Helen Hunt: When the Universe Betrays You

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Humans with Hank Green

Episode: Helen Hunt – "When the Universe Betrays You"

Release Date: June 18, 2026
Host: Hank Green
Guest: Helen Hunt

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Episode Overview

In this rich, reflective, and often warmly funny episode, Hank Green sits down with iconic actress, writer, and director Helen Hunt. Together, they explore the meaning of a creative life, the challenges and joys of fame, the passage of time, the struggle to make meaningful work in an ever-shifting industry, and how we find purpose and community along the way. The discussion is anchored by Helen Hunt’s career, her vulnerability about life’s betrayals, and the creative process—especially in making the film Then She Found Me. The conversation meanders from specifics of the entertainment industry to philosophical questions about art, faith, and what it means to be human.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Arc of Helen Hunt's Career and Fame

• Variety in Helen’s career: Hank opens with admiration for Hunt’s career, marveling at her range—child actor, indie director, Broadway performer, Oscar and Emmy winner, and lifelong student (00:08).
• Experience of fame: Helen describes fame as confusing—sometimes she’s omnipresent, sometimes not recognized (06:21). “I take up space in a lot of people's heads and then you haven't heard of me at all.”
• Fame's trade-offs: She craved a more civilian life but notes, "It helps to be more famous, to get good work." She enjoys the simplicity of her current life but reflects that being less in the public eye can limit artistic opportunities (07:29).

Early Life, Family, and Getting Started as an Actor

• Creative family background: Helen's father was a theater director, so creativity was encouraged, not foreign (15:17). Growing up surrounded by artists, acting was natural, not rebellious.
• Starting young, staying grounded: Hunt attributes her resilience to always finding joy in the craft, not just the spotlight, and a lucky lack of addictive tendencies. "The acting itself was fun. It wasn't the set or the come and go of the famousness" (16:41).

Craft and the Creative Process

• Acting as art and craft: Helen values continual study and coaching, comparing her dedication to a rabbi’s approach to Torah. Studying keeps her engaged, whether she’s rehearsing Chekhov or prepping a new role (16:41).
• Invisible yet impactful work: She reflects on the ephemeral nature of acting—unlike books or paintings, performance often “disappears,” but can nonetheless walk alongside someone for a lifetime (09:03). “I believe ... it can matter to people. It can move people. But then it's gone.”
• Community of theater and film: Both point to the unique, fleeting "crew" feeling on sets—a summer camp intimacy that’s both exhilarating and bittersweet (11:22).

Mad About You and the “Magic Sentence”

• Mad About You's realism: They discuss how the show’s success came partly from a conscious effort to avoid sitcom stereotypes, showing both partners as strong and vulnerable, which Hunt confirms was intentional (03:26). Paul Reiser is praised as an underrated comedic actor and collaborator (03:58).
• Writing with a “magic sentence”: Helen explains that each project needs a core theme—the “magic sentence.” For Then She Found Me: “You can’t really love until you’ve made peace with betrayal with a capital B.” She describes discovering this with the help of James Hillman’s essay "Betrayal" (22:31).

Betrayal, Faith, and Meaning

• Betrayal as part of life: The central theme of Then She Found Me—coping with life’s betrayals, both personal and cosmic (24:01). Hank and Helen dramatize a bittersweet scene, revealing the honesty and vulnerability her film explores (30:26).
• Faith, God, and mystery: Helen describes her agnostic stance: “Both sides annoy me. ... Is there no space for mystery? Can we not say there is one thing we don't know?” (39:33). She resists absolute answers about faith, focusing on openness and humility.

The Hard Reality of Making Art

• Persistence as the key: Hunt shares stories from the painful, years-long journey of making Then She Found Me: "Who gets their movie made? Whoever doesn't give up" (29:13).
• Industry changes: Both lament the modern film/TV landscape—fractured audiences, economic shifts, loss of mass culture—and Helen says, “Art is subject to the incentives. Art is subject to culture. Art is subject to technology” (53:58).
• Value of process over results: Hunt prioritizes artistic integrity over popularity: “On my deathbed, am I gonna wish I made something I didn't love as much and more people saw? No, I'm not” (55:18).

Collaboration, Community, and the Human Crew Metaphor

• Need for community: Helen contrasts her collaborative working style with Hank’s more solitary creative work, stating, “I really need community ... that’s something I need” (47:49).
• The crew as metaphor: They tie in astronaut Christina Cook's beautiful metaphor for humanity: “Planet Earth, you are a crew. ... We are all in this together" (46:35).
• Comedy and longing for joy: Helen misses pure, physical comedy deeply, crediting her roots in Lucille Ball and sitcoms for shaping her joy in performance (48:10).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Fame and Artistry

• "[Fame] is confusing because I take up space in a lot of people's heads and then you haven't heard of me at all."
  — Helen Hunt (06:21)

• "It all comes back to, like, the words on the page."
  — Helen Hunt (07:55)

On Creativity and Process

• “If you write a book, you hold it in your hand ... If you paint a painting, you go, here it is. ... If you do this piece of work, it can ... matter to people. ... But then it's gone.”
  — Helen Hunt (08:36)

• “Who gets their movie made? Whoever doesn't give up.”
  — Helen Hunt (29:13)

On Betrayal and Maturity

• "You can't really love until you've made peace with betrayal with a capital B."
  — Helen Hunt, on Then She Found Me (23:10)

• “Maybe betrayal isn’t outside of the plan. ... Maybe it is part of it.”
  — Helen Hunt (24:09)

• (After acting out a scene about hurt in relationships):
  "This is the wish of the betrayal thing. ... I was interested in that, in two people who might step forward together, knowing that that is part of the human experience."
  — Helen Hunt (32:30)

On Community and “The Crew”

• "A crew is people ... that is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, that gives grace, that holds accountable. ... Planet Earth, you are a crew."
  — Christina Cook (45:06, 46:35)

• “I really need community. That's something I need ... I have people in the living room doing play readings, and I'm meeting a dear friend for lunch after this.”
  — Helen Hunt (47:49)

On Art and the Industry

• “Art is subject to the incentives. Art is subject to culture. Art is subject to technology. ... It feels like it should exist ... out there in some between-everything space. But it is [not].”
  — Hank Green (53:58)

• “On my deathbed, am I gonna wish I made something I didn't love as much and more people saw? No, I'm not.”
  — Helen Hunt (55:18)

Final Wisdom

• "It goes fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it. It all goes so fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it."
  — Helen Hunt (58:32)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:08 — Introduction to Helen Hunt’s career and its variety
• 01:41–05:15 — How the Hank-Helen internet connection began; reflections on Mad About You and sitcom dynamics
• 06:21 — Talking about the strangeness of fame
• 09:03–11:16 — Artistic impermanence; the “magic sentence” of creative works
• 16:41 — Growing up in a creative family; staying healthy as a child actor
• 22:31–25:02 — The "magic sentence"; theme of betrayal in Then She Found Me
• 30:26–32:41 — Acting out a pivotal scene; honesty about betrayal in relationships
• 37:38–40:13 — Talk about faith, mystery, and not knowing
• 45:06–46:35 — Christina Cook’s "crew" metaphor; all humans as crew
• 48:10 — Helen’s deep love for comedy and missing it
• 53:58–54:56 — The flexibility and changing incentives of the media landscape
• 58:32 — Helen’s closing advice: “It goes fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it …”

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Tone & Style

The episode’s tone is candid, philosophical, and peppered with dry humor. Both Hank and Helen are self-deprecating, intellectually curious, and open about vulnerability. Their dialogue moves easily from Hollywood anecdotes and creative process minutiae to big ideas about faith, meaning, and what persists in a noisy, impermanent world.

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Summary Conclusion

Hank Green and Helen Hunt’s conversation is a masterclass in the joys and struggles of creative life, a celebration of resilience and continual reinvention. Through stories of setback and triumph, deep dives into the writing and making of Then She Found Me, and wide-ranging musings on faith and human connection, the episode is both highly specific and universally resonant, a tribute to process over product and to the extraordinary weirdness of being human.

