Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Helen Hunt

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Ted Danson regards Oscar-winning actress and director Helen Hunt as a true artist, and he’s determined to know how she became one! Helen talks to Ted about acting in her formative years, what she took from her time on “Mad About You,” writing and directing her 2007 film “Then She Found Me,” and her advice for young actors. Bonus: Mary Steenburgen sends in a special message for Helen.  Watch "Then She Found Me" on Prime Video. Like watching your podcasts?  Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

If we had an IMDB off, I think I would win for most obscure credits. Were you on BG and the Bear? Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Today I am thrilled to be talking to Helen Hunt. She's a brilliant actor who's won an Academy Award, multiple Emmys, and Golden Globes. You know her from her many roles. As good as it gets, Twister, Castaway, Mad About You, The Sessions. She writes and directs as well, and I can't say enough good things about her 2007 film, Then She Found Me, which she directed and co-wrote. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, here's Helen Hunt. This is for my amusement. It won't probably be on the podcast. Okay. Almost guaranteed not to be on the podcast.

But Mary, you know, was delighted to find out that I was talking to you. Yes. Sends much love and respect. Please send her my love and respect. I will. But in the meantime, I just have to do this because we were laughing and just the last snippet of something. I don't know Helen Hunn. I sat beside her once at a concert of Paul Simon and Sting.

She stood up on Roxanne she never sighed again. Helen Hunt danced like a beautiful wild thing and I wanted to be her. Lost in all the wonder, moving to the beat, 50 ways to leave your lover. Tossing her hair, blissfully unaware of the square pair sticking the muds out just right behind her. Everyone should dance like Helen Hunt. I'm crying and we just started. That's incredible. I love that. We might, I'll ask Mary. I mean, you recorded it, but it depended on you and Mary and all of that. But I love the story that you were, can we,

you were randomly in a hospital and are recovering someplace in Italy. And you said in this letter that you wrote her saying, you just sent it to me and it was very sweet. Yes, I mean, should we tell the whole story or are we not doing there? Well, what I know is that very, very, very recently, this year, I ran into you guys and Mary told me that she'd written a song about me, which I could not believe.

What could that song possibly be about? I don't have like one thing I'm known for. Do you know what I mean? And so she sent it to me, but she told me that you two were at a concert. I feel like it was Sting and Paul Simon. Sting and Paul Simon. Okay. And I guess, was I sitting right in front of you?

Right in front. I had you in back, but I think maybe in front, whatever. Go ahead. Well, I guess I stood up and danced. She could have written a song that went, sit the fuck down, Helen Hunt. You're blocking me from seeing Sting. That's a less beautiful song, but also accurate. But I guess I stood

up and danced because, you know, you play Graceland. What are you going to sit there? I just had to dance. And I guess she noticed and wrote a song about it. So the idea that that would be my, you know, what someone as beautiful, clearly a person as Mary is that that would be who I am to her. That's amazing. And yes, I was just making a movie in Italy. And a wonderful lesson. A wonderful lesson that... In Get Up and Dance? Yes.

Don't be self-conscious. Get up and move and dance and be like Helen Hunt. Well, I'm just going to wear that. Yeah. I'm going to wear that. And yes, so I have so many places my mind is going, but my dad always, who you met. Yes.

When he saw a performance he loved, he wrote a letter. Always. Never didn't. And I tried to do it, but he always did. And so she sent me that song, and I happened to be doing a movie in Italy, and I had some weird stomach thing and had to go to the Pisa hospital a couple of times. And in my inbox is this image of me as you know dancing in Graceland it was lovely yeah it was lovely. I love that. We may have to keep this. You may have to keep it. If it's with your permission. Yes you have my permission officially. Mary doesn't you know Mary writes beautifully and you know she's award-winning songwriter

and all of that, but she doesn't sing. She'll sing in a movie when you can control it and be in a booth and all that stuff. So I'll have to ask her if she's okay if we use that. But yeah, let's start with your daddy. I remember you coming on the set of Ink and I think your dad had directed, or was going to direct it, an episode, and we loved him.

But I remember you came and you were so sweet. I think we're coming to visit, but you hung around. And it was like, and I can't remember, had you done, Mad About You by then? Yeah, I think his first television directing job at age 70, he started this career at age 70, after a lifetime of working in the theater and teaching acting and being a casting director

at the Taper, he started his television directing career at age 70 doing an episode of Mad About You where he directed Karl Reiner in it. Oh wow. And then he won a DGA award for it. Bang. How wonderful. I mean, it was so wonderful.

It was honestly, I could say it's one of the best nights of my life sitting there and they were reading off the list of nominees who were all the fancy people. You know what I mean? Yeah. Everybody in that world who we've both worked with and then Gordon Hunt and Michael Lembeck said his name and I almost fainted because he just was the most lovely guy, worked so hard, so talented and he got his day. It was amazing. And a lovely father.

I mean, one of the things I want to talk about and we'll get to the movie you made that I knew you were interested that I would see it and I went, okay, and devoured it. So we'll get to that. Okay. And another thing I was thinking on the way here and it's, I haven't verbalized this before,

but I wanna talk about artistry and being an artist. And usually if you're an actor talking about being an artist. And usually if you're an actor talking about being an artist or other actors, you run the risk of signing, oh, highfalutin. I know. Picasso's an artist, not you. It's not fair, right? I know, but defining, and I was talking to my friends

who you just met about what does that mean artistry. And it has something to do about being conscious, I think, about what you put out into the world and being purposeful so that you are hoping to make the world a better place or reflect humanity in a way that'll make it a better place. So we'll get to it, but I do consider you an artist.

No, I consider you an artist. And I wanna talk about that in a second, but let's stick with your daddy for a second and how you grew up, because you were raised to be an artist. You were surrounded by artists. Your mom? My mom is painting now, so here we go.

