What would you do if you got that call from Woody Allen, asking you to be in his film?
Well, if you’re Helen Hunt, you do what any red-blooded American actress would do–you get excited and terrified at the same time.
In Allen’s latest comic escapade, the crime caper The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, the versatile Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress plays Betty “Fitz” Fitzgerald, a tough, no-nonsense 1940s woman whose job it is to trim costs at an insurance company. She butts heads again and again with crack investigator CW Briggs (Allen), whom she wants to have fired–especially when the investigation of some stolen jewels leads suspiciously to Briggs.
Since her TV days on the sitcom Mad About You, Hunt, has made a name for herself in movies like As Good As It Gets and Pay It Forward. Here she talks to Hollywood.com about how her latest comedy has roots in those 1940s romantic comedies–and how Allen is just one big ball of fun to work with.
Your character Fitz is an interesting balance between a modern woman of today and a woman of the 1940s. What kind of fine line was that to walk?
Hunt: Well, greater actresses than I have walked it. Katharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard, women of that time, were feisty and fast-talking on film. So I certainly had that in my head. And I thought a little bit about what that era, what kind of ferociousness that era might breed in a woman who was naturally ambitious. I thought about my grandmother, who was making a living as a single mother at my age during this time. All of those things together gave me this woman.
Did you watch old 1940s movies?
Hunt: I happened to be watching a lot of Tracy and Hepburn movies when I got this call, just coincidentally. I was on a roll watching and re-watching those movies as I’ve always been a pretty big fan of those kind of films. I remember my dad showing me Double Indemnity when I was very young and seeing Adam’s Rib. Actually, my uncle directed a remake of it for television with Blythe Danner and Ken Howard, I think. I saw that first and loved it. But my dad said, “Watch this,” and put in the original.
If you could have a romance with one of those great actors from that period, would it be Cary Grant?
Hunt: OK. I’m a Gemini, can I have Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy?
There is a lot of playful, sexy banter between you and Woody, without taking your clothes off.
Hunt: I was very relieved to find that you root for this couple because who knew if that would happen, especially since he wanted us to be so venomous with each other. But there’s something…there are little teeny things when two people are at each other’s throats to that extent. And yet [Briggs] chooses to sleep sitting up in a chair all night [watching over Fitz]. Your heart melts…
Moviegoers aren’t used to seeing you in screwball comedies. Could you tell me a little about flexing your comedy skills?
Hunt: I think the one experience I’ve had that felt like this, oddly, was on Mad About You. Getting to play incredibly well written 15- to 20-page scenes–with a partner you trust completely and who makes you laugh. Without breaking it up into little 45-second sound bites as movies tend to do. That’s what I got to do on Mad About You for seven years. And that’s what I got to do on this movie. Woody often doesn’t cover or over-cover scenes. This wasn’t one page of walking down Central Park West, this was the two of us and six pages of really close-to-the-net-tennis. There is nothing I love more than that. It is also terrifying because you don’t want to be the guy four lines before the end who messes up.
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Describe working with Woody Allen.
Hunt: It was great. I mean, you hear rumors that he doesn’t talk to you, so I thought OK, I won’t talk to him either. But he talks to you plenty and gives you clear direction and total support for creating the part the way you imagine she should to be. So if you get past week two or three, then you feel pretty good, like you’ve cleared some hurdle and you’re in the movie to stay.
Did you improvise much?
Hunt: He always said, if you want do something different, do. But in this film, I felt like there was something more correct about staying absolutely to the letter with what he wrote.
Both Fitz and Briggs get hypnotized in the movie. Have you ever been put under hypnosis?
Hunt: I do believe in it but I’ve never gone under, and I’m curious but not curious enough to ever be hypnotized. I would watch you be hypnotized happily. But I’m not dying to give a total stranger complete control of my mind. Unless it was David Odgen Stiers [whose character performs mind control in the movie]. I might let him hypnotize me.
It’s been some time since you won your Oscar. What sort of changes has it brought about?
Hunt: It’s time for another, don’t you think? I’m just kidding…I don’t know. I, like every other actor, sits humbly waiting and hoping that a good part will come, you know what I mean? I’ve had incredible luck within the last year. I loved these parts I’ve gotten to play and now, who knows? Whatever effect [winning the Oscar] had, I’m grateful. But I don’t know how to quantify it.
Do you miss television at all?
Hunt: Yeah. [But] part of me is still tired from those seven years. I mean, it was a remarkable amount of work. You hear stories about actors on sitcoms who get there at 10 and drive away at 3 in the afternoon and they make great shows that I like and I watch. But for some reason our show–maybe for the same reason I didn’t want to improvise in this movie– was a show based on detail and precision. It took a long time to get the words right and then to rehearse it.
You’ve produced, as well. Do you find satisfaction in finding roles for yourself and using your position to develop material that might not get a chance to be seen?
Hunt: Yeah, basically, you can call it producing, but really you just want to find as many ways as you can to get your hands on good material. It’s incredibly frustrating because it so hard to find good material and once you do, it’s so hard to get it made. There is a part of my brain and personality that loves to bring people together. There’s a film I’m still trying to get made by a first-time writer/director–I just believe in it utterly–it’s like nothing else in the world. So it’s a good fight.