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Recommended for:
Anyone interested in the arts, Hollywood’s inner workings, creative resilience, or deep, honest conversations about life’s messiness and meaning.

Memorable final thought:
"It goes fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it." — Helen Hunt (58:32)

Transcript

[Hank Green]

This is humans.

[Helen Hunt]

Humans, Humans. Humans, humans, humans.

[Hank Green]

I'm Hank Green. Helen Hunt has had one of the stranger, more interesting careers that you can have as an artist in Hollywood. Not because of the highs, an Oscar, four Emmys, four Golden Globes, seven seasons of one of the most beloved sitcoms ever made, but because of the variety. She has acted, she's directed, she writes screenplays. She directed and wrote an indie movie that spent 10 years trying to get made, only to have it written, lose distribution. She's been in hit blockbuster movies, she's been in flops, she's done Shakespeare, she's done comedy and drama. Her IMDb is insane. Her most recent credit is like, now. Least recent is from 1973 when she was nine. She had at least one credit in every year from when she was nine until she was 38. And then she took like a one year break. She meditates daily, she surfs in Maui, she takes college literature classes as an antidote to Instagram. And she just received a lifetime achievement award at the Taormina Film Festival. This summer, she'll play opposite Kenneth Branagh at the Royal Shakespeare Company. What do women want? Apparently, variety. I am so excited to talk to Helen for a lot of reasons. I want to think with her about how we stay engaged in our world, how we do that intelligently and carefully. What keeps someone choosing harder, more interesting paths. How to not just ride waves, but go and find them. How to be absolutely relentless. Also, I want to take the chance to finally apologize for writing a two minute song about how I had a massive crush on her when I was in high school. In my defense, it was the first song I ever released on YouTube and I did not imagine it would ever reach her ears. But first, Helen Hunt, thank you for being here.

[Helen Hunt]

Thank you. Here's what I know you have good friends.

[Hank Green]

Oh, yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

So I got on Twitter back when it was Twitter. I guess it's not Twitter anymore. Yeah, sure. And I used to be on Twitter the way you watch a horror movie, if you're scared. Like you've got your hands up and you're peeking through your hands. I like half engaged. But your name kept coming up.

[Hank Green]

Oh, no.

[Helen Hunt]

And I didn't know who you were. And it kept coming up and coming up. I mean, that was a couple years.

[Hank Green]

A couple years of.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. And there was nothing creepy. But why is this name continually showing up? And then there was like a deluge of people saying, it's his birthday. Oh, write something. It would mean everything. And so I just took the leap of Faith that you weren't an axe murderer and I wrote you a happy birthday. But, like, what happened? Why me? How did it all start? Hank Green, Why has your name been in my head for decades and decades?

[Hank Green]

I will explain it to you.

[Helen Hunt]

Okay.

[Hank Green]

I was in high school as Mad about yout was happening. And you're a very beautiful person and very funny. And that show was like, oh, man. The way that Mad about yout is sexy is so good.

[Helen Hunt]

You were wise beyond your years if you were in high school and thought Mad about you was sexy. I thought it was sexy. But, like, you thought it was sexy.

[Hank Green]

I did. I did.

[Helen Hunt]

Well, that's great. I think that's a compliment to us both.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. A lot of people listening probably have not seen Mad about yout. But the great thing about it, there's so much like, TV sitcom about a husband and wife where the husband is, like, kind of big and bumbling and useless, and the wife is beautiful and skinny and strong. And the amazing thing about Mad about you is, like, you trade those roles off where, like, sometimes one is weak and the other has to be strong. And that's what marriage is actually like.

[Helen Hunt]

That was a very conscious goal.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. Oh, God.

[Helen Hunt]

Let's never let them say, he's the neurotic one and she's the strong one. So that's good that that landed.

[Hank Green]

The way that they were in love, physically and mentally was very good. The way that they were playful, the way that, like, sex was not something that was out of control, but was something that was, like, indulged in and loved.

[Helen Hunt]

Scheduled, sometimes scheduled, sometimes scheduled. And much like life, this is also how marriage is.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. And also Paul Reiser. No one gives him credit, but he's also hot.

[Helen Hunt]

Totally.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

And an actor. I knew his standup and I was just kind of attracted to his standup. Cause it wasn't mean. It lined up with my funny bone. And then I was in an acting class long before anybody knew who I was, except maybe you. And I noticed, like, oh, he cares enough to. In this hours long class, he's an actor. Because there are standups who do a perfectly lovely job on their TV shows, but they're not actors. So I kind of got, oh, he's an actor. And then this show came up and I had just started doing movies. And that was a time where if you did movies, you kind of didn't do tv. Like, finally, I'm out of TV and in movies, and I was starting to do movies, and he came over to my house for dinner because his Wife knew my roommate. It was all swell. And I chatted with him and. And then he said, I've got this show. And I thought, oh, shit, now I've done it. Now I'm gonna have to call this perfectly lovely person and say, I don't wanna be your wife in the show where I'm just your wife.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

But then I read it and I was like, ooh, this is a big juicy thing. And I would really like to be in it.

[Hank Green]

It's so interesting because YouTube was also like this for a while where, like, if you did YouTube, you couldn't be on TV. Now you kinda can now.

[Helen Hunt]

It's all just, the more, the more, the more, the more, the more. Yeah, well, that's how it should be.

[Hank Green]

And also, what is even TV anymore?

[Helen Hunt]

You say that like it's not a giant, like, hunk of the glacier that has fallen off of my work and career and all of my fellows, like, what is it anymore?

[Hank Green]

Yeah, it's very weird. We should get into the industry. But I want to finish my story about how this came to be, which is simply that I started this project with my brother in 2007, where we made videos back and forth to each other every day, which meant that we were always hungry to find something to talk about. And I had just started to learn how to play guitar. It was so fun to try and put that to. You know, I like comedy songs. And so I wrote basically a comedy song about being in love with Helen Hunt, which is too much, you know. Cause you're like a person in a way that I had no idea was the case at the time. That's such a strange thing about fame. I don't know. Perhaps we should talk about that, though, because you've been weirdly famous. There's like, Mad about yout Fame, and then there's like, winning an Oscar, as good as it gets across from Jack Nicholson fame. How have you felt about that? About how you take up space in a lot of people's heads?

[Helen Hunt]

I mean, it's confusing because I take up space in a lot of people's heads and then you haven't heard of me at all.

[Hank Green]

Oh, Twister.

[Helen Hunt]

Sorry, someone just instant message you and say Twister.

[Hank Green]

No, no.

[Helen Hunt]

Twister. Idiot.

[Hank Green]

I just assume that that is the thing you get recognized for the most.

[Helen Hunt]

It depends on where you are, depends on the demographic. But you're unusual that in high school you cared about Matt, about you. So you get some kind of extra points. And I'm not sure what category.

[Hank Green]

Well, I think it served me well. Whatever I learned from that show and. Or I learned that led me to enjoying that show has served me well.

[Helen Hunt]

There was a moment around 2000 where it was all happening at once, and that's when I suddenly went, oh, shit, what if this is forever? I was followed around and all those things that are a little disconcerting if you're a woman, especially paparazzi, not good. And I thought, what if this is forever? But it wasn't. And now I live in a city that's a little bit like, yeah, whatever, I just saw three much more famous people than you. So that kind of helps. And I don't know. I wanted a civilian life, and I got it. Now I want good work, which it helps to be more famous, to get good work.

[Christina Cook]

Oh, God.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

So that's where it's a little bit like, I really enjoy being a man among men and living a life on the ground like you do, and other people. But then it's harder to get the work that you want to do because they want famous people.

