Helen Hunt starred in the 1996 hit film Twister, which was the second highest-grossing movie of the year, but says she almost canceled filming.
Hunt said he was preparing to start shooting the movie when something unexpected happened: “I injured my knee right before filming was to begin,” Hunt said in a recent interview. Entertainment WeeklyThe 61-year-old star explained that for a moment, he considered quitting films altogether.
“So I remember a week or two before, sitting in Oklahoma with ice on my knee, calling my agent and asking, 'Can I get through this?'” Hunt recalled.
ATLANTA – MAY 10: Woody Harrelson, Helen Hunt, Jane Fonda and Bill Paxton attend the G-CAPP Supported Premiere of “Twister” at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia (Photo taken on May 10, 1996 by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 29: Helen Hunt attends the 2021 Gotham Awards presented by Gotham Film & Media Institute at Cipriani Wall Street on November 29, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipaspil/Getty Images)
She ultimately pulled through with the role and the movie was a huge success, but Entertainment Weekly reports that the famous actress admitted she seriously wanted to quit before filming even began in Oklahoma.
“So for me, it was like, 'I'm just going to get out,' because I had no other choice,” Hunt told the magazine.
Hunt played the lead role in the film, which follows a group of amateur storm chasers as they battle a violent tornado outbreak and figure out how to use their tornado-surveying equipment.
LOS ANGELES – OCTOBER 1983: Actress Helen Hunt poses for a portrait in Los Angeles, California in October 1983. (Photo by Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)
Hunt, who stars alongside Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck and Philip Seymour Hoffman, said the film was a “very physical movie” and very different to how movies are made today, which made his injury all the more concerning at the time.
“Looking back, it was for the best of all that we didn't have the technology to do it all on a laptop. Instead, they just beat us so badly that it was a great result,” Hunt said.
“A lot of acting nowadays requires you to look at a tape, or you look at a green screen, or you look at a dot on someone's face, and someone to tell you, 'Okay, what's going to show up later here is just around the corner,'” she told Entertainment Weekly.(RELATED: Jeremy Renner makes startling confession about his acting future)
“A lot of what we reacted to was actually happening, and while that made things confusing, it also made it easier to act,” Hunt said.
Hunt's interview came ahead of the release of the sequel, “Twisters,” and she will not be reprising her role in the film.
