Oscar-winning actor Helen Hunt has spoken about the difficulty of finding substantial roles for women in Hollywood, the challenge of making her Royal Shakespeare Company debut, and the current political climate in the United States, which she describes as 'a hard time to be a human being' in her country.
Hunt, 63, is starring alongside Kenneth Branagh and Bill Pullman in a new production of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, running from 10 July to 29 August. She plays Madame Ranevskaya, a Russian aristocrat and matriarch who returns home to find her family estate in jeopardy.
Why The Cherry Orchard now?
When asked why she chose this play at this time, Hunt said: 'Honestly, it's the perfect question for the director, mostly. It's different if I direct a movie or direct a play. Probably a version of it is right for me as an actor. Why this play, for me, why now? I guess… One of the great playwrights. An impossible beast of a part. A wonderful director [Tamara Harvey] whose ideas and approach interested me.'
She also cited the presence of Branagh, who plays the self-made businessman Lopakhin, as a draw. 'My father was an acting teacher who took me to see his Henry V movie and I thought, Wait, that's possible? That the verse could come to life that clearly and passionately and poetically, that I could understand it in such a crystal clear way, that it could be as exciting as any action movie.'
Class, politics, and timeless themes
The Cherry Orchard is a play about class and entitlement, but Hunt believes its resonance goes beyond contemporary politics. 'I see us in it,' she said, though she does not consider it a perfect fit for today's wealth divide. 'I think it's even more timeless than the political situation right now, even though there's lots of resonance.'
Ultimately, she said, the play is about 'the overwhelming terror we all have of change. It's wanting the best for your fellow man, but wait, what if it actually costs me something meaningful? In the case of my character, she is rich and she is maybe incredibly generous day-to-day [but also] participating in and profiting from a system that is causing a lot of suffering. And as a human being, she's suffered a lot,' including the loss of a child.
Finding meaty roles in Hollywood
Hunt has previously spoken about the dearth of substantial female parts in film, which led her to write and direct her own projects. When asked how she navigates Hollywood's focus on women's ages, bodies, and faces, she said: 'You just don't – because there's nothing you can do. I guess you could try to change how you look, but short of that there's nothing to do but make art if you are an artist. Whether you're hired or not, whether people like you or not, whether they like how you look or not, you just have to keep finding a way to be making work. That's how I have dealt with it.'
Audience behaviour and phones
Reflecting on recent incidents in London theatres, including Rosamund Pike confronting an audience member for texting, Hunt said: 'Well, phones have changed everything. I think we all just have to be on guard from how they keep us from being present. If you're looking at Rosamund Pike being brilliant through a five-inch rectangle instead of having your heart open and doing yourself the favour of being present with what she's doing – I think we all have to be careful.'
Never bored, never good enough
Hunt, who won an Oscar for As Good As It Gets opposite Jack Nicholson, said she has never been bored as an actor because of the challenge of working on great playwrights. 'When I began to think, Uh-oh, what if I get bored of being an actor? I realised, well, when you really work on wonderful playwrights, Shakespeare and Chekhov to name two, you're never going to get bored because you're never going to be good enough to get bored. There will always be more to learn and the language will keep giving to you in a way that other kinds of language won't. So I've so far not been bored.'
She said the number one draw for her is 'being part of telling a story that you find compelling'.
Hard times in the US
Hunt, who participated in the Women's March in 2017 following Donald Trump's first inauguration, was asked about his second term. 'I think now's a hard time to be a human being, in my country certainly,' she said. 'But I'm not sure how to translate it into what it's like to go to work. Yeah. It's a challenging time for sure.'