[Hank Green]

They want famous people. I mean, first of all, you don't have, like, I assume you don't have to work, but there's something that's kept you hungry and interested for all of these years and ambitious.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. Yeah, I am ambitious. It all comes back to, like, the words on the page. You know what I mean? I'm about to go do the Cherry Orchard. So this Russian beast of a play and a giant beast of a part, and I'm excited and scared, and I feel like my. I listened to one of your podcasts, and I thought, I bet our brains are so different. Yours seems all scrubbed and clean and science y, and mine's all art and fuzzy and filled with literature and then big, giant, gaping holes. But I love taking this thing I've done for my whole life, since I was 9 years old. This is an art, even though it's invisible.

[Hank Green]

Ooh, what does that?

[Helen Hunt]

Well, if you write a book, you hold it in your hand or you hold it on your Kindle, and if you paint a painting, you go, here it is. And then if you do this piece of work, it can. I believe, because I've been on the receiving end of it. It can matter to people. It can move people. It can give them a new perspective. It can give them a break from how hard the world is. I think theater and movies really can matter in a big way, but then it's gone. I'm going to step off stage in this play, and it'll. Did it ever happen?

[Hank Green]

Play definitely disappears. Movies don't disappear, but they are very sort of like, they take a time. They happen, you know, one second per second.

[Helen Hunt]

What does that mean? See, that's your scrubbed, crispy brain. What does that mean, one second per second?

[Hank Green]

Well, like a book. I can read a page and I can be like, ooh, I really liked that. And then I read the page again. Or I can like, ah, this paragraph isn't doing it for me. And I move on to the next one. A painting. You could spend zero seconds looking at a painting, or you could spend five years looking at a painting. Whereas a movie, if it's 88 minutes long, it's kind of 88 minutes long. You might. You might. You might go back or go to the bathroom, but, like, mostly it's 88 minutes long. So there is this thing about film and TV where they sort of, like, happen, and then you are expected to move on.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. I mean, there is that rare movie that. That walks alongside you your whole life, and they're different for everybody. You know what I mean? I've met people who say. Who live in places where there are tornadoes, who say every year when it's tornado season, we put it on. I'm like, really? And it's their comfort thing. And it's real. Like, I haven't heard it once. I've heard it 30 times. You know Jim Brooks's movies, which. I was in one, as Good As It Gets. He did Terms of Endearment, for example. That's a movie that could walk alongside you your whole life. And I think it keeps coming back to the writing. It's the writing. It's the writing. It's the writing.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. You don't necessarily even have to, like, watch it over and over again for it to hit over and over again.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. And if it gets you 10 years later, that's like, attention must be paid. Something has happened.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. There are those things in the world. This is really important, I think, because I didn't used to do this. I used to have these thoughts that I would return to over and over again. I'd be like, well, that's what it's like to be a person. And now I'm like, wait a second. Why is that happening?

[Helen Hunt]

Why is that sentence coming to you over and over?

[Hank Green]

Yeah. What is it about this thought that, like, has created such hooks in my brain? It, like, really must have fit into a problem I had and been something that was part of a solution that I needed.

[Helen Hunt]

A lot of people in their 20s read Rilke. I'm not the only one. God knows. It's almost a cliche, but there's a poem and there's a line. I want to be with those who know secret things. Or else alone. And I was like, that's me. And it's still true.

[Hank Green]

Oh, that's good.

[Helen Hunt]

So that's one of my. That's one that I have.

[Hank Green]

Do you. So I have been on like one set. I did like a commercial that was like a five minute movie. So I've done this one time, literally. And what it felt like is if it had extended for days, I would have fallen in love with these people. Even the ones I didn't like. We were like at summer camp, you know, we had to just like live in it.

[Helen Hunt]

That's it. You got it. I mean, even more in your 20s and 30s, you're. Because you're just, you know, let's all. We're all in a weird city outside of real time. It's. It's not the day world, it's the underworld. We're all in it together. And then the really disorienting part is when it ends. Like, where did everybody go?

[Hank Green]

It doesn't take that long sometimes to make a movie. Sometimes it's like two weeks. And then you never see these people again.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. And you've gotten so close and you've shared whatever the material has stirred up, and then it's over. When you're a kid, that was hard for me. Like, where did they all go? I thought they were my family.

[Hank Green]

Is there a person who you would pick to just, like, do a scene every time? Just somebody who's just like, it's comfortable and it's great and they're just a delight. Paul.

[Helen Hunt]

Paul Reiser. Comfortable in a delight. I mean. And I often to this day think, what if he'd been a drag? Yeah. What if we hadn't gotten along? Cause it ended up being eight years and I still. I got a text from him yesterday. Have you listened to Maggie Rogers music? No. You should. You'd love her. So he's still a friend, but the luck of that. I'm sure you hear about people on TV shows. I've directed TV shows. I directed a show in season one. The two leads got along great. And I came back to direct an episode in season two. And the first assistant director said, can I talk to you for a minute? And I went, oh, no. And I wanted to bash their heads together and say, in one minute. You won't have this job in one minute. Don't blow it by not enjoying it.

[Hank Green]

In one minute, you won't have this job. That also reminds me of this thing where you had this tension between not wanting to be more famous, having been inside of that, knowing that. It's awful. Just dehumanizing.

[Helen Hunt]

It's awful. Except you get good tickets to plays and seats in restaurants, which, honestly, you can't say it's so awful. Can I please get a table in one minute? You know what I mean? So, to be fair, it has both qualities, but it can have teeth. I mean, you know, it can be not good.

[Hank Green]

It can be dangerous.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah.

[Hank Green]

I mean, and then being like, okay, well, this isn't worth the trade off for me. It may be for some other people, but it's not worth the trade off for me. So the tables and the work are good parts of it. Was the part where, like, people loved you good?

[Helen Hunt]

Hmm. It's just, I used to love James. I do still love James Taylor. Just predictably. Wouldn't you, if somebody said, who do you think Helen Atlas loved growing up? Predictably. But I used to go to his concerts, and people who were obviously so moved by his songs would yell, I love you, James, and he'd nod, and then he goes, it helps not to know me. So even though that's a little bit snarky, it is a very different experience, you know, for the.

[Hank Green]

For sure.

[Helen Hunt]

The person who's being projected upon. Yeah. The weird thing is, I think that a fan. Cause I am a fan of many people, I can project something onto someone that is correct. It lines up, but it's still side by side. It's still two different things. How you are in my projection, even if I'm spot on. Do you know what I mean?

[Hank Green]

Oh, for sure. I always say that, like, everything you see of me is me, but you don't see all of me.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes, I guess that's it. But even if they guessed all of it, it's not. The two things don't.

[Hank Green]

Well, yeah, I mean, like, there's a

[Helen Hunt]

Venn diagram, but it doesn't line up totally.

[Hank Green]

Eventually you have to add on all the parts where you're just, like, annoyed because you're in the same room with me. Because that's, like, what we do eventually, you know? Eventually. Even like, all of the best is annoying in some moments. Mere exposure can be too much. So your dad directed theater?

[Helen Hunt]

He directed theater. That's primarily what he was. And then when he directed a lot of plays, then there weren't a lot of plays, and he was really A model of. You keep making work and the outside world will want it and then they won't want it and they'll want it and they won't want it. But you keep finding a way to make work. So he became an acting teacher. He directed animation. He directed and then he kind of aged out of that and someone approached him and said, would you ever want to do motion capture video games? My dad at like 77 wild. I know. So he learned. I have a great picture of him working with someone with the dots all over their face. Uh huh. He was like a Renaissance man. He just kept making work.

[Hank Green]

So your parents were somewhat aware of entertainment when you started?

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah, I grew up in an artsy community. My parents best friends were children's book illustrators and art historians and composers. So I wasn't like, sorry everybody, I want to be an actor. It was not outside their imagination that that might be where I'd land.

[Hank Green]

You have a credit on IMDb for like 49 of the last 53 years. That's freaking weird.

[Helen Hunt]

It is weird. It is weird.

[Hank Green]

So I want to talk a little bit about like starting out at nine, but then like it seems like you're fairly unscathed. Being a kid in Hollywood is not like famously the healthiest thing. But maybe there were things that made it a little safer for you.

