Kate Hudson
Kate Garry Hudson is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Born to singer Bill Hudson and actress Goldie Hawn, Hudson made her film debut in the 1998 drama Desert Blue, which was followed by supporting roles in several films. She rose to prominence with her portrayal of Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's musical drama Almost Famous, for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Throughout the 2000s, Hudson starred in the romantic comedies How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, You, Me and Dupree, Fool's Gold, and Bride Wars. On the television side, she had a recurring role in the musical series Glee, and starring roles in the thriller series Truth Be Told and comedy series Running Point. Her other film credits include The Skeleton Key, Nine, Rock the Kasbah, Deepwater Horizon, and Mother's Day. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performances in Music and Song Sung Blue. For the latter, Hudson also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Hudson is a co-founder of the fitness brand and membership program Fabletics, operated by TechStyle Fashion Group. She is also the author of the non-fiction books Pretty Happy: Healthy Ways to Love Your Body and Pretty Fun: Creating and Celebrating a Lifetime of Tradition. Hudson released her debut studio music album, Glorious, in 2024.
Early life
Hudson was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, an actor, comedian, and musician. Her parents divorced when she was 18 months old and she and her older brother, actor Oliver Hudson, were raised in Snowmass, Colorado, and Pacific Palisades, California, by her mother and her mother's longtime boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell. Hudson's ancestry is Italian, Hungarian Jewish, and the remainder a mix of English and some German. She was raised Jewish; like her mother, she also practices Buddhism.Hudson has stated that her biological father "doesn't know me from a hole in the wall", and she considers Russell her father. Hudson has described her mother as "the woman that I've learned the most from, and who I look up to, who has conducted her life in a way that I can look up to". She has four half-siblings: Emily and Zachary Hudson, from her biological father's later marriage to actress Cindy Williams; Lalania Hudson, from her father's relationship with another woman; and Wyatt Russell, from her mother's relationship with Kurt Russell.
In 1997, she graduated from Crossroads, a college preparatory school in Santa Monica. She was accepted to New York University, but chose to pursue an acting career instead of an undergraduate degree.
Career
1996–2001: Beginnings and ''Almost Famous''
At age 11, Hudson performed on stage at the Santa Monica Playhouse. She made her film debut in the comedy-drama Desert Blue, and subsequently appeared in the romantic comedy 200 Cigarettes. She took on the roles of a college student in the psychological thriller Gossip, the lesbian daughter of the titular character in the romanic-comedy Dr. T & the Women and one of the leading roles in the romantic comedy About Adam, all of which were released during 2000.Her breakthrough came with the role of a veteran groupie in Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical comedy-drama Almost Famous. She "hung in and had turned down leads in other movies just to play the part" and soon obtained it "because of her loyalty", according to Crowe. For her performance, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 58th Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 73rd Academy Awards. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "This power ballad of a movie also happens to be Crowe's greatest film thanks to the golden gods of Stillwater and their biggest fan, Kate Hudson's incomparable Penny Lane." She worked hard in avoiding association with her well-known parents, as she did not want to be perceived as someone who "rode on somebody's coattails".
2002–2009: Romantic comedies
In 2002, Hudson appeared in the remake of the historical romance The Four Feathers, as the fiancée of a young British officer. The film was a critical and commercial failure. In her next film, the romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Hudson starred with Matthew McConaughey, as a writer for a women's magazine who, for an article, starts dating a guy and trying to drive him away using only the "classic mistakes women make" in relationships. It received mixed reviews, although Hudson was praised for her performance and her chemistry with McConaughey, and the film was a box office success. She starred opposite Naomi Watts in the Merchant-Ivory film Le Divorce, portraying a woman who, with her sister, dispute the ownership of a painting by Georges de La Tour with the family of her former brother-in-law. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C" rating and wrote: "I'm disappointed to report that Hudson and Watts have no chemistry as sisters". Her next romantic comedies, Alex & Emma, in which she played a stubborn stenographer, and Raising Helen, taking on the role of a young woman who becomes the guardian of her deceased sister's children, were released to varying degrees of success.In 2005, Hudson starred in the supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key, as a young hospice nurse who acquires a job at a New Orleans plantation home, and becomes entangled in a supernatural mystery involving the house. In its review, The Washington Post, describing her, wrote: "Hudson, who dials back her native, Goldie-given charm here to give Caroline a no-nonsense brusqueness, manages to convincingly convey a fearless bullheadedness rather than less sympathetic naivete". The film was a box office hit, grossing over US$91.9 million worldwide.
