Not to thread-jack my own thread here...
…but as far has the "bad" Helen Hunt comments... one of my dearest "older" friends, who was a voting member of the Academy in the Acting branch for over 50 years, struggled a bit when she was deciding between Judi Dench's work in "Mrs. Brown" and Helen Hunt's in "As Good As It Gets."
She thought they were both excellent, powerful performances... and worthy of the award.
Finally, she told me she was going with Hunt. I asked her why. She (who had been a leading lady herself at Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s) said that since they were both great, it came down to "degree of difficulty." It's far more difficult to play an "ordinary person" such as a waitress with a sick son and give an outstanding performance than it is to play someone extraordinary like a grieving, widowed Queen Victoria. A lot of "wow" is built in to that part already. We know the character, and we already know her history. She "resonates" in advance for us, in other words. It's a showy role. But to do what Hunt did in AGAIG was not an easy job for an actress, nor a forgone conclusion that it would be a "noticed" role or performance.
I understood what she meant, and I still applaud her decision.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 8/9/06 at 03:46 PM