[Helen Hunt]

A couple of good things happened. I started by studying acting even before the nine year old first job, and then studied all the way through and yesterday had a coach over here to work with me on Chekhov. So studying has been, I love it, I believe in it. I'm very rabbinical about the work, you know, only so that I can throw it out and have fun when I step in front of a camera or on stage. But I am like, coaches come over here and they're like, Jesus. One person said to me, they'll like offer something up and I taste it and go, that's not it. But when it's the right thing, I get very lit up and that's slightly more rewarding for them. So I think that was one thing, is that the acting itself was fun. It wasn't the set or the come and go of the famousness. The other thing is that I was lucky not to have the addiction gene because that takes so many people in our lives down in the business. I didn't have that. Very lucky. And I was never on a big hit show as a kid, so I didn't have to overcome that.

[Hank Green]

That's really interesting.

[Helen Hunt]

The good thing about all these weird credits you haven't heard of is. I just got to act and work and meet people. And I had a couple of not great things happen on movie sets, definitely, but I never had to. Over, like, I see what Daniel Radcliffe is doing on stage, and he's like, fuck all y'.

[Hank Green]

All.

[Helen Hunt]

I am working and working and working and coaching and working and singing and working. And you can Harry Potter all you want, but here I am in my next show. I mean, that's. I didn't have to do quite that. Cause I didn't have that huge thing. And by the time Mad about yout happened, I was in a bunch of movies. So it all kind of became a deck that got shuffled, and I wasn't pigeonholed into anything.

[Hank Green]

There's such a gift. I've had this in my career, too. To, like, no exponentials, just linears.

[Helen Hunt]

There's your brain again. Dumb it down and tell me what you mean.

[Hank Green]

No. Like, suddenly, I'm huge, but instead, like, it's just getting a little bigger every year. Or it's getting a little smaller every year. It's getting a little bigger every. And you're just sort of like, you ramped into Mad about yout. And I don't know how old you were in that series, but, like, you

[Helen Hunt]

were an adult 29 or 30 to 37 or 8. So, yeah, I had already worked a lot. In fact, when people came, you know, we had the best guest stars of any show in the history of television shows. It just became a cool thing for these generation before us comedians to come on the show. And they just kept coming and coming and coming. But when we'd have younger people guest star, none of us were like, hi, we're the home team. You're here for a day. We all were very aware that in five minutes we'd be a guest star on their TV show. That we're all just journeyman actors. Right now we can exhale because we have a cushy job. Tomorrow we won't. So that was, I think, what made the set a place people wanted to be.

[Hank Green]

Did you always see it as work? Did you understand it as, like, a job people have?

[Helen Hunt]

I was with my dad when I was very young, and he was directing plays, and he took me to the theater, and I just knew, I want to be in these rooms. I really never thought about acting. I certainly didn't think about big sex. I wanted to be in these rooms with these people. Overwhelmingly yummy people are drawn to the theater, like, inclusive, weird in the best way. Literary people are Drawn to being in those rooms, I was like, I want to be with them. I also had that feeling of like, a story is being told that might be scary or sad, but it's also safe because we're in this container together. We're all in this room, and we know it's gonna end. So we can put our toes in these funny waters. These spooky. I loved that. So that's what I knew in terms of getting jobs at that young age. It was sort of like other people were in band practice at school, and I was going off to do a couple of episodes of a TV show or be in a movie. It wasn't a career path at all. It was just, I'm liking this. The way people say, I like cheerleading. I like, you know, math club. Yeah, I liked this.

[Hank Green]

And I've heard you say that. If you don't like it when it's a grubby bunch of weirdos, get out playing for 30 people. Just don't do it.

[Helen Hunt]

Don't do it. Cause that's mostly what it is.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

Truly, in the best way.

[Hank Green]

I was surprised the first time they put me in a room with, like, a true crew. And like, how much of it was nothing. Just like me standing around while the cameras got. Just a huge amount of that.

[Helen Hunt]

But the exception is when the crew actually gets invested in the story. I was in this movie called the Sessions. And it was a very delicate story about a man, a differently abled man, and his desire for sexuality. And that's where I come in. I mean, it was so vulnerable. Not hot, steamy love scenes, like the most deconstructing sexuality. And it was vulnerable for the characters we were playing. It was vulnerable for the actors. And I remember this moment where the dolly grip, so the guy who's got the camera on wheels and has to roll it into place. We had this tender scene where naked or half naked or something, and I remember him rolling the camera onto the mark while looking away.

[Hank Green]

Oh, my God.

[Helen Hunt]

And I thought, he cares. He cares to not embarrass the actors. But he also. I could tell they believed in the story. And so that's cool when people other than the actors and the director actually care about getting it right. And overwhelmingly, that's true. It matters to the costume designer if the raincoat is off. Cause a bad raincoat, you know, could ruin a movie. Jim Brooks once said, that's interesting.

[Hank Green]

So you are, in a way, performing in public. It's just for a smaller public, like, there is a little bit of an audience There. But all people who are very invested. Well, not necessarily.

[Helen Hunt]

I guess there are times when you're acting your heart out, you look over and some grip is texting, and you're like, oh, it matters not at all to you. Yeah.

[Hank Green]

I'd never heard this before, but I heard you talk about the magic sentence. Can you explain what the magic sentence is?

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. I've written now three screenplays. I'm about a week away from being done with the third one.

[Hank Green]

Oh, congratulations.

[Helen Hunt]

Humbly. And I've been in a lot of movies with a lot of good writers and directors and the best ones you find. What is the magic sentence of the movie? So, for example, I made this movie called Then She Found Me, which does mean a whole lot to me. I told my daughter, when I die, don't have a memorial. Just show that movie. Everything that is me is in that movie. It'll be done. It'd be so easy. Thank you very much. So it took me a decade to find what the sentence of the movie is. And for that movie, it ended up being, you can't really love until you've made peace with betrayal with a capital B. And I got that. There's a writer I love. Do you know James Hellman?

[Hank Green]

No.

[Helen Hunt]

Oh, fun to turn you on to a writer. He's a first generation Jewish Jungian, and he wrote an essay called Betrayal. And I was going through something in my life, Hank, where that essay. In fact, I had it on my desk for a long time. A therapist had given it to me, and I mean, three times I had it in my hand over the trash and then went, maybe I'll keep it. And then one day I was like, I think it's time to read the essay on betrayal. But it's not just about the kind of betrayal you would imagine. It was about feeling betrayed by. Let's not go down the rabbit hole of what it is. Is it something bigger than me? Is it fate? Is it the way things go? Is it God? Whatever it is, yeah.

[Hank Green]

The universe is cruel.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. And in the worst circumstances, people rightfully fall to their knees and go, why?

[Hank Green]

Why?

[Helen Hunt]

And this essay dares to take that on. And I can't probably do it on a podcast or squish it down into that. Compress it into a thumbnail or something. But it got to me that maybe betrayal isn't outside of the plan. If there is a plan or the way things are, maybe it is part of it. I'll just leave it at that. And then I went, that's what this movie's about. And then I was able to write it. And anything that supported that you keep and everything that doesn't, you throw away. And it affected things. Bette Midler's in the movie, and she plays someone who betrays me over and over and over. And it affected what she wore. She thought she played a daytime talk show hostess. She kept saying, I thought I'd be in poochie blouses. I don't know what a poochie blouse even is. But I put her in these classy jewel tone colors so that the audience and my character would go, I think she's actually the real deal. Smash. You get portrayed Bette Midler.

[Hank Green]

Her character is like, spot on in that. Like, I understand every choice she makes, and they are all bad choices. Like, she keeps making total understandable bad choices, which I love. Because you want to not hate these people even as they hurt each other. So the magic sentence. I wrote two novels, and I think that I had one stronger for the first one than the second one. But I didn't know what it was until I heard you talk about this. And then I wrote down the magic sentence for an absolutely remarkable thing, which is, you will become what the world wants you to be.

