Recent photos of Helen Hunt have left me puzzled; there is something going on with her mouth.
I don’t think it is merely aging, it seems almost syndrome-y. I thought at first it was “smoker’s lips”, but after doing the Google I’m not so sure.
This isn’t intended to bash her - Lawd knows I’ve not aged as well as I’d hoped I would. Consider it idle curiosity.
link 2
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To me, she’s always looked like she is aging a little faster than her peers, but I don’t know whether she’s a smoker. She’s also one of the few who apparently hasn’t had cosmetic procedures - fillers to fill out wrinkles, implants to plump up cheeks, face-lift to remove excess skin. While it’s a little jarring to see compared to the rest of Hollywood stars, I admire her for it.
She looked really strange in that movie (I See You) and a lot of people commented on it on IMDB. I thought it was, in this order, too much Botox, makeup to make it look like she had too much Botox, a malfunctioning digital effect. It was very distracting. For what it’s worth, there is a product on the market that reduces linse on your face, but if your face goes through a lot of animation its effect wears off quickly. So people who have applied it tend to modulate their facial expressions. I guess I would expect that a Hollywood makeup artist would use something better.
She looks to me like she’s had some facelift procedure, without the hideous lip-fillers that most stars have done. Her face, especially over her cheekbones, looks smooth and tight.
Hooray for her, those hideous lip-plumping procedures leave people looking grotesque.
~VOW
Looks like Botox to me.
Yeah, it’s like a semi-permanent frown but her face is gaunt as well. If she had plastic surgery, she needs to get her money back. She used to be very pretty and she does have the right to age, but I think there’s something else afoot here.
Weird; I was, for some reason I don’t recall, thinking about HH the other day. Thinking about hr face, in fact. She looks to me like she may have had surgery, but not cosmetic. More like restorative, like as if she had an accident or something.
Then I got to thinking how bad I feel for her. I was not aware of this movie but I saw a scene from the reboot of Mad About You and her face was distracting. That’s so not fair of me, but it’s true. Then I think how she must know everyone is talking about her. Remember when she was the toast of town (I mean it was 30 year ago but still)?
Now that you mention it, she did have an accident but it doesn’t sound like it caused major damage.
After we watched “I See You,” I asked Mrs. L what she thought about the plot twists in the movie and she said, “I can’t get over Helen Hunt.” I said yeah, I know. I said I really liked Libe Barer, who had been in “Sneaky Pete” and Mrs. L said, “I can’t get over Helen Hunt.” Yep, true that. I said so how about that ending and she said…
I don’t think Helen looks bad, exactly. Children wouldn’t start crying if they saw her in the street etc. But she was so very girl next door pretty and this is beyond a few wrinkles.
The first thing I thought was some kind of stroke-like event, but apparently this is on both sides of her face so that is less likely. I didn’t like her as much as lots of other people apparently did when she was younger, she seemed pretty tightly wound and often pretty harsh. I realize she was acting but so many of her roles seemed that way, maybe that persona was easier for her to project, or she was cast that way because she was that way.
Anyway, my point is that if she really was that way, it could result in her mouth turning down like that over the course of 30 years. A person’s personality can certainly affect their facial features. and a negative personality will have a negative effect. Plus she was always thin and fair, and that combination in women often doesn’t age well.
I didn’t see the movie and the stuff from the trailer was not that helpful. But it didn’t look like any kind of surgery or cosmetic effect that I’ve ever seen.
I think she always had a thin upper lip and as she aged, it continued to thin. I would have to see the movie to see if the rest of her face has any strange affect.
Look at her in PBS’s ‘World on Fire’
With the style and make up of the day and her hair, she looks horrible.
It works for her character, tho’.
The show is great.
A few years back there were some pictures on the net that purported to be her with her dentures out. No idea if she actually wears dentures but as someone with dental issues myself I guess I took note of that. Ill fitting dentures maybe?
She’s just a white lady with “Karen Lips”.
Some previous discussion of her weird face nowadays here:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=885547
I still think she just looks a little older than we’re used to seeing on Hollywood actresses. She has some resting frowny face going on, and in that trailer I think she was exaggerating the frown for the role. In pictures of her smiling, she looks fine. Idk if she smokes, or if she just has skin that looks a little older than her age. But she looks like a normal woman who hasn’t gone under the knife or subjected herself to botox and fillers. I should look so good.
I think it’s just aging - like mentioned up-thread, we’re not used to seeing a middle-aged woman actually showing her age on tv or the movies.
All I know is this topic would have been much different without the apostrophe.
The problem is Hunt has a mustache in A World of Fire. Well, instead of shaving the mustache, she ended up filming I See You and her facial hair was removed with CGI.
My first though when watching World on Fire was - when did *Helen Hunt *turn into Penelope Keith. I mean, it was mostly the hairstyle, but it took me a while to reconcile the mental picture in my head of Audrey fforbes-Hamilton with an american drawl …
Folks were worrying about this 15 years ago, too: