When an Oscar win brought the paparazzi to her door, the actor figured that endless pictures of her with a yoga mat would be of no interest to them. Now she’s out of Hollywood’s glare, and about to appear on the London stage
In the eyes of some, As Good As It Gets was as good as it got for Helen Hunt. Despite starring in a hit NBC sitcom, Mad About You, and a cult disaster movie, Twister, it was the release of the acerbic romcom in 1997 – in which Hunt’s waitress and single mother forms a love-hate relationship with Jack Nicholson’s misanthropic author – that saw her career truly go supernova. As Good As It Gets brought overnight fame and a best actress Oscar. And yet, the decades since have seen if not a disappearance of that fame, at least an erosion, with few of her films bothering the box office or the Academy (although she did land a best supporting actress nomination for 2012 indie film The Sessions).
Helen Hunt isn’t of that mindset, though, because As Good As It Gets gave her exactly what she didn’t want: fame. “There were a couple of years when I was a little spooked,” she admits when asked about paparazzi outside her house. “I was afraid that I could never unring that bell.” So how did she cope with the media assault? “I just became very boring,” she says matter-of-factly.