[Helen Hunt]

Oh, wow. Oy vey. Really? Wow.

[Hank Green]

One of the things you said about the magic sentence is it's not really a good one unless you can argue about it.

[Helen Hunt]

The one I remember when I worked with Jim Brooks is he said in broadcast news, you can't love someone you don't respect. So if you think about that movie, she loves this guy and then sees this moment of horror from everything that matters to her. Can she still love him? So you and I could go have dinner and go, she still loves him, right or wrong. And you could say, it's not real love. Cause she, you know, like, it's just in that way.

[Hank Green]

But do you think you become what the world wants you to be?

[Helen Hunt]

I really hope not. Yeah, I really hope not. I mean, I. Because I don't know what the world wants me to be, but fricking Instagram, you know, let's hope it's not that.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. Yeah. So my story is about a young woman who has a bunch of very weird things happen to her and as a result becomes very, very famous. And she becomes what the world wants her to be. And it's not pretty.

[Helen Hunt]

I mean, maybe that's life's work, to not be that. Yeah, right. I don't know. I think maybe one of the reasons you even want me on this podcast is who could figure out what the world wants me to be. Really? What do you think?

[Hank Green]

I mean, the world wanted you to be things at certain times. And let's be honest, like what the world really wants of, you know, aging women is not much, you know?

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. Or get plastic surgery or. Why did you get plastic surgery?

[Hank Green]

To me, the universe wanted you to be famous. The universe wanted you to go hard. And you took the break. You said no.

[Helen Hunt]

I mean, I kind of took the break. And the break was kind of thrust upon me. I did somewhat take the break. I wanted to have a civilian life. Did you see that George Clooney movie where he plays a very famous movie star, Jay Kelly? And he says something like, the business was saying, you cannot stop for one second or we'll abandon you. And then he says, and it was true. I was right. If I had stopped, it would've. And so I did feel like I don't necessarily wanna do the next rom com. I do wanna be able to not do that movie so I could have a minute to have a real life, really be there with my kid. And naively didn't quite understand it would not be there in its full bloom when I returned. But then the business changed too. So also, if there's any design to the whole thing, and I'm not saying there is, I am now doing these plays. I have been handed these parts that are like, what I started the whole thing for.

[Hank Green]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

So would I have said yes if I was on another TV show for eight years? Would I have even been available? No. So at some point, begrudgingly cranky as anything, maybe you have to have faith that it's happening in a way that is good for you.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. I mean, it feels like you want to work.

[Helen Hunt]

I want to work on good stories. That's really all it is. It's not even the part like a good story.

[Hank Green]

So my wife acts in theater. And it looks so good to be thrust into this space with these people and then to be asked to do hard things and deep things. And that's what it is.

[Helen Hunt]

Hard, deep things. And I have an appetite for that.

[Hank Green]

You have written and then you ended up directing, starring in and producing. I mean, producing the whole time, like trying to figure out how to get this thing to happen.

[Helen Hunt]

That's all that means. Producing is begging. Producing is, you know, get the thing off the ground.

[Hank Green]

I mean, with. Then she found me. You started with source material. I did, but did a lot of creating from scratch on top of that source material. What are you getting drawn in by what do you think that is?

[Helen Hunt]

Well, I just want to get the story made, and no one else wrote it, so I had to write it. And then no one else was making it, so I had to make it. And there was one time we were getting ready to make the movie at four times the budget. It ended up being made. We got the money. I had bags packed and kids in camp and really a suitcase out. And I got the call, it fell apart. And I said to him, like, who gets their movie made? I was super at the peak of these peaks and valleys at that moment. Like, who? And he said, whoever doesn't give up. So that's been my motto. You can quit or you can keep going. And so if it's true that the person who gets the movie made is the guy who doesn't give up, I have a good chance because I'm not a very givvy, uppy kind of person.

[Hank Green]

Do you think Then She Found Me is a romantic comedy.

[Helen Hunt]

Sure. About betrayal by God, parenthetically.

[Hank Green]

And also lots of other people around you. It's so funny.

[Helen Hunt]

Thank you, but.

[Hank Green]

Okay, I'm gonna do something that. So there's a chat on the right hand side here, and I'm gonna paste in a scene from this movie. Can you see it?

[Helen Hunt]

Not yet. I knew this would happen. This is the generational moment. Yes, I do. I see it and I've clicked it. Oh, yes.

[Hank Green]

It's okay if you don't want to do this, but can we run this scene?

[Helen Hunt]

You want to switch parts? Come on. Don't make me do my own scene in a movie.

[Hank Green]

Okay.

[Helen Hunt]

Come on.

[Hank Green]

Okay.

[Helen Hunt]

All right. I'm playing Colin Firth, and you're playing Helen Hunt.

[Hank Green]

Playing Helen Hunt.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes.

[Hank Green]

Perfect. This is not what I thought was gonna happen. You were making me do much more work.

[Helen Hunt]

Okay. Check. Okay.

[Hank Green]

I know what I did to you. To you in particular. Kind of worst nightmare kind of thing. Right? I knew that. Even at the time, I knew that.

[Helen Hunt]

What else?

[Hank Green]

I'll do it again. I will. I'll hurt you again and again. Not like that. You'd have to leave me if I hurt you like that. If we were together, you would leave me if I hurt you like that again, wouldn't you?

[Helen Hunt]

Yes. Yes, I would.

[Hank Green]

Good. But I'll hurt you in other ways, little ways. I won't mean to, but I will. And sometimes I will mean to.

[Helen Hunt]

This is quite an offer you've worked out.

[Hank Green]

You'll hurt me, too, you know. You'll hurt me and change on me. You might even leave me after you promise you won't. How about that?

[Helen Hunt]

I wouldn't.

[Hank Green]

But you might.

[Helen Hunt]

But I wouldn't.

[Hank Green]

But you might.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah, I guess I might. You're so sweet to notice that. Thank you. This is what I mean. So at my funeral, which you hopefully will attend, if you have any sense of decency, just make sure they play this movie.

[Hank Green]

You've said it enough. Now I feel like it's a requirement. So rom coms have this moment where, like, Tom Cruise busts into the elevator and Renee Zellweger is like, you had me at hello.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes.

[Hank Green]

This is, like, the sweetest one I've ever read because it's way more honest than all the other ones. Because, like, it's saying, what we will promise here is that we're gonna do the hard thing. And then at the end of it, your character makes Frank. Colin Firth's character makes him admit it. This is in sickness and in health, but in, like, a much more beautiful, strong. It's not just sickness and health. It's like, I'm gonna be part of the sickness sometimes. Like, I'm gonna hurt you.

[Helen Hunt]

This is the wish of the betrayal thing. You know, this is the trying to fit the betrayal message. Now, it also says if you've seen the movie, you can see there's certain kinds of betrayal we're not hanging around for.

[Hank Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

It's just we don't do that. But nevertheless, those things that come out of our mouth, those things we forget, those things we do on purpose even, and then have to go, oh, my God, I just took a bite out of the person I love more than anything on earth. I was interested in that, in two people who might step forward together, knowing that that is part of the human experience.

[Hank Green]

I mean, what a fricking tear jerker it is.

[Helen Hunt]

It's a little weepy at the end. And I have to give credit to the dp. The very last shot was supposed to be like the second to the last thing. And as he was shooting the last shot, he said, this is your ending out loud.

[Hank Green]

Oh, yeah. That actual last shot is. Really gets you.

[Helen Hunt]

That's all Peter Donahue.

[Hank Green]

It's called Then She Found Me. And, like, it couldn't find an audience quickly.

[Helen Hunt]

Well, because it didn't come out. It came out in two little cities and got some really lovely reviews. Not all, but a couple of people really got it. And then it was supposed to come out on Mother's Day, and then the company that bought it fell apart on the day. And so it was. They went chapter 11 and there was no ads in any anywhere. Talk about a heartache. Ten years later. Like, what do you. How do you make meaning out of that?