But a photographer? She was a photographer who now is painting, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I was raised to be an artist. I don't think that was their intention, but I was surrounded by art. And like, what a gift. Had I been raised by a molecular biologist

and gone to the lab with him, would my life have been different? I have no way of knowing, but not only my dad who was directing plays in New York, our circle of friends included, like their best friends were Henry and Mary Gettle. Who are they? So Henry Gettle's maiden name was Rogers,

Richard Rogers' daughter. Adam Gettle's mother, who won a Tony for composing Light in the Piazza, has Floyd Collins on Broadway now. He's like a bit of a genius, which we don't want to make him wear that word, but I won't be the first to say. I won't do the genius. We'll do artistry. Art, he's an artist for sure. And then there were Helen and Steve Kellogg. Steve Kellogg is a life

for children's book illustrator sort of in the Maurice Sendak vein. They grew up as best friends. So I was around art and music. And by proxy with Mary was Leonard Bernstein and Sondheim. And so we would sit in the living room and listen to what Sondheim had written. Yeah. Amazing. And watching the adults in my life listen for every note and every way the way the thing is composed

is reflecting the content of the thing. Like I watched them be interested in it and I got interested in it. See, I had the scientist father. And look at you. But everything he did went right over my head. And I went out and fantasized and played with my friends. You though listened, didn't you? You were not...

You soaked up your parents in your upbringing. Well, imagination, you know. I, more and more as an actor, I'm using my imagination. I studied and still study and studied when I was nine years old and I'm really still going. But maybe because there's some mileage there now, I'm finding the work I enjoy doing the most has to do with imagination. So rather than calling on the tragic event to play a dramatic scene,

my dreams are affecting what I do and what I imagine as I drive here. I'm trying to remember it because it might not be boring. It might be interesting to use as an actor. Dream, wait, what do you mean when you were driving here? Well, I'm just saying you never know walking around when an image comes to you, and I've now learned like grab that, grab it.

Yes. Might seem mundane, might be really interesting in a piece of work you do. Some of my favorite writers have said, you know, I get this weird image in my head that just delights and tickles me, and then I'll work backwards to find out how to get in a reasonable fashion to that image. That's Jonathan Ames, he's one of my favorite writers. Do you work with people? I'm bouncing around. Do you work with an acting coach who does work with dreams?

Because I know somebody who does. I do. Kim Gilliam? I haven't worked with her, but yes. Yes. She's incredible. I don't want to say, don't, she's terrible. Don't go to her because I'll never get in if now, if everybody listens to this podcast. Her work's not very interesting. Stay away. She's amazing. She's amazing. That's so cool.

And she'll, she's one of my closest friends and she'll never say who she worked with ever. It's almost like a therapist. She will not discuss it. And then I'll hear Benedict Cumberbatch on a podcast say, I worked with this woman. So she's incredible. She's incredible. And she's very well-trained as an actor and very well-trained in this sort of Jungian world of imagination. So she's just, she's the whole package

that I'm interested in. And I work with other people too. You know, I'm not in acting class anymore. I teach sometimes, but I'm not in a class. But my class is that I get ahold of a piece of material and get to bounce it off someone. I just did a play and I worked for all year. I'm proud and embarrassed to say I worked all year with different-

Tell me about it and where was it? I read- I did betrayal at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. What a beautiful theater. Oh my God. With loyal patrons who are interested that you're doing Pinter. And it was sold out from the first preview. And that was partly because the actors were terrific and partly because it's Pinter

and partly because it's a city that loves the theater. And you knew you were going to do this for a year? Yeah, which I almost never, you know, you don't get that luxury. And I had a dialect to get right. And so I got to spend a year working with someone that I know in the UK from a play I did two years ago, because I'm bad at accents until I work. Until you work. Until you work. You know, you chip away at it,

and suddenly it's nine months later, and you're doing it. So now I'm bouncing around. I've only done that once on damages, and it was that Minnesota, you know, and I knew I was bad so I spent three months in advance and it was literal. It wasn't like I have music in my heart and soul or dialect. I don't.

But I finally got there and what was wonderful was it literally informed my character. Yes. Just, you know, you don't just learn every word, you learn every syllable. Yes. And are familiar with every syllable and then it takes you someplace. A few times I've had to do an accent or wanted to and I've said to the dialect coach, I'm just going to do a little. That's the worst idea in the world. It's a horrible idea.

You've got to commit and you've got to sound bad for a long time until you suddenly realize, oh, I'm kind of doing it. Yeah. Going back, I'm not through with it. Peter, your uncle. Yes. Did you know Peter? No, but I know of him. So were you exposed or?

Yes. So he won a Tony Award for directing 1776 and did a lifetime of theater up until and after that. And then my dad directed the national tour of it. So it's a strange, obscure musical for me to know every syllable of, but I do. But I do. And he ran the Williamstown Theater Festival for a while. Quite different from my

Different it's miraculous that I get to sit here and talk to you Okay, how did child child Act well, maybe not child actor, but you started acting when you were a child. Yeah, that's a nice way to say Nine and I went to an acting class. How did that happen? Was it in the making for a while and you finally had no... No, I had no plan at all. I have an aunt who's my age.

That's a whole other story. My mother and my grandmother were pregnant right around the same time. And so I grew up with her as my contemporary and my sister. And I lived in New York City and we'd come out to California for the summers, and I would just do whatever she did. And so she was going to ballet class, I would go. She was going to an acting class, all right, I'll go. But I got in there and I really liked it.

I didn't ever imagine, I really didn't think I wanna do that on a big stage or I wanna do that on camera. I liked being in the room with these older fun creative people telling some story, whether it was silly or deep. I just wanted to be around them. She had a kid's class from 12 to 3 and an adult class from 3 to 6.

