Hunt, Spacey Avoid Media

Oct. 18 -- Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey’s new film, Pay It Forward, isn’t paying off for entertainment journalists.

Journalists are being held at bay while the Oscar-winning actors attempt to protect their privacy and to avoid questions about their possible relationship. Gossip columnist Jeannette Walls says celeb reporters — who wished to remain anonymous lest they be further punished — have had their run-of-the-mill interview requests turned down.

Hunt, who split from husband Hank Azaria this summer, is especially cagey. When one scribe dared to ask her about her so-called torrid affair with co-star Spacey, her reply was cold enough to deep-freeze the writer’s pen. “The only shot I have of putting my personal life in order is not to talk about it and to ask people to respect that decision,” she snapped.

One thing’s for certain: Hunt is leaving Los Angeles. “I’m really letting go of a lot of the things I have in Los Angeles,” Hunt says in the November issue of InStyle magazine. “It feels like the right time to move [to New York City].”

Spacey has been making the late-night TV rounds, but only to crack jokes about his Pay It Forward face makeup (he plays a burn victim) and to further bemoan the media’s portrayal of him. Spacey, who was angered by an Esquire article that questioned his sexuality, told Tonight Show host Jay Leno that he’d been “horribly misquoted” by GQ and said he “needed a drink.”

Oddly, it’s Hunt’s Pay It Forward character who needs a drink — constantly. Spacey plays a disfigured high-school teacher whose student (Haley Joel Osment) attempts to set him up with his drunken mom. Pay It Forward opens Friday.