Many celebrities are chasing youth in the hopes of reaching immortal beauty due to pressure from Hollywood and discerning fans who impose unachievable standards of perfection.
Helen Hunt is gorgeously accepting her aging flaws while letting go of other people’s expectations.
Helen Hunt, who has appeared in TV shows since she was a little child, grew up in front of millions of fans as they saw her mature from a young girl with a fresh face to the accomplished 59-year-old, whose years show on her face and enhance her inherent beauty.
When Hunt was just 11 years old, she began performing. She received her big break in the 1975–1976 television series The Swiss Family Robinson, which followed a shipwrecked family isolated on a volcanic island. She portrayed Helga Wagner, a little child who was adopted by the Robinsons and came from the same shipwreck.
She later made appearances as Murray Slaughter’s daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in an episode of The Bionic Woman with Lindsay Wagner, and in Facts of Life, all of which were directed by Gavin McLeod. In the 1977 film Rollercoaster, which starred Henry Fonda and George Segal, she made her film debut.
Her appearances in iconic 1980s movies like Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), Project X (1987), and Next of Kin (1989), starring the late Patrick Swayze and Ben Stiller in one of his early parts, propelled her into stardom in the following decade.
With her breakthrough TV performance in the popular comedy series Mad About You, where she costarred with Paul Reiser, who later starred in the Netflix series Stranger Things, Hunt became a household figure in the 1990s.
She won three Golden Globes and four consecutive Emmy Awards for her humorous portrayal of one half of a wedding pair. A few episodes, including the 1999 series finale, were also directed by her.
Speaking with People, Hunt shared about her daughter and Reiser, “… My daughter loves Stranger Things so now when he calls she’s excited. She’s never seen an episode of Mad About You but she’s super psyched about Stranger Things!” Hunt has one daughter, born in 2004, with Matthew Carnahan, her partner of 16 years.
Hunt is also known for playing a storm chaser in the adrenaline-fueled movie Twister (1996), her Academy Award-winning role in 1997’s As Good as it Gets, starring next to Hollywood royalty, Jack Nicholson, and 2000’s Cast Away.
More recently, she plays a journalist in BBC’s World on Fire and has a recurring character on Blindspotting. She’s also loaned her skills as a director to shows like Californication, House of Lies and This is Us.
In 2021, she revealed she was working on a Twister reboot with a diverse cast of storm chasers “from HBCU [historically Black college and university],” but the story was rejected.
“I tried to get it made,” Hunt said in 2021. “I was going to direct it… We could barely get a meeting, and this is in June of 2020 when it was all about diversity. It would have been so cool.”
Universal Pictures is releasing Twisters, without Hunt, in July 2024.
Over the years, Hunt, who’s collected numerous awards and nominations, has been a staple in Hollywood culture with her timeless performances and beauty.
As one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood–a face that through the years has matured, she’s recently been the topic of many conversations.
With a career spanning more than four decades, it’s common, and expected, that there would be natural physical changes but, as a celebrity, Hunt is not immune from unfiltered opinions coming from the public.
Speculation that she had plastic surgery started after an accident in 2019, where the SUV she was a passenger, was t-boned by another car, causing it to rollover. She was briefly hospitalized but fully recovered, and within one week, she was back to work filming the limited series reboot of Mad About You.
Being a woman in Hollywood can be difficult, as we all know.
Hunt talked about how she has been objectified throughout her career in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from 2019 and how she intends to contribute to the creation of a more inclusive.
Fans however were quick to defend her. One wrote, “I’m not an expert on spotting facelifts and that but to me Helen Hunt today still looks like Helen Hunt from Mad About You, just older. Which is what happens when 3 decades pass, people get older.” Another wrote, “I think we are so used to seeing women who have puffed up their lips and lifted both eyes and forehead, that a woman who is aging normally looks odd to us.”
Tight-lipped about the rumours that she’s had a nip and tuck to smooth the wrinkles on her face, it’s possible that Hunt benefits from a makeup artist, who can achieve the same results with some magical strokes of their brush.
In fact, there are many Hollywood beauty secrets that keep celebrities looking ageless. Pairing a healthy diet and exercise with pricey non-surgical spa treatments have proven results!
Hunt is very active and isn’t shy about showing off her fit physique. In an interview, she explained “As a general rule, I tend to move. I don’t go to a gym ever. I don’t diet ever. I used to diet, but sometime after the eighties, it made me miserable, but I do like to walk, run, and I do like to surf when I can just to warm it up, and I do enjoy doing yoga when I can get there.”
Being a woman in Hollywood can be difficult, as we all know.
Hunt talked about how she has been objectified throughout her career in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from 2019 and how she intends to contribute to the creation of a more inclusive.
“What are the great movies for younger women where they’re the protagonist [being] made now? You know what I mean? The whole thing — there’s no equal rights amendment. We’re fucked,” Hunt explained.
Hunt has participated in a number of humanitarian and advocacy initiatives throughout the years to support women’s rights and empowerment, speaking out against the objectification of women.
”I certainly drive around and I’m tired of the billboard where she’s barely in her underwear and they’re selling, you know, a watch or something,” Hunt said.
”I’m over it, to be honest.”
It can’t be easy for celebrities to deal with criticism from the public when they are out there performing their duties, which involves entertaining us.
The amazing Helen Hunt has undoubtedly changed over the many decades that we have seen her. She appears lovely to us, we think!