I just begged her, just let me be in the room for the whole thing. Then an agent walked in and I found myself in Alberta, Canada, running through a wheat field in some TV movie. What was the first? Oh yeah. Pioneer Woman, obviously, Ted. Yes, yes. Yes, you say.

Oh please. It's your favorite movie. If we had an IMDb off, I think I would win for most obscure credits. Were you on BG and the Bear? Were you a princess from outer space on the Bionic Woman? Oh. Mic drop. I hate that I always win this contest.

That I always win this contest. I so loved any, I started late. You know, I was a fresh sophomore in Stanford when the light bulb went off. It's not late. It's only late when you're looking at me. It's really not. It's the perfect time to start. I had no idea at all. And then I was just, and I still am enamored with going to work.

I love driving through a studio gate. Me too. I love Universal because I take a right on Jimmy Stewart, and I crossover Gregory Peck. These are all people that, not Jimmy, but who I met. Anyway, I love it. But I would be an extra in a commercial, joyfully. No shame. No, I love it too.

I love it too. I didn't care if I was in an acting class or I was being paid to work. But see, that's it. I get asked a lot. I'm sure you've been asked a hundred thousand times, what's your advice for young people? I'm like, you better love it in the crappy room in Studio City. Because that's the thing. Doing that work in whatever room is the thing. And then you have the big fancy moment and then you have the I can't get a job moment. But if you don't love that, you should tiptoe out of it

because that's the thing. And I think a lot of the art of it, which my dad was so good at, is what do you do when you're out of work? You're never out of work. I don't, feels like you're never out of work. It looks that way, but I am. Okay, I'll take your word for it,

but that's a lot of TV shows that are out of work. Okay, I'm not, that was a lot. You're not, thank you. Nice of you to offer it up. But how do you stay acting? If you and I are painters, Mary, if she's writing songs, it may be frustrating that no one's looking at the paintings, but you're painting every day.

How do you stay acting? And I don't know the answer, but I've had play readings in my living room. I'll invite you both if you want to come. We want to come. Really? Yeah. Okay, I'll throw it out there.

Maybe not to read, but to listen until maybe the second time. We may make you read. You can read stage want to come really. Yeah, okay. I'll throw it out there Maybe not to read but to listen and well, maybe the second time you read You can read stage directions the first time but like getting in a room with actors and acting and not waiting for someone to say We choose you you got to find a way to do that at my dad. That's sort of a PhD in that I keep holding back the reins on talking about you as a director. Because I want to keep going. No, sorry. Then she found me. It wasn't your first directing period. It was your first film.

Yeah. Is that correct? That's correct. Because you did... You did Mad About You and a bunch of other stuff. Do that. Get us into... First off, Mad About You. I know.

It's a big... It's a long career. No, no. But I mean, that is... When they... Sometimes the research people say connections you have. It wasn't that we had literal connections. It was both in massive hits.

And we got to be working in that style. I don't know about you, but I grew up on I Love Lucy. Like it, I Love Lucy raised me partly. And so there I found myself and my mother was legitimately concerned, shouldn't I be going to drama school like I believe you did? Or something and instead of sitting in my room watching I Love Lucy and then I find myself on a sitcom about a married couple in New York City going well it's kind of arguably kind of

worked out. Yeah. So I met Paul who you had on your show I know. He's the best. I love him. I love him too. Gentle, sweet, funny. He's the best. And like my dad, renaissance artist in ways you don't know. Oh, you majored in music. Oh, Kaminsky method where you suddenly have transformed yourself into a character that makes you cringe and laugh at the same time. So I'm his biggest fan. No, I'm, remarkable man. We met because his wife and my roommate

in the 1990 or something were friends and I had a dinner party and he was suddenly in my kitchen. And- Is that where Working Together came about? Yeah, well, two days later he said, can I send you this pilot? And I went, oh God, this might be awkward. And I had just started to do, you were around for this.

It used to be if you were in TV shows, you didn't get to be in movies. Did you? You know what I mean? It was like a hard line. And I remember when Robert Redford put Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People as an actor. It was like an earthquake happened. We all looked around and went, is that real?

You can't do that. And she was nominated? Yeah, and was brilliant in the lasting performance that you and I could both quote. She was so impactful. But you didn't put a TV person, especially a sitcom person in a movie, which is so totally absurd now. Just the phrase sitcom is so diminishing.

It is so diminishing to like what we've devoted our lives to. But then, so she knocked down the door and then Michael J. Fox suddenly was doing Back to the Future and George Clooney and then I got Twister and then As Good as It Gets. So thank God that stupid fake wall disappeared. What were we talking about? Technology also helped because now the biggest movies in the world, as I like to tell Woody Harrelson, who I'm slightly competitive with, the more successful his movie is, the smaller the instrument I will look at. I know.

I'll watch him on my cell phone. On your phone at the airport, interrupted by flight updates. Just to get back at him. Were we starting with Paul? Oh, yeah. So I didn't want to do a sitcom because that was exactly what you didn't do if you start, we're starting to make movies and I was

starting to be in some movies. Then I read it and thank God, was smart enough to go, that's juicy. Yeah. That's juicy. That's 12 page scene that's funny, but they want something. You know, all the ingredients that matter.

12 page also saying you're doing theater basically. Yeah, and two of us. I mean, the good news and the exhausting news of that show is I didn't have a big group. It became more and more and more the two of us because instead of bigger and bigger, the aspiration of the show is that it would get smaller and smaller until we did one episode that my dad directed, which was one locked off shot of the two of us.

Oh, you're kidding. We did one that was, we were sitting outside, I feel like you would like it. We were sitting outside our baby feel like you would like it. We were sitting outside our baby's room trying to sleep train her, but feeling like it was the wrong thing to do. So it was one locked off 22 minute shot. Oh, what a brilliant concept.

