Hunt discusses decision to become a director

AUSTIN, Texas — Helen Hunt is an Oscar winner (for "As Good As It Gets") and a four-time Emmy winner (for "Mad About You"). Now she has a new title to add to her esteemed collection: filmmaker.

Hunt directed her first feature, "Then She Found Me," which played at the South by Southwest film festival ahead of its April 25 theatrical release. She also co-wrote and stars in the romantic comedy as a New York schoolteacher whose adoptive mother dies just as her birth mother (Bette Midler) shows up out of nowhere. At the same time, her husband (Matthew Broderick) leaves her as she falls for the father (Colin Firth) of one of her students.

The 44-year-old sat down with The Associated Press in front of an audience to discuss the challenges of this new role. Some excerpts:

AP: So when we were waiting to come out here in the filmmakers' lounge, a gentleman approached you and was just effusively praising your movie. What's it like to get that kind of reaction from other filmmakers?

Hunt: It's the best compliment because they, you (to the audience), are the people who know how ridiculously hard it is to get a movie made, much less to finish it, much less to be treated like this. It takes a lot of perseverance.

AP: The movie premiered at Toronto, now it's playing here. What's the experience been like for you to take the movie to film festivals and share it with people?

Hunt: Well in Toronto, we didn't have a distributor, so after close to 10 years of trying to get it made, I thought it was ... I heard so many no's, different kinds of no's over the 10 years: polite no's, rude no's, big no's, little no's. And I thought it was possible, even probable, that it would screen in Toronto and I'd fly home and say, "I did it." And it was uncharacteristic for this movie, a Cinderella night where ThinkFilm, which for me was the dream place to have it, bought it that night at 2:30 in the morning. So this is really the fun part, to get to have other filmmakers see your movie.

AP: You had directed several episodes of "Mad About You," including the series finale. What told you back then that you wanted to be a director?