Her next film, the comedy You, Me and Dupree, in she appeared with Owen Wilson and Matt Dillon as one half of a couple who allows an unemployed friend to move in. It was a box office success, and in Universal Pictures' distributor research Hudson was noted as an important factor for audiences choosing to see the film.
In 2007, Hudson directed the short film Cutlass, one of Glamour magazine's "Reel Moments" based on readers' personal essays, which starred Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Virginia Madsen, Chevy Chase and Kristen Stewart.
In the romantic comedy Fool's Gold, her second film with Matthew McConaughey, Hudson took on the role a divorced woman who returns with her former husband while searching for a lost treasure. She was certified in scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef for the underwater scenes. The film received generally negative reviews, with criticism for the lack of chemistry among the cast. It grossed $111.2 million worldwide. In My Best Friend's Girl, another romantic comedy released in 2008, Hudson played the colleague of an amiable guy. It received generlaly negative reviews, and was a moderate commercial success. Hudson received a Golden Raspberry Award nomination, jointly for both Fool's Gold and also for My Best Friend's Girl.
Hudson starred in Bride Wars, alongside Anne Hathaway, playing two best friends who become rivals after their weddings are scheduled on the same day. The film was named among the 10 worst chick flicks of all time by Time in 2010, but was successful financially, grossing US$114.6 million globally. Her next film was the musical Nine, directed by Rob Marshall, in which she played a Vogue fashion journalist, alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench. The film was acclaimed by critics and Hudson garnered praise for her dancing skills, showcased in a 1960s-inspired original piece called "Cinema Italiano", which was written specifically for her character.
2010–2020: Career fluctuations
Hudson starred with Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba, as the wife of a West Texas serial killer, in the film adaptation The Killer Inside Me, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In 2011, Hudson played a quickwitted, carefree ad executive in the romantic comedy film A Little Bit of Heaven, and a party girl in another romantic comedy, Something Borrowed, based on Emily Giffin's novel of the same name. In is review for the latter, Detroit News remarked: "Kate Hudson looks exhausted, as if she is as tired of wading through another one of her feckless duds as we are of watching them". While A Little Bit of Heaven found a limited release in theaters, Something Borrowed was a moderate commercial success.In 2012, Hudson was cast on the Fox teen comedy series Glee, in the recurring role of Cassandra July, a dance teacher at the fictitious New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts.
In 2013, Hudson appeared in the political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist, as a photographer and the girlfriend of a professor at the University of Lahore. In 2014, she starred in the comedy Wish I Was Here, as the wife of a struggling actor, and the thriller Good People, as one half of a couple who fall into severe debt while renovating their family's home. The aforementioned films received a limited release and mixed reviews from critics.
In Rock the Kasbah, Hudson played a top-hatted hooker with a heart of gold who befriends a has-been actor manager in Afghanistan. Despite a US$15-million budget, the film made just US$3 million at the North American box office.
Hudson voiced a crazy ribbon-dancing panda in the DreamWorks Animation film Kung Fu Panda 3, which grossed US$521.1 million globally, and became her most widely seen film. She starred as a woman married to an Indian man and the sister of a lesbian woman, both of whom had not told their conservative parents, in the romantic comedy Mother's Day, directed by Garry Marshall and opposite Julia Roberts, Timothy Olyphant, and Jason Sudeikis. The film was panned by critics and a moderate commercial success. She next played the wife of a chief electronics technician in the drama Deepwater Horizon, based on the Deepwater Horizon explosion. While critical response was positive, the film was only slightly profitable, making US$121.8 million on a budget of around US$110 million.
In the 2017 film Marshall, Hudson portrayed an employer accusing her black chauffeur of rape. It received positive reviews from critics but found a limited audience in theaters.