Directed by my dad. Take one is what ended up on the air. We did it twice. So, the good news about that is as an actor, it was just juicy. And the hard news is on the weeks when the table read draft was not perfect and you got the script on Wednesday night or Thursday for the Friday shoot, that's a lot of learning to do and a lot of remembering and a lot of, but there's next week's outline. And so it was, I like to say it was the opposite of everything I feared. I thought it would be easy and I'd be home at 9 PM.

We were there till one in the morning. I thought it would get boring. It was never boring. It got more and more fun to do. But the whole experience really, it was the writing and it was Paul. You know, that we happened to immediately have whatever this thing is that we have. Still, it was effortless and right there from the minute I met him.

People talk about chemistry and I always go, chemistry is take really two or three or whatever, two really accomplished actors. We're good actors and really good material. That's your chemistry. I think it's like 80% of your chemistry. And then I've had the experience where I've had the thing happen where you don't get along, but there's chemistry.

Yes. And when there's no chemistry, it's really, really hard. So I think I have come, even though Paul and I used to roll our eyes at the word, I've come to believe it's a little bit true. There's got to be something that you can't point to that's there. But my joke on myself is I was the one who, and this is why no one ever takes what I say,

well they take what I say and do the exact opposite and are very successful. I looked at Shelly Long when we were auditioning for Cheers, I went no, no, no, no. Never gonna work. Do not hire her, it'll ruin the show. She made the show. She came out hitting a home run day one.

In that form, but not like before. But we were so different. Crude love her, absolutely. But different. It was hard for us to sit around and just talk, but when we got in front of a camera, it was like a prize fight. So I think that might be chemistry a little bit. Yeah. Well, it's, yeah.

There is poking a hole in your theory. No, but it's two good actors with good material. But it's two good actors with good writing. That's true. That's true. Maybe that is the... Well, I don't know. Both are true, I think. I think your idea is probably smarter. Okay, so how did you decide, oh, I'm going to direct one? Okay, so how did you decide, oh, I'm going to direct one? I never had and still don't have an aspiration to be like a journeyman director. Get me my next job to direct because, I mean, have you directed?

No. You've never directed? No desire? Are you one of those people? I've paid not to. You're paid not to? I've paid well not to. I mean, at its best, you are the most creative element, and at its worst, you're like a traffic cop.

You know what I mean? Especially TV. Well, TV, I've done a lot of TV, and I always say you're a little bit like the concierge. They would like more salt in your performance. Yes. Okay, oh, they would prefer to do it more slowly. No, they want you to speed it up.

You're just kind of the messenger. Yes, you're the messenger, yeah. But when you write something, directing becomes the next draft. Right. Every choice you make. You've already visualized it. Well, yes, but also you discover things and I don't know whether to talk about it, then

she found me, but I made this first movie that meant a lot to me. We're in. We're in. Okay. So I... So let me start and then you hold that thought. It's easy. It's easy.

It's brilliant. Oh, thank you so much. You know how some movies are really good because you like this and this and this, but maybe whatever. It's perfect. It's a perfect film. And I'm really glad you asked me to watch it because I missed it when it came out. Well, it's not your fault. So it took me 10 years to make, which is what most independent filmmakers say.

It doesn't just happen. It took me 10 years to make. It fell apart. It came together. It fell apart. It came together. And then it got chosen to go to Toronto and it had the biggest sale of the year. And then the company went bankrupt the Friday before it opened.

So it really disappeared, which is sort of, you know, the great creative wound of my life. But if you want to watch it, it's on Amazon right now. Please listen to us. It is absolutely spectacular. Thank you. And if you forget the title, you Google Helen Hunt and Bette Midler and Colin Firth and it'll pop up. Yeah.

And then you found the film. Yes. And then he found, what is it? Then she found me. And then she found me. Yeah. Yeah, it's based on a novel by Eleanor Lippman. And-

But you wrote the adaption? Yeah, well, no, it's based on a novel by Eleanor Lippman. But you wrote the adaption? Yeah, well no, it had a beautiful, very loyal adaptation that was lovely, but I couldn't get it made. And then I rewrote it with a writing partner, couldn't quite get made. And then I just took the whole thing and shook it and kept sort of the central DNA, this mother-daughter story and changed everything else. The Colin Firth character, the Matthew Broderick character, they're not in the book. In the book, she's not wanting to get pregnant. She's a high school teacher in her 20s.

And I just sort of- How did you then bring that? Why did you and how did you think of doing that? Because it's brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I told my daughter when I die, just play that movie because that's everything I care about.

You don't need to have a funeral, just play that. But it was your idea to do the woman trying to and not him. Because I was trying to have a baby. And you know enough about the basics of storytelling. The central character has to want something, and that wasn't quite there. And there I was in my late 30s, really wanting a baby. And I thought, well, if I'm going to play this part, at my age, and I my late 30s, really wanting a baby. And I thought, well, if I'm going to play this part,

this at my age and I was late 30s, I thought this woman either wants a baby or doesn't want a baby. At 39 is a woman, you don't nothing a baby. You know what I mean? And so I thought maybe that's what she wants. And then I also read, do you know James Hellman's writing? Not really, sorry.

I'd like to fake it. No, don't fake it. I will not, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't. Really. He was a beautiful essayist, Jewish Jungian writer, and he wrote an essay called Betrayal that I read. And it's incredible. And the two things I know about movies

from the great movie filmmakers I've worked with is the central character has to want something and you've got to have the magic sentence of the movie. Do you know what I mean? Like this movie is about, Jim Brooks told me that as good as it gets was about that which you cling to to keep you safe ultimately imprisons you.

Right. So once you have that, That which you cling to to keep you safe ultimately imprisons you. Right. So once you have that, she clings to that her kid is sick and she has to be there and she has to let that go. Jack clings to don't touch any cracks on this. He has to let it go. The Greg Ginear character clings to being beautiful and successful. That's beaten out of him.

