Fifty-one and totally fabulous! Helen Hunt is proving that she just gets better with age, and in her new movie, Ride, the actress shows off the way she’s stayed so fit and toned over the years: surfing. Chatting with HuffPost Live April 30, Ride‘s writer, director, and star explained that she’s surfed for 10 years, and even rode the waves while “100 months” pregnant in 2004.
“I always wanted to,” said Hunt, who grew up in Los Angeles and splits her time between L.A. and New York. “You live in L.A., drive by the beach, and say ‘I want to do that!’ And I thought ‘Well, it’s getting late — I better do it.'”
Directing herself in Ride, Hunt — who appears opposite her surf instructor love interest Luke Wilson — tells HuffPost Live she pushed herself to the limits and made no excuses.
“Even I can’t worry too much [about directing myself] when I’m out there in the ocean. We shot the movie for four weeks, and I’d say [in the editing phase] that the wipeouts weren’t scary enough, and we’d go back” to film additional scenes, she said.
As she ages, the Oscar-winning Twister alum isn’t necessarily worried about finding the fountain of youth. Instead, she strives to stay active by choice rather than out of necessity.
“I had my run in the ‘80s about being really worried about how I looked. Everybody was more fit, or more thin, and I maxed out on worrying about it,” Hunt admitted. “I just gave up on worrying about it. When I gave it up, my brain and body got better. I was taking these exercise classes called ‘abs, thighs, and buns’ and I was like, ‘I’m going to be dead one day — do I really want to give up an hour in this class?'”
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