HUNT FOR THE BEST : `TWISTER' MAY MAKE HER A HOT PROPERTY, BUT SHE'S STILL `MAD' ABOUT SERIES.

Byline: Barry Koltnow Orange County Register

Big-budget summer blockbuster. State-of-the-art special effects. Mother Nature gone berserk. Tractors flying through the air. Massive devastation. People running and screaming into the night. Audiences clutching their seats. Hearts racing. Adrenalin pumping. Massive tornadoes. Helen Hunt.

Helen Hunt? Is that the same adorable Helen Hunt from the TV sitcom ``Mad About You''? The same Helen Hunt we watched grow up in her television movies? The same Helen Hunt whose feature films normally are so low-budget and so obscure that they disappear long before summer?

Maybe it's a different Helen Hunt starring in director Jan De Bont's $72 million tornado thriller ``Twister,'' which opened Friday to record business, officially kicking off the summer blockbuster season.

Nope, it's the same Helen Hunt.

``I have to admit that I did not hate the idea that I might finally be in a movie that made a ton of money,'' said the actress, who plays an experienced storm chaser whose research team is trying to outwit another, better-equipped and better-financed team in the middle of Tornado Alley. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg and also stars Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz and Cary Elwes.

Hunt apparently was De Bont's first choice, but he had his hands full trying to convince the two studios financing the film that a TV actress was the right woman for the job.

``I found it flattering that somebody was willing to fight so hard for me when up against the commercial realities that I am not Demi Moore and that I had time constraints,'' the actress said.

Because of her TV shooting schedule, Hunt explained, she had to give the director a date beyond which she could not work.

``How many months over schedule did `Waterworld' go and I was telling Jan that no matter what unexpected things happened in his big-budget action film, he couldn't work past a certain day. It's amazing that he fought as hard as he did for me.''

Hunt, 32, said De Bont (who last directed the hit ``Speed''), Spielberg and another producer, Walter Parkes, asked her to come in to discuss the role.

``This wasn't the kind of role I wanted to do during my hiatus, but I thought it would be fun to meet Steven Spielberg, so I went and met with them anyway,'' she said.

``The reason I didn't want the part is that I was pretty sure I knew exactly what the part was, even without seeing a script. I've seen, and played, this part before. It's the woman scientist who wears glasses to make her look smarter and is there to hold onto the arm of the guy as they go through this dangerous situation. I've seen it all before.

``But they emphasized to me that she was different than anything I'd seen before; that she was not the woman in peril or the man in the movie. She was both. She was complex and a little nuts.

``Walter Parkes described her as the kind of woman that you're so glad you didn't marry because she would have made your life miserable. I thought that was such an interesting and unusual way of describing the heroine of a movie. How could I not play her?''

The movie opens with a horrifying scene in which a farm family is nearly wiped out by a monster tornado. The little girl in the scene is Hunt's character, and the experience leads her to a life of studying tornadoes.

``I think it's a case of the cure being in the poison,'' Hunt said. ``She needs to get back to the place of injury to be healed.''

The movie is heavy on special effects, but Hunt said the director did not depend solely on computer-generated effects. He wanted the actors to appear as if they were in real storms, so he constantly had them buffeted by wind machines, jet engines and helicopters hovering overhead.

``When you finish a typical movie, the actors usually sit around and talk about that one crazy day with the big stunts when it looked as if you'd never get through it,'' she said. ``Well, every day was like that on `Twister.'

``Every day was a combination of brutal and exciting. I don't know about other actors, but I'm not used to driving cars with fire blowing on them or being pummeled by debris or driving through a fence or running through a cornfield. This was what it was like every day of the week. For a girl who grew up in Manhattan, this was different, but it was great.''

Hunt actually was born in Los Angeles, but her father is theater director and acting coach Gordon Hunt, and she was raised in the shadow of Broadway. She attended acting classes at 7, and by the time she was 9, she had caught the attention of an agent.

She made her professional acting debut in the television movie ``Pioneer Woman'' and has worked steadily ever since.

She jumped with ease from TV, where she was a regular on the series ``St. Elsewhere'' and did dozens of TV movies, including ``Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Smart Story,'' to movies (``Peggy Sue Got Married,'' ``Mr. Saturday Night'') and to the theater, where she performed on Broadway in Thornton Wilder's ``Our Town'' and in a Shakespeare in the Park production of ``Taming of the Shrew.''

``I guess there is a logic to my career in that any time I felt that I was having more success than I had skill, I would pull back and try something else,'' she said.

``When things were going well in L.A., I moved back to New York because I was afraid I would get so entrenched in TV that I would never get back to the stage. And when things went well in New York, I quickly moved back to L.A.''

It was back in L.A. that second time that led to her getting the role on ``Mad About You,'' which has brought her three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globes. The show will conclude its fourth season Sunday with an hourlong episode on the couple's growing marital problems.

``I have turned down numerous scripts for romantic comedies (in feature films) because they can't touch what we do on our TV show,'' Hunt said. ``You can't begin to explore in two hours what we have explored with this couple in four years.

``I wouldn't give up this show for anything, regardless of what happens with `Twister.' But I do hope the movie's a big success so that I have access to better film material and because I would like good directors to want to work with me.

``But I'm not giving up the show for a film career. I don't feel like I'm slumming when I go back to my job on TV. It's a privilege to be on that show. And, if this movie makes me a hot commodity in the film industry, I'm sure the scripts will wait for my next hiatus from the show.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) ``When you finish a typical movie, the actors usually sit around and talk about that one crazy day with the big stunts when it looked as if you'd never get through it,'' says Helen Hunt, pictured with co-star Bill Paxton. ``Well, every day was like that on `Twister.' ''

(2) ``She was not the woman in peril or the man in the movie. She was both. She was complex and a little nuts,'' says Hunt of her ``Twister'' character.