So you got to find that sentence. And it took me the better part of So you gotta find that sentence. And it took me the better part of a decade to find that sentence, but I found it partly from this essay about betrayal. And you can't really love till you've made peace with betrayal. Once I had that sentence. You can't really love

until you make peace with betrayal. And the best one of those is if you can argue about it over dinner, like the four of us could go to dinner and you could say, that's not true. You can't, you don't trust them. And we'd all be right. That's a juicy magic sentence. Am I making sense? Totally.

Okay, good. Thank you. Totally. So once I had that, I got rid of the characters and created the Colin Firth character and the Matthew Broderick character. It all sort of fell into place once I knew what I wanted it to be about. My daughter at age 44 had our kind of brand new grandson, Sonny. Mmm. She was a doula.

Mmm. So everything that you were talking about in that movie, I felt an emotional connection to. Yeah. Um, yeah, it was amazing. And then there's Colin Firth. Give me a fucking break. I know, as proud of him. He's so charming.

Isn't he so good? But that's just, you know, who cares? Talking about an actor's charm is kind of beside the point. He's so good. I'm as proud of his performance. I had whatever little bit of director, whatever little bit of credit a director can take is all I can take because it's him. But the New Yorker wrote a review of his work in it

and said he was like a storm cloud when he gets, you know, he gets angry because she betrays him and, and... Boy, I think he's good in that movie. So good. And so, so little, you know, these little character things of before he blows blows, when he's really betrayed by you, he gets up and walks.

Yeah. And that I wrote, don't take, because I remember hearing the phrase, go take your anger out for a walk. So I made his character just, that's who he was. Yeah. But it's kind of brilliant because it's not always being mad. And you're forcing an actor, and you're allowing an actor to be like, I don't know, it's so not on the nose. Oh, here's the scene where he gets angry and da da da da. You see, here's the scene where he gets up and walks briskly, and it's so interesting and different.

I think without meaning to or meaning to, Jim Brooks' work made a big impression on me, both before I worked with him and after I worked with him. And I don't know how to sum up his characters, but they're filled with emotion, filled with real struggles, and can articulate it at the same time. I think that's what the magic sauce might be.

Yes, and you are talking about things that matter. Yeah, yeah. Not just your characters, but to all of us, I think. And so that can be medicinal, unless you add humor. And there is, not jokes, there are no jokes, but there is humor that makes it so much, I think the medicine go down. I think I heard Jim.

It's not medicinal, I shouldn't say that. No, the darker parts of the story. I think I took this from Jim, so I'm gonna give him credit. Yeah, I was about to say, he does that. But what I think I took from him was, it's a comedy until it refuses to be. That's great.

I don't think I've ever heard that. I mean, you just, that's what we're making. We're making a comedy, whoops. Wow. Debra Winger's sick. Do you know what I mean? Yes. It's a good motto, I think.

And it's a little bit acting, you know, it's neighborhood playhouse. Don't do anything until the other actor makes you do it. Until the other actor makes you do it. Yes, it is. Don't stop being funny until your story just. Runs into a wall. Yeah.

You're fun to talk to. You're fun to talk to. We're members of this weird tribe. Let's bring Bette Midler into the story. Okay. She was brilliant. People have to see the movie now or this is gonna be super boring.

No, no. They know Bette. Yeah, they know Bette certainly. Anyway, this is my podcast. Good. So the story is about a very not fancy, rich, and famous woman, played by me, a very flying low to the ground schoolteacher, elementary schoolteacher in Brooklyn, not a stitch of makeup on her face, who finds out or is told by an emissary that her birth mother is a famous talk show hostess. So I had to find like an icon.

Yes, it was believable. Couldn't just be a terrific solid actor. In a way it had to be, that's what was funny. There's this theory my dad used to say, every love story, everything's the odd couple. Every story is the odd couple. Every love story is the odd couple. Think about you and Shelley Long, right?

That's part of it. And so for this movie, I hadn't have a ton of money to pay anybody either. So they were going on some good feeling about me and the script that they read, but she's a Nikon for sure. So I just drove to her house and she thought I wanted her to wear big loud purple feathery outfits and I didn't, because it's a story about betrayal.

So I said, if you come out in rich jewel tones, and my character is going to be more likely to trust you than if you're an obviously frivolous person. Anyway, she agreed to do it, and I have Bette Midler out in Brooklyn in a little indie going, I hope she doesn't kill me, because these aren't the movies she usually makes. And the show host, I mean, talk show host,

enabled her to still be Bette Midler. Yes, to be her funny, fun self. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, which was great. And you don't, anyway, you're right. We're going into the weeds too much on this. But people should go see it. Please, yeah, truly.

I appreciate it. It's a really lovely film. I really appreciate it. Beyond lovely, it's great. Thank you, thank you. Let me talk, we can talk about this a little bit. Okay. And it doesn't have to be about this,

but directing something you're in. Mm-hmm. Terrible idea. Don't ever do it. How do you handle that? Well, I worked on the part first. I said to myself, if I'm gonna do this, it has to be like this is the eighth month of a run of a play. We're in my sleep.

For you and your character. Yeah, because I'm not gonna have time to talk to myself. I gotta know it that well as an actor. So how did you do that? Alone in a room? No, I worked with Larry Moss. It was a coach I've worked with a lot. Alone in a room, making sure I knew all my little things.

What does she want in this scene? You know, all the work that we do as an actor. And I had two scripts. I had an acting script and a directing script. And I had lunch with Warren Beatty and said, I think I'm gonna be in this movie. Is it a terrible idea? And I thought he'd say yes, but he said, there will be someone in the movie

who sees it the way you do. And he was right in a way, because when you're a director, you're trying to download what's in your head into the mind of the production designer and the actors. Well, at least what's-her-name is taken care of. What's-her-name, me, is going to do it the way I see it. And then you just prepare like crazy. I had a wonderful DP named Peter Donahue who read the script and said, Kramer versus Kramer. And I went, yes, it should be that simple and the It should be that simple

and the frame should be that still. I was gonna say it was beautiful. There's a shot that stuck out of my head. I think it's his apartment. It's his, not yours. That is right near the water. And the street kind of goes down toward it and there's a break and it looks so, I don't know.

