Chatted with Helen Hunt recently for an interview centering around her new movie "Then She Found Me." Didn't get to meet in person (@#$!^ publicists), but an interview's an interview.

Who among us doesn't think that Helen Hunt is cool? From a stage lovers POV alone, the woman wins an Oscar, goes backstage and, holding her trophy, announces she'll play Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" for director Nicholas Hytner at Lincoln Center with a bunch of other theater hounds.

That was back in _ whew! _ 1998? My time doth fly.

"It wasn't like I was doing 'Twelfth Night' in some obscure place. I grew up going to the theater in New York," Hunt, the daughter of director Gordon Hunt told me. "For me it was as exciting to play that part in that place and that city. I heard somebody say there was great nobility in choosing to do a play. For me, I felt like I was cashing in this momentary set of chips while I had them to do what I really wanted to do."

Hunt returned to Broadway a few years later for a quickie run of Yasmina Reza's "Life (x) 3." In the summer 2002, she also kicked off the L.A. run of "The Guys" opposite Tim Robbins at The Actors Gang. More like a staged reading, but, briefly, she was back on the boards here in L.A.

Now a devoted mom to a 4 year old daughter, Hunt doesn't see a lot of stage-work in her immediate future. She was offered a role in a Broadway production last year and turned it down.

"The whole time I read it, I was nervous, and in the end it didn't feel like the right thing," says Hunt, who took three years off from film to write and be home with her daughter. "I didn't feel scared I would want to do it. I don't like not being home. I don't feel comfortable. I'm envious of those actresses who can just say, 'Here we go. It will work out,' and I don't mean that in a roundabout way."

"I know mothers who are good friends of mine who have mostly stayed home, and they don't walk around feeling sure they did right thing. It's important to me to feel happy and fulfilled enough to never cross that line."

My favorite Helen Hunt story -- with which I will bore you readers _ is actually a skipped generation Henerson encounter that happened during the summer of 2002 while Hunt was in the run of "The Guys." As it happened, Hunt was living one street over from where my parents lived in the San Fernando Valley. Her house had a cool sort of bridge walkway that my son, Jeremy, then 3 years old, found interesting.

Well, one afternoon, Jeremy and his grandfather took a walk on that street and paused in front of H.H.'s house. The actress herself came out to see what was going on. My father asked if she would mind if my kid walked across the bridge of her house a few times.

"Go for it," was Ms. Hunt's, I thought, quite gracious response.

When that tale was related to me, I vowed to thank Helen Hunt if I ever interviewed her. Which I did, and which I did.