[Hank Green]

How did you handle that?

[Helen Hunt]

I wish I had some hack. Well, I just took four walks a day and it didn't hurt anymore. I just was super sad and shocked and devastated. Yeah, I don't have a. I don't have any spin on it. You know when people come up to me and say, for these reasons that movie mattered, or for no reason, because the movie got them. But for some people, they have personal stories that line up with some of the stories in this. That's super satisfying.

[Hank Green]

You know, it's Colin Firth, it's Beth Midler, it's Helen Hunt.

[Helen Hunt]

Matthew Broderick.

[Hank Green]

Matthew Broderick, who I don't even wanna mention. Cause his character's such a slappy.

[Helen Hunt]

But he's so good.

[Hank Green]

He's so good. That guy. I hate that guy. I've known that guy.

[Helen Hunt]

Me too. I used to love that guy. You hope to graduate from that guy at some point.

[Hank Green]

Something super interesting that. I heard you say that when you write something, you hit the last draft. But then when you get to direct it, that's yet another draft. This hit me kind of hard. And it's got to be so weird and scary because you're drafting it as a director. You're drafting it with these tools that you don't have total control over. Which are these people? Whether they're the actors or the crew. Is that. How does that feel?

[Helen Hunt]

That's the best part. You can't believe it. You've been sitting in a room for one year or ten years or seven years. Writing something. Writing something. Writing something. And you give it to a few people to meet. Let's say you give it to a production designer or a cameraman. And they come back to you and they go, here's what I see. And this makes me think of this movie. And what if all the colors were muted? And what if the camera never cut here? And what if it was hand? And you're like, you see what I. But I wrote. Not to mention, you can bring it to life and create another draft just by how you shoot it. Or whether you put wallpaper or paint on the walls. You cannot believe that anybody even gets or gives a shit about what you poured your heart into. And suddenly they do. And they are bringing it, you know, from Dorothy in the house to the yellow brick road in front of you. That's one of the most fun parts.

[Hank Green]

Is it just fun? Are there Moments where, like, you just don't get it. Like, I can't get this guy to get it.

[Helen Hunt]

Well, I directed a movie where the prop guy was mostly high and not there. So that was hard.

[Hank Green]

Sure. Sure.

[Helen Hunt]

That was tough.

[Hank Green]

Just people being bad at their jobs.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. They're just bad at their jobs. That kills you. Because you expect, rightly and wrongly, for people to care as much as you. You know, you hope they do. And people are good at their jobs, take pride in their jobs. They're running through the sand, not making enough money, and, you know, trying to help you get that last shot because you can't afford to come back another day. It's very moving to see people give a shit. It really is to me.

[Hank Green]

You know, most actors don't become directors.

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah.

[Hank Green]

And, like, most actors don't become screenwriters.

[Helen Hunt]

And not working helps, really. That phase where I wanted to have

[Hank Green]

a baby, let me tell you, I think a lot of actors aren't working.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes, that is true. I look around at my community, and everyone's like, what happened? But honestly, I never would have made. Then she found me, except that I was pregnant and wanted to have a little time, to have a, you know, regular life. And then I was like, but where's all the 50 movies where I left off? And they weren't flying in. So guess what? I sat down and wrote this thing that. Even though it broke my heart. Cause everyone in the world hasn't seen it. It's. You know, I'm very, very proud of it. And I wouldn't have done it if, you know, Martin Scorsese had been demanding I be in three movies in a row. It wouldn't have happened.

[Hank Green]

Why is Salman Rushdie? And then she found me.

[Helen Hunt]

Okay, there's a reason.

[Hank Green]

That's really weird.

[Helen Hunt]

I know. That's a bummer. It is weird. You're right. And it's a bummer that it's weird. Here was. Are you ready?

[Hank Green]

Well, let me just say Salman Rushdie is a writer. He is not an actor, and he is just the doctor in this movie.

[Helen Hunt]

Okay, hold on. There's a reason this movie touches on, for lack of a better word. God. I don't have a great relationship with that word, but I don't think I made everything. So that's where I sit with all of that. And it's not only a movie about betrayal by, you know, me or Colin Firth. It's a movie about betrayal by something. Something bigger. And so when they pray three quarters of the way through the movie, I didn't Want it to necessarily be a Judeo Christian version of praying. It's not about that. It's about wanting something so bad, even if it's not your thing. You know, there's no atheists in foxholes, whatever that is. I didn't want it to necessarily be a Judeo Christian version of that. I wanted it to be more inclusive. So I auditioned a bunch of people, South East Asian actors, couldn't find the right person. They approached him without even me knowing it. Are you willing to audition? Yes. And he did it. And he was good in the audition and in the thing.

[Hank Green]

He was great.

[Helen Hunt]

But I get that it's weird. I get that it's weird.

[Hank Green]

You were talking just now about how you don't have a great relationship with the word God. Would you be willing to talk about that?

[Helen Hunt]

Yeah. Tentatively, gently. If I talk about it, I don't want to be poking it. People's very, very, very precious thing. I'll just say Annie Lamott, I believe. Do you know her? You must know her. Bird by Bird. Do you have that book, Hank? Look, call me.

[Hank Green]

I'm a big old nerd. I read Sci Fi.

[Helen Hunt]

You're a writer. You're a writer. Read Bird by Bird. It's about writing. I could hand it to you. It's right here. I think she says it's like a bad nickname to her. She's very Christian, actually, and very devoted to God and recovery. She writes about it. Here's actually the one thing I wanna say about this. There are comedians, directors I love that have made work absolutely proving the lack of whatever you wanna call it, let's call it God for shorthand.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

And there are obviously tons of people who say not only is it real, I know what it is. And it looks like this white guy and nothing else will do. Both sides annoy me. Honestly. Is there no space for mystery? Can we not say there is one thing we don't know? What keeps the whole thing of being alive sort of spicy is we don't know? Well, I've heard you say that you're not a God person. Can't we say we don't know? Can't there be one thing we just don't know for sure?

[Hank Green]

Oh, there's so much that we don't know for sure. When I say that I don't believe in God, what I mean is I don't believe the God as it was pitched to me.

[Helen Hunt]

Amen. No pun intended. Yes. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

[Hank Green]

God could be everything from like, the alien that pushes the button on the simulation that started the universe to like, the thing that exists between two people that is not measurable, but is the most interesting and complex thing in the

[Helen Hunt]

universe that's closer to me. Even if you go broader than two people, it is that thing that words can't touch. I don't know what it is. I don't know. And I don't even know that it is, but I know that I don't know. And I don't think anybody else knows either. And that's exciting. That's like. And then when people use the word faith, I think they're saying, well, whatever road you choose, you don't get to know. And maybe that's good.

[Hank Green]

I mean, the big thing I believe in is people. But I think that it's so hard to know how to be a person that I, like, begrudge no one any tool that allows them to do it well or better.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes, for sure.

[Hank Green]

Or to handle the betrayal.

[Helen Hunt]

Right. And so it helps me to say help and I look up or out if I can see one leaf or one bit of sky, that helps. Beyond that, I know nothing. I know nothing.

[Hank Green]

I don't expect you to know what the universe is made of, but I do.

[Helen Hunt]

How big was this crush? Not that big, I guess.

[Hank Green]

I like that you think this is a past tense crush. How different is it to act in something that someone else has written and is directing than to do it yourself?

[Helen Hunt]

Very different. I don't even know if it's acting when you wrote it yourself. I guess it is, but you always are. You know, there is a moment I do all this work, all this work. I've been working for a year on this freaking play and then at the one yard line, I'm going to let it all go and walk out there and hope that something happens and that all that work will inform what happens. But I will not be able to call on it or remember it or use it it intentionally. But when you're directing, it's like whatever the most twisty yoga pose is in the world. On the one hand you're pouring yourself into the part and on the other hand you're going. The camera got there late. I know it got there late. I could see it out of the corner of my eye. So you just have to be extra ready.

[Hank Green]

Yes.