It was just so beautiful. It was like, oh, take, paint that. Yes. Kind of. But beautiful, not fancy beautiful. No, no, no. So that was the DP. Picturesque or something.

Yeah, yeah. It wasn't rich, but boy are you lucky you found the most beautiful little poor place to live. You're not kidding. Every location manager, when we're actors in vans, we're like, oh, the location manager is going to talk to the restaurant owner who's yelling. But when you're a director, you're like, you just found a piece of my movie.

So the fun of directing something you wrote and care about a ridiculous amount is that the directing and every decision you make becomes another draft. Editing becomes a whole other draft. Scenes you thought you'd die without, you suddenly throw in the trash, loop one line and everything makes sense. I mean, this magic you can do to make the horrible movie you've shot

because it is so horrible when you look at a first assembly of a movie. It's the worst experience ever, and then you can start to make it better when you look at a first assembly of a movie, you just, it's the worst experience ever. And then you can start to make it better. Yeah. When you cut it. Technology is such that,

you shot on film or? I did, I shot on film. Yeah, well that's amazing. But you can edit, right? On with digits. Yes, no, I'm older now, but I never did like the movieola version. No.

Which I heard that Steven Spielberg. Still? No, I'm older now, but I never did like the movie Ola version. No. Which I heard that Steven Spielberg. Still? Well, maybe still, but certainly did long after he needed to because he said his brain used at the time when you took the film off and put it on another, actually cut it and spliced it that it was good for his brain. But can you imagine now in this sped up world,

everybody would go, that's adorable. Get on the avid. You can look at 20 different choices in the time in one cut, but now you can even, pardon me, you can take a scene with two people and somebody crosses behind the other person. You can take different takes and make them as if magically. It's incredible.

I think that's good or it's scary. I don't know which. Anyway, I'm not overdoing how much I loved it, but we can move on. I appreciate it. Did you become a raving alcoholic when the film company went, distribution company crashed and burned with your picture? I mean, it was a dark day. I'm not kidding.

It was a dark day. This comes back to. It was a dark day, you know. This comes back to our thing of you better love it in the room. You better love it in the crappy room. You better have loved making it. You better love the times when you meet someone you respect who sees it and says, I saw what you were trying to do. You better love the heartbreak of losing a location and the thrill of getting Colin Firth. You better love all that part because you do not know, you know, what's going to happen. Mary's son, Charlie McDowell, is a wonderful writer-director and he just shot a film in Finland.

I'm going to mess this up, I know, but Glenn Close was in it and it's called Summer Book. And it's from Tove Jansson who created the Newman's? Moomins. I don't know anything you're saying, so you're smart now and I'm done. No, no. Charlie's listening and going, oh, for God's sake. But it's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant movie. And it doesn't have a strong narrative because that's not the story. The story is basically, it's almost like you have a meditation around these three characters

and nature and the island they were on. It's absolutely beautiful. It's a huge hit in Finland and Europe because people still go to movies there. Here you have to have, for marketing, you have to have a, you know, I exaggerate, but you know. But then adolescence comes along. You've seen adolescence. I know I haven't yet, but I've heard it's just,

but we usually watch TV at night and that may be a little tough. It's a little heavy. But it breaks all the rules we've said. They don't splice magically shots together and it's brilliant. Wait, so did they literally one take? I know we're doing your podcast,

I'm not gonna spoil it for you. You have to watch it. And then you have to make them hire both of us whatever they do next. I don't do one takes. Well, you would in this. Yeah, I know, I heard. Don't learn anything about it, but after you watch it, we're now plugging something neither of us are in.

This has been terrible. We're failures. No, we're not. We're looking for work. We're looking for work. You got to see it and don't look at any of the behind the scenes and then watch all the behind the scenes.

But just keep in mind when you watch it, there was no splicing of one take into another. That's a fact. Yeah, that's a fact. Okay. Got them another job. What about us? All right, I want to bounce.

Good. If you had to say what your artistry, your talents, your, you know, what is it you want to put out into the world? What do you care most about? You know, what is it you want to impart to your child? What is all of that kind of airy-fairy stuff? Yeah, no, it's not airy-fairy at all.

But that's totally real. It's not airy-fairy, and my dad and it's not airy-fairy at all. It's not airy-fairy. And my dad really, my dad tells a story, I will get to your question, which you might have to repeat if I've forgotten it exactly, but my dad tells a story about being in some hospital waiting room and some couple holding hands and God knows what they were waiting for, what results from what surgery and all in the family's on

and he watched them start to laugh. It was like like that matters. So I do believe that art matters. I agree. And we are curing cancer. Yes, and we are. Or at least we're making- Yeah, I hate that phrase. Yes, exactly. Essential workers, they say. But- What do you want to put on? It's not going to be one because I'm bad at one.

No, ramble, but it is at one. So I made a movie called The Sessions and that was about- Also brilliant, sorry. Thank you, thank you. You were really good. It's a beautiful movie and it's a movie about healthy sex, which I can think of almost none. So I felt like I wanted, I'd like young people to see that movie because there's so many, so much footage out there, whether it's on the internet or in movies where sex is

either fake and beautifully choreographed and pretend beautiful, or dark and punishing especially to women. So here's this movie about this man, true story, about a man who had polio and was getting on in his adult life. And he wrote a book called How I Became a Human Being. And one chapter was that he said he felt like he was up against a big glass window and on the other side there was this banquet that other people got to enjoy that he didn't which was having a sexual life so he hired this sexual surrogate to

Do these sessions with him where he could have sex or learn about sex or be in his sexuality and so Because I Think the disability in that movie took away the chance of making it perfect and choreographed. And it was just human and awkward and funny and sexy and not sexy at all, like the way real sex is. So I like that I've left that movie behind and I hope young people see it.

