Semiprocedural animation

I need to do the following.
There is a character with head animation. At any moment, he should smoothly turn his head in the direction of the object that appears in different places. After some time, the normal animation continues.
So far, I’m thinking of doing this: when an object appears, the direction to it is calculated, we get the head rotation angles, then in the state machine we go to the state where the 2d blend space plays, to which the rotation angles are transferred. For a smooth transition between the current direction and the direction of the item, I’m thinking of using Timelines.
But I think there is a better and better option.
Can you tell me the right way?