An interview with... Kate Hudson
Kate Hudson might be Hollywood royalty, but the one-time
tomboy still manages to stay grounded. She talks to GABRIELLE
DONNELLY about her relationship with her family, love and the joys
of motherhood
When the romantic comedy
Something Borrowed - based on the best-selling novel by Emily
Giffin - hit our movie screens last month we saw Kate Hudson play
every woman's nightmare of a bad 'best' friend. A
monster of selfishness and self-importance who mercilessly bullies
her unlucky buddy (played by the excellent Ginnifer Goodwin), she
tramples her feelings and happily helps herself to all that catches
her fancy, including her boyfriend. Which in itself stands
testament to Kate's dramatic skills, because she could hardly
be more different when you meet the lady herself. Pretty, friendly
and warm, with a startling physical resemblance to her mother
Goldie Hawn, she loves nothing better than sending herself up and
is quick to reassure me that, as far as girlfriends go, she takes
some pride in being one of the best.
"It's funny how some people want women to hate each
other," she says when we meet for tea in Santa Monica.
"They want us to catfight and compete and it's just
horrible. I do know women who act like that and they're
fascinating to watch, but I literally run from getting closer to
them. The woman who doesn't like other women is a scary female
as far as I'm concerned! Me, I'd be lost without my
girlfriends. I have a solid, tight group of really great girls who
I've known for years and years and we're always there for
each other. People look at us and say, 'How do you all manage
to stay so rock solid together?' and the way we do it is we
care about each other, we don't compete, and when we get
together we just leave our egos at the door." She stops and
narrows her eyes, thinking, "Except for tennis," she
adds, more than a little beadily. "I do get competitive when
it comes to tennis. My friend Sarah is better at it than me, but
one of these days I'm really going to kick her
ass."
Not surprisingly, Kate grew up as something of a tomboy. The
only sister of three brothers, she was raised in a cheerfully
bohemian household presided over by her mother Goldie and her
adored 'Pa', Goldie's long-term partner Kurt Russell,
whom she regards as her father in every way but biological.
"I've never had a problem saying what I think or doing
what I want," Kate told me once. "My mom always said I
was a 'jump into the deep end' type of person. When I was
two, I'd be like, 'Mom - check this out!' And I'd
jump into the deep end of the pool even though I couldn't swim!
Mom still talks about that and she says, 'That's who you
were then and that's who you are now'. I have to say
I'm pretty feisty - I like to argue. My brothers think I'm
tough!"
Kate and her siblings, Boston, Kurt's son and her elder stepbrother, Oliver, her full brother, and Wyatt, the son Goldie and Kurt had together, were raised by a couple who never bowed to traditional American conventions. "In many ways we were more like European kids than American," she says now. "We never had to cover our bodies when people came over and we never had to keep our swimsuits on when we visited beaches in Europe - Mom was out being naked and happy with everyone else! There was always interesting conversation around the dinner table, and my parents weren't overprotective about alcohol either. The feeling was, if you want a glass of wine, have a glass of wine!"
Free-spirited or not, she is quick to add there was always
plenty of healthy discipline around the Hawn-Russell household.
"My mom's a very spiritual person and our relationship has
always been about how to be the best person we can be. She's
been an amazing mother in terms of guiding me and keeping my head
screwed on. She knows how to be strict and loving at the same time,
which is a great gift. She had this thing when my brothers and I
were younger where if we did something bad she'd make us feel
guilty without having to say a word. We'd do something like
come home an hour after our curfew and she'd just look at us
and walk away, and we'd be like, 'Oh no! I feel terrible
because I let my mom down!' It was awful, so we tried to behave
well to avoid that. It's a great technique to raising a good,
solid, happy family."
Kate's been thinking a lot about family values lately. Her son
Ryder, the product of her marriage to musician Chris Robinson, lead
singer of The Black Crowes, turned seven in January. He's a
lively, curious child, whom she is taking pains to give every bit
as stable a childhood as the one she enjoyed herself. And around
about the time you read this, she will be giving birth to her
second child, whose father is her current boyfriend, Britain's
own Matt Bellamy, singer-songwriter of Muse. The couple has been
together since April of last year, and while sources say the baby
was not planned, it is nevertheless a most happy surprise.
"I love being part of a family!" she smiles.
"Probably because my own family is so close - my mom, my pa,
my brothers, we all love each other and want to spend time
together. I'm a real family girl. And since I've had Ryder,
I've discovered that - although it's a terrible
cliché, it's so true - nothing exists without your
children. And that's true for Chris, too. Although our marriage
didn't work out, I still love Chris very dearly. Ryder is
number one in our lives, absolutely. I would literally go to the
end of the earth for him. And so would Chris."
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