[Helen Hunt]

And there's a loss and there's a gain.

[Hank Green]

I have this weird thing, Helen, where I feel like we celebrate the actors, but we don't celebrate the writers and it's just because they're the faces that we see and so they're easier to pay attention to is what it feels like to me. But they're just saying the words that the people wrote down. They're saying, I'm good, but like the.

[Helen Hunt]

I won four Emmys for Mad about yout and I always heard you're like us in our living room. Our writers never got noticed. The reason the show was special was the writing. The writing, the writing that's not taking away from this weird chemical thing that happened with me and Paul. What an incredible actor he is. But all of these incredible writers and somehow everybody thought, oh, it's Helen and Paul. It was not the case.

[Hank Green]

But there is. I mean, obviously there is something to the performers. You know, the way you talk in that show. I love your voice in that show. Like, I love her voice.

[Helen Hunt]

It's me. It's very me. If I had great writers staying up till three in the morning, organizing it and putting it on paper.

[Hank Green]

All of your quips at a cocktail party.

[Helen Hunt]

And part of it's not me.

[Hank Green]

Yeah, yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

I mean, and then if you talked about as Good As It Gets, all of his movies, I mean, I think the reason he's one of those filmmakers that you can't change the channel if you come upon it, it's the writing. I'm so proud of the work I did in that movie. And Jack Nichols, I mean, come on, it's, you know, actors working at their highest level. And I can say at the same time, all of it is the writing.

[Hank Green]

Do you really not feel as much of a connection when you are acting as when you are?

[Helen Hunt]

I feel at least as much of a connection because I've poured myself into it. But then I have to go home and I can't, I can't change it. I'm not in charge of it. I can't edit it. I can't. But you pour yourself in. Jack said once he's directed movies and he said acting is harder and what's harder than define hard. But what he meant was you pour yourself in in a very non linear, non thinky way. Like it is flirting with being out of control when you act. Which is why it's good for me because I'm awfully organized, so it's good to mess that up.

[Hank Green]

Interesting.

[Helen Hunt]

But when you're directing, I mean, you get in this state of mind where you are like, I'm going to land this ship and I'm going to be soft with you because it helps you do good Work. And I'm going to be harsh with you because that helps you do good work. And I'm going to beg this person for a favor. And I'm. I mean, you get very singular of focus.

[Hank Green]

This is a weird thing to bring up, but I was listening to Christina Cook, the astronaut who just went to the moon and back.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes, the crew. We're all a crew.

[Hank Green]

The crew.

[Christina Cook]

A crew is people or, you know, a group that is in it all the time, no matter what, that is stroking together every minute with the same purpose, that is willing to sacrifice silently for each other, that gives grace, that holds accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs. And a crew is inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked. So when we saw tiny Earth people, asked our crew what impressions we had, and honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth. It was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe. I may have not learned. I know I haven't learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there's one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth. You are a crew. Thank you.

[Hank Green]

That's going to stick with me for so long.

[Helen Hunt]

May 20. How beautiful is that at this moment?

[Hank Green]

So, like, a piece of that is that humans are the crew. Like, we are all in this together. Like, what is this? Yeah, we're in it all.

[Helen Hunt]

Like, all. Not kind of all. Not all that fit into my box.

[Christina Cook]

All.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

It's a tall order. If you really hear what she said.

[Hank Green]

Oh, no, it's the tallest order. But there's also a piece of what she's saying that, like, there are times, like, when you have a job, you're working on a team, but when you're, like, in a theater, you're kind of working on a crew. I don't think that we should ask that of each other all of the time. But it is really nice to have some moments when we are all, like, of these 10 people, all have to be pulling the oar in the same direction at the same time at the same speed.

[Helen Hunt]

And I do better if you do better. And I do better if you do better.

[Hank Green]

Those moments are so lovely.

[Helen Hunt]

The psychedelic thing is then it applies to the audience that comes in. Somehow you're saying, and you are also part of the crew.

[Hank Green]

I'm such, like, an indie little guy.

[Helen Hunt]

You are. You're writing books and in your room with your headphones on.

[Hank Green]

I'm just editing my own videos. When I do stand up, like, I'm on a stage, but it's just me. And, like, all the words that I've

[Helen Hunt]

written, I really need community. Like, that's something I need. I have people in the living room doing play readings, and I'm meeting a dear friend for lunch after this. And I need community, for sure.

[Hank Green]

Do you ever miss comedy, though? Like, just straight comedy so bad

[Helen Hunt]

there are no words for how much. Oh, I grew up on Lucille Ball. I grew up on I Love Lucy. Like, that's. That's how I grew up. And then I ended up in a sitcom about a married couple living in New York City. But the joy of. And, you know, it takes so much detail, kind of brainy work to say, no, you gotta put the napkin on the edge of the counter. Cause if I don't grab it the first time, it won't be funny when I slam the refrigerator. But then you go. And if you have a partner that you trust, which I did, I miss it so bad.

[Hank Green]

Have you ever thought about, like. I mean, I think the answer is no, but have you ever thought about just, like.

[Helen Hunt]

Are you about to say stand up? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Hank Green]

Oh, my God. I can't picture it, but I think that you would do great.

[Helen Hunt]

No, I can't quite picture it.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

One woman show, maybe. I don't know.

[Hank Green]

That's the bridge.

[Helen Hunt]

That's the gateway drug.

[Hank Green]

Just tell a story and have jokes in it, you know?

[Helen Hunt]

But why not have other people with me? Why be alone?

[Hank Green]

Because I'm. Because I don't know what's wrong with me, Helen.

[Helen Hunt]

I don't know. Do you overwhelmingly like it and once in a while wish you had more community, or is it a real thing where you're like, I gotta figure out how to turn this into having more of a crew? Uh. Oh, I'm so sorry. You're welcome.

[Hank Green]

I'll take that one and I'll work on it later.

[Helen Hunt]

Okay. When we do this again in a year, you can tell me what you came up with.

[Hank Green]

Oh, my God. That's an interesting question. That's an interesting what is going on here? Kind of thing. I think that I can get frustrated by other people.

[Helen Hunt]

That's the annoying thing about other people, is that they can be annoying.

[Hank Green]

When you spend so much time doing it on your own, where it's just like. I don't know. I like the inner critic and I don't like the outer critic.

[Helen Hunt]

Amen to that. I don't even like the inner Critic.

[Hank Green]

Oh, I love the inner critic, man. He's got great taste. He's always right.

[Helen Hunt]

You should read that end the Mupp book.

[Hank Green]

Okay. Is there a part of how you're looking for projects now? Is, like Community a big part of that?

[Helen Hunt]

Well, looking for projects. I don't know how to look because either they offer it to you or they don't. Which is the worst, worst, worst, worst part. Or you work on it yourself. So I have a writing partner and we wrote a piece based on things I'd been through. And then it all got fictionalized and brought a whole other story into it. And we were gonna make it as a TV show at the perfect network bought it and we had a writer's room and it was Alma. They didn't make it it. So we licked our wounds and are now just about done writing it as a screenplay. And that's been nice. It just helps if you're not a person who's alone in the room with the headphones. If you are out there in Community, it helps. Like, I gotta write with Wayne at 10 o'. Clock. Really gets your ass in the chair. Which is a big part of the Overcome for me, you know, What I

[Hank Green]

found was the thing that got me to finish the book was like, once I once I created characters that were, like, real enough, I just couldn't imagine leaving them there in the middle. I, like, had to get them all the way through. They were like the community.

[Helen Hunt]

They were counting on you.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

Well, the beautiful, torturous thing, if you ever step into the movie world is you won't believe someone could actually bring it to life. Or you'll go, that's not exactly what I. Yeah, I don't watch movies I'm in. And I'll go to see him once if there's a thing.

