Even at 16, Kate Hudson knew she didn’t want to be defined by her relationship to Kurt Russell — the actor and longtime partner of her mother, Goldie Hawn.
Hudson, now 46, revealed in an appearance at the inaugural Newport Beach TV Fest on Thursday, June 5, that Russell, 74, offered her a role in his 1996 film Escape from L.A. — but she turned it down.
“I went in and auditioned and got that part, and I sort of realized, ‘Oh, this is when you start to make choices that will define your career.’ And, ‘Do I want to be defined by being Kurt’s daughter who got this part? No,’” she explained at a live recording of the “Awards Chatter” podcast.
“[It doesn’t] matter if I got it because I was good enough — it would never be what people would ever think,” Hudson added. “And I knew that and was like, ‘No, I can’t.’ So I ended up saying no to that, too.”
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Hudson has long said she considers Russell to be her father, although he and Hawn, 79, never married. The First Wives Club actress was married to Kate’s biological father, Bill Hudson, from 1976 to 1982. In addition to Kate, they share a son, Oliver, 48. Hawn and Russell began dating in 1983 and have been together ever since.
Even though Kate ultimately didn’t take the part in Escape from L.A., she added that growing up on sets with Russell helped her realize she wanted to be an actress.
“My dad’s sets were the fun sets,” she said. “It was like Big Trouble in Little China and we had slides that would go down into rubber fish, and these amazing costumes … And the thing is, when you grow up on a movie set, it’s not that fun. [There] is a lot of waiting around, so you realize you really love it when you don’t want to get off the movie set.”
Kate also revealed she first told her parents she wanted to act at age 11 and even landed a role, but Hawn objected, wanting her daughter to have a more normal childhood.
“Performing was always something I knew I was going to do,” Kate said. “There was never a question, but really falling in love with the circus was something that I don’t think all kids actually have when they’re on a set.”
After turning down Russell’s offer, Kate said she continued auditioning. She landed a few small parts on TV series Party of Five and EZ Streets before earning her breakout as Penny Lane in the 2000 movie Almost Famous. Kate and Russell eventually shared the screen in the 2020 film Deepwater Horizon, and she told Good Morning America at the time that the experience brought her back to her childhood.
“What I really, really loved about being on set with him was it was a reminder of where I fell in love with making movies,” she said.
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