Helen Hunt finds two film jobs easier than one

TORONTO, Sep 9 (Reuters) Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt took a radically counterintuitive approach to lightening her workload as she prepared to direct her first feature film.

Her solution was to give herself the lead role in ''Then She Found Me,'' which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival yesterday night.

Hunt told Reuters that working both sides of the camera allowed her to spend less time instructing actors.

''I had 27 days to make the movie, and I literally don't think I could have made it with another actress in the part,'' she said on Saturday.

''I couldn't have made her work all night and not sleep, I couldn't have made her change in the middle of the street and run to the next location, and I didn't have time to explain the movie to more than one person in each scene.'' The film was the culmination of a 10-year effort by the actress, who won an Academy Award in 1998 for ''As Good as It Gets,'' and has also graced fan favorites such as ''Twister,'' ''Cast Away'' and the television series ''Mad About You.'' Adapted in part by Hunt herself from the novel of the same name by Elinor Lipman, the film follows April Epner, a 39-year-old adoptee desperate to have her own child, but struggling with a failing marriage and the sudden emergence of her own biological mother, played by Bette Midler.

The film plays as a romantic comedy co-starring Colin Firth as a fragile-but-charming single dad who seeks to become April's romantic salvation. But the laughs are intermingled with pain as the characters deal with past offenses against one another, sometimes finding redemption and sometimes not.

LOVE AND BETRAYAL Hunt, 44, said the film's central message was that you cannot really love unless you have made peace with betrayal.

''I wanted to write a movie about people that I loved that were being crushed and crushing each other while still wanting very badly to be loving,'' she said.

She took pause before casting Firth, fearing that his dry wit and charm would suck some of the drama out of April's plight.

''I think I was afraid and he was afraid that he's so appealing that the minute he comes on screen you'd stop worrying about April, like she'll be fine, she's going to end up with him,'' she said.

''I actually wrote the part for someone much less tall, handsome, and appealing.'' Hunt, who has a 3-year-old daughter and whose acting career has slowed in recent years, said she saw directing as a second career that will allow her to choose projects carefully.

''I'm having such a rich time at home with my daughter that it would have to be a story that moved me enough to have me say to my family, 'Can we bend ... and flex so that I can do this?''' REUTERS RS HS0832