[Hank Green]

Premiere. Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

Because for me, working on material, especially something as rich as what I'm working on now is this 3D. I use my dreams, I free associate. I use Michael Chekhov's work, who was Anton Chekhov's nephew who developed a whole thing about imagination. It's so rich. And then I see the movie and I'm like, well, it's fine. I don't know. Sure, it was fine. Or yeah, I was kind of moved. But it's not the feeling of working on it, that is. When people say process, that's the rich part.

[Hank Green]

So obviously the incentives have continued to change in movies. But, like, media is such an incentivesy thing. You know, the medium is the message. Like how we can build Economies around content really affects what kind of content gets made. And that has changed a ton in your career. How are you processing that?

[Helen Hunt]

I want to make sure I understand. Do you mean like the way it used to be in terms of there were four or five networks and then now there's a million and.

[Hank Green]

Yeah, I mean, like, there's like a TV difference, there's a movie difference in terms of like, you know, does anybody go and watch a dialogue based comedy anymore?

[Helen Hunt]

I can't even. This is so excruciating. It really is. Can't you do something? You're on the cutting edge of things. Can't you fix it somehow?

[Hank Green]

I can tell you a bunch of things that will not make you feel good.

[Helen Hunt]

No, I don't want that.

[Hank Green]

I can add to the list of worries.

[Helen Hunt]

No, thank you. No, thank you. Hard pass.

[Hank Green]

Oh, man.

[Helen Hunt]

My daughter goes to movies that's promising. You have to be 22. They matter to her.

[Hank Green]

The biggest piece of hope that I can say is that people under the age of 30 were on the Internet less this year than they were last year.

[Helen Hunt]

Right.

[Hank Green]

Now that is from a very high peak. Yes, but it is the first time it's gone the last few years or the first time it's gone down in a long time. And I.

[Helen Hunt]

Everything falls apart. Everything falls apart ultimately. So, yeah, yeah.

[Hank Green]

There is this weird effect where, you know, everything has fractured and when everything fractures, there's just less money to go around.

[Helen Hunt]

Right.

[Hank Green]

You know, I'm out here on YouTube getting 2 million views on a video and I, you know, I can't believe

[Helen Hunt]

I was on a television show during a time when how many millions of people watched it at the same time? Yeah, it's shocking. Yeah.

[Hank Green]

It's a different world for sure.

[Helen Hunt]

It's a different world for sure.

[Hank Green]

You know, art is subject to the incentives. Art is subject to culture. Art is subject to technology. It feels like it isn't. It feels like it should exist, sort of like out there in some between everything space. But it is.

[Helen Hunt]

Here comes another reference you're not going to care about. Do you know Sunday in the park with George?

[Hank Green]

I've heard of it.

[Helen Hunt]

You and I should really be pooling our resources because you know so many things I don't know that I'm not even smart enough to even quantify it.

[Hank Green]

The Venn diagram of Helen Hunt and Hank Green is really not overlaps at all.

[Helen Hunt]

Well, a little bit, but not a lot. Anyway, Stephen Sondheim wrote a musical about George Seurat, the painter that's all about this.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

There's a song called Art Isn't Easy, and there's a song about what it means to finish the painting. And you have to get money if you want anyone to see it, but you got to finish, finish it. It's an honest fight. That's what I can say. It's an honest struggle. And there's something to that.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. I feel so entire. Like, not entirely, but, like, you know, I wrote a book that's about, like, you becoming what the world wants you to be. And I feel that way about art. I feel like that, like, the art that gets created is the art that will get viewed, that will get supported, that will.

[Helen Hunt]

Like, not me. I made the art and not a lot of people saw it.

[Hank Green]

Yeah.

[Helen Hunt]

But on my deathbed, am I gonna wish I made something I didn't love as much and more people saw? No, I'm not.

[Hank Green]

I have, like, an itch in me before we end to pitch people on this movie. And then she found me.

[Helen Hunt]

I am grateful. I didn't even talk to you about it ahead. I want everybody to know that.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. Like, do you love, like, Pride and Prejudice?

[Helen Hunt]

It's very meaningful to me. Thank you. Because I think you're. The technical term is a smarty pants. And so the fact that you feel that way is very meaningful, and I really appreciate it. Really? Really.

[Hank Green]

I love Colin Firth. He's like, I know.

[Helen Hunt]

What a dreamboat. He showed up with all of that, but, like, just. I gave him one tiny little nudge for one take. That's the most fun part of directing. You say something to an actor that doesn't. Like, how many pieces of direction have I gotten where my shoulders just droop? Like, how am I gonna make this director think I'm doing it the way they want? But really, I'm gonna try to keep some kind of creativity alive. So when you can say something to an actor and it lights them up a little, that is the best, best, best, best, best part of the whole thing.

[Hank Green]

Whereas when I have acted, I'm always like, can you just say it the way you want me to say it? And I can do that. And the directors are like, no, we're not allowed to do that.

[Helen Hunt]

No. Because we were all told we're not allowed to give a line reading.

[Hank Green]

Yeah. One of the things I have found as I have approached mid career is I always feel better about the great work that I help other people with than the work that I do myself, because I never believe that my stuff is that good. Like, my success doesn't Feel as good as the success of someone who I helped.

[Helen Hunt]

What's your. Then she found me. What's the thing that you. Whether a lot of people saw it or nobody saw it, you know, in your heart of hearts, like, I'm proud of that.

[Hank Green]

That's just not how I am. I make so much stuff. I'm really proud of my comedy special. So I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, and I did a special that is entirely about my experience going through that. And ultimately, the scariest thing about doing that is because, of course, everybody's cancer experience is different. And so if you're somebody who is diagnosed at stage four with lung cancer, you don't have the same experience as somebody who's diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at stage two, which is what happened to me. And so there's this terror of being like, I'm gonna tell stories about cancer, and you are going to hear that I'm making jokes about it when, like, it is not a joke to you.

[Helen Hunt]

I want to absolve you of that fear. I just walked through someone's bad version, and they died this year, and it was totally devastating. But I know enough to know there is a breadth of experience and that there is a lot of rich stuff to come out of different kinds of experiences. So let that one go.

[Hank Green]

It's why it means so much to me, is because what I have heard from people who. Our cancer survivors, whether they are, you know, 20 years out or they're terminal, is that they. They all seem to really appreciate it,

[Helen Hunt]

and you're speaking to them. I mean, that's all we want, is to be in a circle of people who can nod when we talk in recognition. So way to go, Helen. Yes.

[Hank Green]

I would like to ask you our final question, which is if there's something you've learned from doing this work that you think everyone in the world should know, what would it be?

[Helen Hunt]

It goes fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it. It all goes so fast. Enjoy it, enjoy it. Kind of poaching it from Thornton Wilder and Our Town. Tell me you know Our Town.

[Hank Green]

It's gonna end the podcast.

[Helen Hunt]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Together we make one incredible person.

[Hank Green]

The world grabs us and pulls us,

[Helen Hunt]

and, I mean, it's generational a little bit, but, my God, the things I would like to know that are in your brain. And clearly you have some reading to do. I hope you've been taking notes, not been handing you lightweight stuff. I'm handing you James Hellman and Thornton Wilder. For God's sakes.

[Hank Green]

Helen Hunt, thank you so much for being on this show and for being such a good sport. And I do apologize for my weird song.

[Helen Hunt]

What weird song?

[Hank Green]

That I wrote about you.

[Helen Hunt]

Oh, that you wrote about.

[Hank Green]

That you forgot about already?

[Helen Hunt]

I'm sorry. Well, that's also generational. It's okay. Clearly. You don't have to worry. You can let that one go, too. Okay.

[Hank Green]

That's great news. I might just take it off the Internet. It's pretty embarrassing.

[Helen Hunt]

Yes, take it off tomorrow so I can try to find it.

[Hank Green]

Okay. Thanks to all the humans who helped make this episode. Morgan Levy is the show's supervising producer, and Greg Rippon is our engineer. Peyton Mitchell manages our social media. Andrew Huang composed the music, and James Barnard designed the artwork. You can and should follow us wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Helen Hunt]

Let's do it one more time, humans.