Mountain View

Overview

Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She starred in the sitcom Mad About You for seven years, and played single mother Carol Connelly in the 1997 romantic comedy film As Good as It Gets, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Some of her other notable films include Twister (1996), Cast Away (2000), What Women Want (2000), Pay It Forward (2000), and The Sessions (2012), the latter garnered her a second Academy Award nomination. She made her directorial debut in 2007 with Then She Found Me (2007). Hunt has also won four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

 

Early life

Hunt was born in Culver City, California. Her mother, Jane Elizabeth (ne Novis), worked as a photographer, and her father, Gordon Hunt, was a film, voice and stage director and acting coach. Her uncle, Peter H. Hunt, is also a director. Her maternal grandmother, Dorothy (Anderson) Fries, was a voice coach. Hunt’s paternal grandmother was from a German-Jewish family, while Hunt’s other grandparents were of English descent (her maternal grandfather was born in England), with a Methodist religious background. When she was three, Hunt’s family moved to New York City, where her father directed theatre and Hunt attended plays as a child several times a week. Hunt studied ballet, and briefly attended UCLA.

Career

Hunt began working as a child actress in the 1970s. 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, an appearance in an episode of Ark II called “Omega”, 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. Hunt also played a young woman who, while on PCP, jumps out of a second-story window, in a 1982 TV movie called Desperate Lives (a scene which she mocked during a Saturday Night Live monologue in 1994). That same year, Hunt was cast on the ABC sitcom It Takes Two, which lasted a single season. She played Jennie in the 1983 television movie Bill: On His Own, co-starring Mickey Rooney and, later that year, was cast in the lead role of Tami Maida in the fact-based TV movie Quarterback Princess. In the mid-1980s, she had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as Clancy Williams, the girlfriend of Dr. Jack “Boomer” Morrison, and had a notable guest appearance as a cancer-stricken mother-to-be in a two-part episode of Highway to Heaven. Feature film roles around this time included Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) with Sarah Jessica Parker and Shannen Doherty, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) as Kathleen Turner‘s daughter, Project X (1987) with Matthew Broderick, and Stealing Home (1988) as Hope Wyatt, the sister of Billy Wyatt, played by Mark Harmon and an all-star cast featuring Jodie Foster, Blair Hunt and Harold Ramis, and Next of Kin (1989) with Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson.

In the 1990s, after playing the lead female role in the short-lived My Life and Times, Hunt starred in the series Mad About You, winning Emmy Awards for her performances in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999. For the last year of the show she and Paul Reiser became the first actors ever to be paid $1,000,000 per episode. Hunt directed 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, with Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick. She starred with Bill Paxton in the 1996 disaster action film Twister, which was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. In 1998, Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the movie As Good as It Gets of a waitress and single mother who finds herself falling in love with an obsessive-compulsive romance novelist played by Jack Nicholson. After winning the Academy Award, she took time off from movie work to play Viola in Shakespeare‘s Twelfth Night, at Lincoln Center in New York. In 2000, Hunt starred 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. In 2006, Hunt appeared in the ensemble cast film Bobby alongside Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone and William H. Macy. In 2011, in the movie Soul Surfer, she played the mother of the Hawaiian-born champion surfer Bethany Hamilton, on whose life the movie was based.

Hunt at the international consumer goods trade fair Ambiente 2015 in Frankfurt where she was “USA Day” guest of honor

In 2012, she starred alongside John Hawkes and William H. Macy in The Sessions as sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene. The movie and her performance were very well reviewed and earned her several award nominations, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The movie also gained two awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

She owns a production company with Connie Tavel, Hunt/Tavel Productions under Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Personal life

Hunt started dating actor Hank Azaria in 1994. They married in 1999, only to divorce 17 months later. She was partnered with producer/writer/director Matthew Carnahan starting in 2001. They have a daughter, Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, born on May 13, 2004. In August 2017, the couple split after 16 years of dating.

Hunt was one of the demonstrators at the 2017 Women’s March held on January 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

Hunt has been recognized extensively in her career. In 1998 she won a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. Hunt was nominated for an Emmy Award for lead actress in a comedy seven years in a row, from 1993 through 1999, winning in the last four years.

Year Work Association Category Result
1993-95 Mad About You Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy Series Nominated
1993/96/98 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress Television Series Musical or Comedy Nominated
1994-96 American Comedy Award Funniest Female Performer in a TV Series Won
1994/95/97 Golden Globe Awards Best Actress Television Series Musical or Comedy Won
1995 Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Won
1995-98 Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Nominated
1996-98 Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Nominated
1996-99 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actress Comedy Series Won
1997-99 Satellite Awards Best Actress  Television Series Musical or Comedy Nominated
1996 Twister Blockbuster Entertainment Award Favorite Actress  Action/Adventure Won
Saturn Awards Best Actress Nominated
MTV Movie Awards Best Performance Nominated
1997 As Good as It Gets Academy Awards Best Actress Won
American Comedy Awards Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) Won
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Favorite Actress  Video Won
Florida Film Critics Circle Best Actress Won
Golden Globe Awards Best Actress  Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Won
Satellite Awards Best Actress  Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Won
Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Best Actress Nominated
Empire Awards Best Actress Nominated
MTV Movie Awards Best Performance Nominated
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated
1999 Mad About You American Comedy Awards Funniest Female Performer in a TV Series Nominated
People’s Choice Awards Favorite Female Television Performer Won
2000 What Women Want Blockbuster Entertainment Awards Favorite Actress  Comedy/Romance Won
Cast Away Favorite Supporting Actress  Drama Won
MTV Movie Awards Best Kiss (shared with Tom Hanks) Nominated
2005 Empire Falls Gracie Awards Outstanding Supporting Actress  Drama Special Won
2006 Bobby Hollywood Film Festival Ensemble of the Year Won
Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated
2007 Then She Found Me Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Leap from Actress to Director Won
Ashland Independent Film Festival Rogue Award Won
Palm Springs International Film Festival Best Narrative Feature Won
2012 The Sessions Alliance of Women Film Journalists Best Depiction Of Nudity, Sexuality, or Seduction Won
Independent Spirit Awards Best Supporting Female Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actress Won
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress Won
Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting Won
Academy Award Best Supporting Actress Nominated
BAFTA Award BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association Best Actress Nominated
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress Nominated
Detroit Film Critics Society Best Supporting Actress Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Supporting Actress Motion Picture Nominated
Houston Film Critics Society Best Supporting Actress Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Best Supporting Actress Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society Best Actress Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Supporting Actress Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress Nominated