Helen Hunt: Ride

It was a surf lesson that inspired Helen Hunt to pen her upcoming feature, Ride, or to be more specific, a surf lesson gone terribly wrong. After getting repeatedly pummeled by wave after wave, she emerged from the water, with "tears in her throat" and thought, if something upset her that much, she should probably write about it. In Ride, the majority of which was filmed in Venice and Leo Carrillo State Beach, Hunt plays Jackie, a born and bred New Yorker whose 19-year-old son goes to California for summer break. When he decides to stay and become a surfer, she goes after him the best way she knows how.

Hunt says directing for her isn't so much about the chance to direct, but about her desire to tell her own stories. She talks about motherhood, time, and other thematic elements in Ride, plus, what it was like to get to be funny again after doing a whole lot of drama.

Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films