So the only vision they're getting isn't all the other stuff that's out there. I mean, what do I care about the most in the world? My daughter, you know, like I just, my daughter is sort of kind of everything. So this I made, then she found me, she was two. I did a reading of it in my living room when I was pregnant with her. So, and it's dedicated to her at the end. It says for the can of lay. Yeah. So I care about mothering, good mothering. I care about good mothering. I think directors are good mothers. They always have this image of directors as like leading you into battle. Yes, absolutely. Heart of darkness. And a good mother says, I want to hear your

opinion. I'm in charge, but I want to know what you have to say. I know where we're going. I've looked into it. Come aboard. It's going to be okay. Let's not panic. Like all the things a good director says is what I think a good mother says. And then just making people laugh. I mean, my God. During the pandemic, my daughter was 15 turning 16. I mean, there's no good time, but that's a bad time to be locked in the house. That was a horrible time. It was horrible. If you have a teenager, my God.

So we put in these Nancy Meyers movies, and there we are laughing at Marty Short. But that mattered so much, a break from the worry and the futureizing. So I want to make people laugh. I would love another opportunity. I don't know if you ever feel this because you keep working on show after show, but I would love a chance to really let loose in the way I got to do on that about you and be funny.

Me too. And there's all sorts of funny. I mean, Mary did Step Brothers. I'll take it. Yes, please. More people come up watching. I'm sure. You know, we watch it. I think of the pleasure that's given people. Yeah, and a huge laugh.

So what I'm about to say sounds like, if I could be in a Step Brothers, I would love it and would, except I don't think I'm good at that kind of thing. I think you absolutely could walk into that movie. Thank you very much. I mean, there are some people who you aren't going to walk into that movie. You could walk into that movie. Thank you very much.

But I'm working now with Mike Shor. Yes. Again. Again. I read his book that your first show was based on about ethics, right? Yeah. Okay. I'm so glad I have it all right. No, you did, you do.

And he's amazing. And he, ethics, how do you do a show about ethics? And he did it. He did it, he wrapped it in nine-year-old fart humor and beautiful visuals. Yes, and a big idea. He took a big swing of the bat. They had two, at all times, on their speed dial in the writer's room, ethics professors from around the country.

It is taught in, I think it was Notre Dame or someplace, taught at many colleges as part of their syllabus or whatever in their ethic classes. And kids love it. That 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 year olds who are coming into their own about and observing what makes them laugh and caring about it. And my whole fan base is now 11 to 14. Oh, lucky you. Amazing.

I know. I know. It's amazing. And good on them that they saw something and cared about it. He put that out in the world. And then the thing I'm working on with him now, and I'm going to work with Mary, we're going to be together. How fun. We're going to go to work every day together.

Oh my God, how fun. So excited. Is a man on the inside, and it was about, let's talk about aging and grief and memory loss, which we don't want to talk about in this country. And he did it again. And he did it with grace and humor and. Will you tell him in his spare time?

I will. I'm ready to go to work. Oh, very nice. I mean, if he's not busy running your entire show, after running your last show. Okay, but then you have to get me a job because you're guaranteed to get on this. No, I read that book and that's sort of, here's why I like the sort of imagination,

Jungian mythological influence on even a comedy on TV or a big action movie, because people, kids in the case of your show before, can feel when the story's right. And they can feel when it's off. And so when it's right, they can forget and they can laugh at what you're doing. So like the bones of the story matter. Calling the ethics professors matter. When I did Twister, I was like, how am I going to act this thing? Talk about, I'm not the person you would expect

to walk into that movie. But I talked to one of the guys they hired to rewrite it who said he was thinking about Ahab and the whale and how she was going down under to follow this thing. Nobody comes up to me for an autograph in Twister. He's thinking about, you know, Melville. But I had a thread to pull. She is drawn to this thing that could kill her

but killed her fan. She's gonna, and it just made me able to show up. What people like is all the big flying cows and the fun and my hair blowing. But I knew and the writer knew, gotta get the story right. Whatever the form is, something silly, something serious

and almost it's true all the way across. Was that your first huge box office? I can't remember. Yeah. It was. Yeah. I had done a season of Mad About You and I got a call, you know, Yandaban and Steven Spielberg want you to come over for lunch.

I went, what now? Sorry, what? But I had seen Speed, the Yanderman directed. You know, Sandra Bullock is a clown on top of being a serious, in the highest sense, in that Carol Lombard sense, and he hired her. And when I went to talk to him about this movie, he wanted me and Bill and Phil Hoffman. And, you know, theater, why does he want these kind of actors in his movie? Well, cause he's smart and he knows that he'll take care of all the wind blowing.

He needs good actors to show up and it seems to matter sometimes. I mean, it matters to me. Yeah, it matters. You can't chuck it off, you know, you go. No, seriously, Bill and I are taking our fight about whether to chase the tornado and it, again, people are eating popcorn and waiting for the next tornado, but in some, the movie

did really well. And I don't think it was in spite of the good acting, you know, or the theater actors in there. I miss Bill Pax. Yeah, he's so good. And Phil Hoffman. Oh my God. Oh God, that's right.

I forgot. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I miss him too. Woof! I God. Oh God, that's right, I forgot. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I miss him too, woof. I know. Oh well. I know. We live on. We live on.

This sounds really lame, but the whole hanging your hat on something. I get research on people, the amazing research department, I watch things that they recommend or that I know and I need to catch up. And then I sit down and I go through the phase of how can I be interesting in this podcast and it dawns on me that ain't the point. And I go, wait, what am I really curious about this person, for real, just you alone in the

room? What do you really care about this person? And that's, today I was so excited to see you because I wanted to talk about artistry. I wanted to talk about being an artist. And you are. And it's been like this effortless for me conversation because I had this, I could hang my hat on this and go anywhere with you.

