and in film, she was offered the role as Jamie Buchman on a new sitcom Paul Reiser was working on, MAD ABOUT YOU. The show first aired in 1992, and the following year Hunt received her first Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series. She won two more Golden Globes and an Emmy for the role before the show went off the air in 1999. Hunt continued to work in film during her seven year stint on MAD ABOUT YOU, and in 1997 she received both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her starring role in AS GOOD AS IT GETS. She is currently working on several film projects for her production company, Hunt/Tavel, which she formed with business partner, Connie Tavel. She lives in southern California with her husband, Hank Azaria.


CHRONOLOGY

1963 She was born in Culver City, California. (June 15)

1966 She moved with her family moved to New York.

1972 She moved with her family to Los Angeles.; She enrolled in acting class.

1973 PIONEER WOMEN - television movie

1974 AMY PRENTISS - television series

1975 SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON - television series; ALL TOGETHER NOW, DEATH SCREAM - television movies

1976 HAVING BABIES - television movie

1977 THE FITZPATRICKS - television series; ROLLERCOASTER - film

1979 TRANSPLANT - television movie

1981 Her parents divorced.; ANGEL DUSTED, I THINK I'M HAVING A BABY, THE BEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD - films

1982 IT TAKES TWO, ST. ELSEWHERE - television series

1983 QUARTERBACK PRINCESS - television movie

1985 TRANCERS, GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN, WAITING TO ACT - films

1986 PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED - film


1987 PROJECT X - film

1988 STEALING HOME, THE FROG PRINCE, MILES FROM HOME, DARKROOM - films

1989 OUR TOWN - Broadway; NEXT OF KIN- film; INCIDENT AT DARK RIVER - television movie

1990 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW - Shakespeare in the Park

1991 MY LIFE AND TIMES, INTO THE BADLANDS - television movies; TRANCERS II - film

1992 "MAD ABOUT YOU" - television sit-com; BOB ROBERTS, ONLY YOU, THE WATERDANCE, MR. SATURDAY NIGHT, TRANCERS III - films

1993 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series - MAD ABOUT YOU; SEXUAL HEALING - film

1994 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series - MAD ABOUT YOU

1995 KISS OF DEATH - film

1996 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series - MAD ABOUT YOU; TWISTER - film

1997 AS GOOD AS IT GETS - film; Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series - MAD ABOUT YOU; Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Academy Award for Best Actress. AS GOOD AS IT GETS

1998 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series - MAD ABOUT YOU; TWELFTH NIGHT - Broadway

1999 She married Hank Azaria. (July 17); The final episode of MAD ABOUT YOU aired.

2000 PAY IT FORWARD, CAST AWAY, WHAT WOMEN WANT, DR. T AND THE WOMEN, FROM ALICE TO OCEAN - films

Hunt began working in the 1970s as a child actress. Her early roles included an appearance as Murray Slaughter's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, alongside Lindsay Wagner in an episode of The Bionic Woman, and a regular role in the television series The Swiss Family Robinson. She appeared as a marijuana-smoking classmate on an episode of The Facts of Life. She also appeared as a young woman who, while on PCP, jumps out of a second-story window in a 1982 after school special called Desperate Lives (a scene which she mocked during a Saturday Night Live monologue in 1994).[7] In the mid-1980s, she had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as Clancy Williams, girlfriend of Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison. She remains best known for one of her earliest roles as Jennie in Bill: On His Own, costarring Mickey Rooney.

In the 1990s, after the lead female role in the short-lived My Life and Times, Hunt became well-known to television audiences in Mad About You, winning Emmy Awards for her performance in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999. Hunt has also had a successful film career, with roles in movies such as Cast Away and the 1996 blockbuster Twister.

In 1998 Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Carol Connelly, a waitress and single mother who finds herself falling in love with Melvin Udall, an obsessive-compulsive romance novelist played by Jack Nicholson in the movie As Good as It Gets. After winning the Academy Award she took several years off from movie work to play Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center in New York City.[8]


In 2000, Hunt returned to the screen in four films: Dr. T & the Women with Richard Gere, Pay It Forward with Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment, What Women Want with Mel Gibson, and Cast Away with Tom Hanks. In 2003, she returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's Life x 3.[8] Hunt was also a final candidate for the role of "Clarice Starling" in Hannibal, after Jodie Foster decided not to reprise her Oscar winning role from The Silence of the Lambs. However, Hunt lost the role to Julianne Moore at the last minute. In 2006, Hunt appeared in a small role in the film Bobby.

Hunt is a director, having helmed several episodes of Mad About You, including the series finale. Her big-screen directorial debut came with the film Then She Found Me, in which she also starred.[1]

She currently owns a production company with Connie Tavel, Hunt/Tavel Productions under Sony Pictures Entertainment.[1]
Personal life

Hunt was married to actor Hank Azaria from 1999 until 2000.[1] Then she briefly dated fellow actor Kevin Spacey in 2000 [9]. She has been in a relationship with Matthew Carnahan since 2001 and they have a daughter, Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, born in 2004.