interview: Kate Hudson

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Hollywood’s sunshiny blonde talks dancing, motherhood and why she’s not giving up on love.

It would be so easy to hate Kate Hudson. That hair, that smile and that teeny body that looks so goddamn perfect in a string bikini. And let’s not forget the career – a perfectly synchronised box set of lowbrow (Bride Wars and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) and high art (Almost Famous – for which she was Oscar-nominated) to which a starring role in the hotly anticipated Rob Marshall musical, Nine, will soon be added.

Hudson turned 30 this year, a fact which may account for her meander from the rom-com track as she heads up two startling different films for 2010, kicking off with Nine.
Set in 1960s Italy, Nine follows the life of ageing film director Guido Contini, who is distracted by the many women in his life. The production is based on the 1982 Broadway show of the same name, which ran for a massive 729 performances and has cinephiles hot under the collar for its star-studded cast, which along with Hudson, features Academy Award-winning actresses Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard and Penélope Cruz. Hudson, who plays a Vogue reporter dispatched to Italy, will dazzle audiences with her dancing moves – a talent she’s kept under wraps since childhood. In 2010, audiences will also get to see a grittier Kate in the taut psychological thriller, The Killer Inside Me, in which she stars opposite Casey Affleck.

Here, the daughter of Hollywood royalty (her mother is, in case you didn’t know, Goldie Hawn, her stepfather Kurt Russell) discusses salsa,  how to reason with a five-year-old and moving on from divorce.

HOW ARE YOU? YOU’RE LOOKING VERY FRESH.
I hardly go out. I went out the other night to a friend’s birthday and as I was leaving, I said to this guy, “It’s 11pm. I’m going home.” He said, “What do you mean? The party’s going to be going on until 3am.” I’m like in bed ...

BUT YOU DO HAVE A LITTLE ONE AT HOME …
Yes, I do. I’m up every morning at 7am. Actually, I get up earlier because I like to go for a run before my son [Ryder] wakes up.

DO YOU STILL POLE DANCE?
Yeah, I do all types of dance. The pole is good for strength. It makes you really strong and is great for your stomach and butt. What I’ve gotten into now is salsa. That’s really hard. If you do a full salsa class for an hour, you’ve got to lose an inch. I mean, it’s crazy – you’re just pouring sweat. And in this movie I’ve been dancing, so it’s been great because that’s what I really like to do.

HAVE YOU ALWAYS LOVED TO DANCE?
I’ve been dancing since I was a girl. It’s a discipline you’re constantly learning. As a girl, I dreamed of dancing with Mikhail Baryshnikov on stage. I’d watch musicals and think, “Oh, I’d give anything to do that.” I remember on the set of Nine, Rob Marshall was talking about when he was in the musical Cats. And I remembered, “Oh my god, I was in the audience!”

HOW WAS FILMING NINE WITH ROB MARSHALL?
It was so much fun but very physically challenging.

WAS IT DIFFERENT TO WHAT YOU’VE DONE BEFORE? 
It was totally different. The dancing and singing was intense, but fun.
 
DO YOU HAVE A BEST FEMALE FRIEND?
I’ve got six of them. One is my best girlfriend from back when we were 10 years old. We’re more like sisters.

WHAT ABOUT MALE FRIENDS?
I’ve got a lot of male friends too, and I have had them for a long time. I have one friend I’ve had since high school. He’s my best male friend. It’s really funny, we’re like the odd couple – he’s a basketball player.

YOU ALWAYS LOOK IN FANTASTIC SHAPE. HAVE YOU EVER STRUGGLED WITH YOUR WEIGHT?
Oh God, of course. After my pregnancy I gained a million pounds, and then again after I quit smoking. I feel like just now my body’s getting back to the way it was before I quit smoking. They say, “Oh, it shouldn’t affect your metabolism”, but I totally put on some after-smoking weight. I realised that I was eating more, because where I’d normally go and have a cigarette after dinner, instead I’d be sitting there and the next thing I knew, I would be picking at the remains of my meal.

HOW DID YOU QUIT SMOKING?
I’m so active that actually smoking started to drive me crazy. I didn’t like the way the car smelled. I didn’t like the way my hair was and I didn’t like the way my clothes smelled. Smoking takes you away from your family and the things that you’re doing. You don’t realise it at the time, then after you’ve quit you go, “Wow – I do so much more in a
day, including eating!”

YOUR SON, RYDER, IS FIVE NOW. WHAT’S THE FUNNIEST THING HE HAS DONE LATELY?
My son is such a smartypants, but in a good way. You know, he’s a sweetie pie, but also very smart. He corrects you a lot. My mother says he’s going to be a director. She says whatever he’s directing, he’ll be in charge because everything is specific, and in particular, colour-specific. We went to this birthday party recently where all the children were getting their faces painted and everybody was saying, “I want to be Spiderman” or “Batman” and the girls were saying “I want to be pretty.” And Ryder said, “I want a red face and I want white around the eyes, I want a white mouth, I want spikes, and I want yellow dots on each spike.” And I said, “Honey, what is that?” He replied, “My creation.” And I was like okay. And then the face painter didn’t do it exactly the way he wanted it …

SO YOU FIRED HER?
No, Ryder kept it to himself, but in the car later he was on the phone with Chris [Robinson – Kate’s former husband and lead singer of the Black Crowes] and I said, “Tell Daddy about your face.” And he told Chris,
“She did it totally wrong.” And I said “What do you mean?” He goes, “They’re not mountain peaks, they’re hills. They’re not peaks, they’re not sharp.” And I said, “Honey, but they look great.” And he said, “No mum, look – they’re hills.” Oh yeah, he knows what he wants.

DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER GET MARRIED AGAIN, IF THE RIGHT PERSON COMES ALONG?
Maybe, I don’t know. I understand marriage in that I can understand why people want to get married. I don’t regret getting married. I loved getting married, I loved my wedding day, I loved Chris – I still love Chris. I don’t know. I feel like it all depends. Really, that’s the kind of thing you get to when you get to it.