Sorry, this is turning about a podcast, but it is true. Find out what you care about and write it. And they're also separate, as actors especially, you know, I'm homeworking on my thing and you're home. And then we get to the set, hey, how are you? Good.

And you, but we never got to compare notes on the process of it. At least we have award shows. That's right. That's where we can really connect with each other. Really? And be who we are. Because you are not dwelling on yourself. You're caring about the people around you.

No, no, no, no. Of course you're there to serve. To be of service in the highest way. Can I just quickly do this? Yes. I was nominated. I got the Carol Burnett Golden Globe Special. I know you did. And man, did that mean everything. Of course it did.

She's the queen. She's the queen. She played my mother in Mad About You. Oh my God, I forgot that. I'm making it about me. It's nice to get your little award. That's amazing that you won that award. This is tennis.

We'll keep taking the ball back. By the way, she was my mother in Mad About You. Okay, going back. Yes. Dick Van Dyke played my father on Becker. We've been here a minute, Ted Danson. Oh my God, that made me so happy. I stalked him because I loved him so much.

I think Paul may have said this on your show, but I'll re-say it, is that we found ourselves, early on we had asked Jerry Lewis to do an episode and he said yes, and honestly the studio was like, okay. But we were just comedy geeks. And then suddenly, not suddenly, we begged Mel Brooks to come and play. We literally went to his office, which was on our lot in Culver City,

and got on our knees at his desk and said, please. Which he liked, I think. And he showed up. And then there was Carl Reiner, and then there was Sid Caesar, and then there was Fred DeCordo. You did it, you did it. And then, I mean, they, I think because one came,

they all said yes. Right. And we looked at each other like, we're getting to be in the room and play with like the ancestors, you know, the people who set the whole thing in motion that you and I are talking about, the joy of getting to do cheers and the joy of getting, like they're the boat launchers, and they came on the show grateful to be part of this

in whatever way lineage me too me so happy me too and like I said it it saved me as a kid it really did it I sat there watching I Love Lucy and bewitched by the way yes you know what I mean oh Oh my God. Montgomery. Yes. She was amazing. Again, she was amazing. She was amazing. So I feel the same way, like just getting to be in that stream of that kind of performing.

I did, I had, I used, I worked with Bill Hurt early on. I know you did. You were, that's an example, I'm going to hijack your podcast, of watching a movie. Who's that when you came on? It was like, what's happening? That's a new thing. Nice. That's exciting.

Let's just leave it there. Okay, good night. Good night. Thank you. Good to talk to you. But Bill, who was going through, he was a very intellectual. I worked with him very recently and he's a very intellectual actor.

Yeah, and he can get confused in his head and before he was sober, he was really difficult to talk to and all of that. Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. But we had this argument about, oh, Cheers was coming up for me anyway, you'd want to be a television actor. And I went, wait, well, no, you know, look at James, sorry. Well, anyway, I named some actor whose name just escaped me who just won, I think was nominated for an Oscar

and had done wonderful films. What? Mary Tyler Moore, you know, all of these people. And he was not having any of it. But then my bad to Bill later in life was I would always, when I would take a part on some television or do something, I'd always have Bill as my, over my shoulder going, oh, Ted, you're not really living up to da da da da.

Which was my bad to him. over my shoulder going, uh, Ted. Like he sold out. Not really living up to da-da-da-da. Which was my bad to him. I shouldn't have done that. And later in life, damages, he said something really nice about damages, and then we saw each other and everything. But I realized, oh, that's not fair to take people in a moment

and then use their voice against yourself. As a weapon against yourself. I also loved, I remember Jim Brooks looking for Greg Kinnear to play this part and he auditioned everybody. The fanciest actors you can imagine. And what mattered to him is that he wanted to tell this story that I described to you. A shallow guy has depth beaten into him.

Yeah. So an interesting, complicated actor wasn't quite right. No. And he didn't care that Greg Kinnear had been on E television or whatever, whatever he did. He was right for the part. Robert Redford didn't care about the stigma of Mary Tyler Moore. And when I was a kid, Dolly Parton was a joke. She'd come on Carson and he'd make jokes about her breasts,

and she'd make jokes, right? She was like, wrote these little songs. And over time, we all now know one of the great- Astounding him. American songwriters, one of the most generous Americans in our lifetime. Philanthropic. Philanthropic.

Everything about it. And the talent. Yeah. Americans in our lifetime. Philanthropic. Philanthropic. Everything about it. And the talent. Yeah. So, so the smart people, the Jim Brookses of the world, no, don't go for the fake of don't do a TV series. Like stay with the work. Stay with the work.

And now it's easier to do that because really people just want to make money. So if you're on a TV show, come be in our movie because people watch it, which is a smarter way to operate, I think. One last thing. Okay. Mike Schur called us all, sorry, another little short story. Yes. Called us in at the beginning of the fourth season of The Good Place and saying, okay, this will be the last season. And we had just become this hit.

And it was like, we so respected because he said, I will have told my story. And I don't want to go on, I don't want to vamp. I just want to tell my story and end it when it should be ended. So I'm doing that a little bit, because this has been a dream for me. For me too. Conversation. It's really fun to talk to you.

You too. Really. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Helen Hunt. Her film, Then She Found Me is available on Prime Video

and you can catch her in season four of Hacks out now. That's it for our show this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you enjoyed this episode please send it to someone you love. Be sure to check us out on YouTube where you can watch full-length episodes. As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you have some time and are in the mood, means a lot. We'll have more for you next week, where everybody knows your name.

["Where Everybody Knows Your Name"] You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow, our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sara Federovich is our supervising producer, engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grahl, talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne.