Academy-and Emmy Award-winning actor, director, writer, and producer Helen Hunt will appear at the El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival, which returns for its 16th year July 20-30 in and around the Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso.

Hunt will appear for on-stage, pre-screening interviews with 1997’s As Good As It Gets, for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress, at 7 pm Saturday, July 29, and the 1996 blockbuster Twister at 1 pm Sunday, July 30, both in the historic Plaza Theatre.

Helen Hunt grew up in the creative arts. Her father Gordon Hunt was a TV and stage director, mother Jane Hunt was a photographer, and her uncle Peter Hunt was a film and stage director. Helen’s career started as a child actor, appearing on episodes of TV’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bionic Woman, The Swiss Family Robinson and others before branching into movies as a teenager. Her early career credits include stints on TV’s St. Elsewhere and roles in movies, including Peggy Sue Got Married and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

It was her performance as PR specialist Jamie Buchman on TV’s Mad About You that catapulted her to superstardom in the 1990s. Hunt won four Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress during the series’ seven-season run on NBC (a limited-run revival ran on Spectrum Originals in 2019). Hunt’s success coincided with her growing appeal at the box office, including starring roles in As Good As It Gets, What Women Want, Twister, Castaway, Pay It Forward, Dr. T and the Women, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and The Sessions, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.

She wrote and directed the films Then She Found Me (with Bette Midler) and Ride, and has directed episodes of numerous television shows, including Mad About You, The Politician, Feud: Bette and Joan, This Is Us, Life in Pieces, House of Lies, and Californication. She currently stars as the mother of an imprisoned son in the Starz series Blindspotting, and acts on the stage, with Our Town and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night among her credits.

Hunt joins fellow multi-hyphenate Edward James Olmos as this year’s Plaza Classic special guests. They’re part of an 11-day film festival that includes screenings of Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs, Peter Pan, Psycho (the original theatrical edition), When Harry Met Sally, Kramer vs. Kramer, Steamboat Bill Jr. and many more.

Individual tickets go on sale Friday at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.com. Passes are on sale at plazaclassic.com/tickets.

Media contact: Doug Pullen, Program Director, El Paso Community Foundation, 915-533-4020, dpullen@epcf.org Rudy Vasquez, Marketing Director, El Paso Community Foundation, 915-533-4020, rvasquez@epcf.org