When Helen Hunt met with Australian actor Brenton Thwaites to audition for the role of her son in "Ride" ? a movie she wrote and directed ? the actress liked him but didn't think he was right for the part.
"I wrote it as a love story between a mother and a son, so it was all about who was gonna be this boy and Brenton came in to audition," Hunt recalls. "I didn't know what to do because he's gorgeous and kind, clearly on his way to being a movie star, no doubt about it, and totally wrong for what I wrote." In "Ride," Hunt plays a single mom who is completely devoted to her college-aged son. When he drops out of school and moves cross country to surf, she follows him and takes up the sport, too. Along the way, she begins to re-establish her own identity.??