GOLDIE HAWN
They hailed her as the new Marilyn Monroe when she bounced onto the movie scene, but Goldie Hawn’s giggly blonde persona belied a surprising inner steel. After a decade-plus break from Hollywood, she’s back in kidnap comedy Snatched. Total Film talks laug
In my mind, I could never make a movie about fluffy stuff that didn’t matter… They’re all about something
Goldie Hawn would like to reassure you that she isn’t dead. Aside from the fact she hasn’t appeared on the big screen for the better part of 15 years, in 2016, Facebook went into meltdown when a group called RIP Goldie Hawn attracted one million followers and reported the actress had died, aged 70. Luckily, Hawn knows how to take a joke, no matter how bad. “Oh my God, I know!” she giggles. “I read that and I went, ‘This is insane! It’s crazy.’”
The 71-year-old actress is very much alive when Total Film meets her at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica in February 2017. If anything, she’s almost
too alive, so animated that she barely sits still for more than five minutes. Glamorous, with mascara-lined eyes and a knee-grazing black dress (off the shoulder, naturally), she crosses and uncrosses her legs, hopping up to dip breadsticks in nondescript white sauce, talking through mouthfuls, then sipping green juice.
It’s not surprising. Hawn made a career out of her bubbly, buzzy personality, ruling as comedy queen throughout the ’80s and ’90s. But she put acting on hold after 2002’s groupie-reunion chuckler Banger
Sisters to concentrate on Mind Up, her foundation that teaches mindfulness to children. It took Amy Schumer to lure her back with a role in this year’s motherdaughter comedy Snatched, which sees the pair kidnapped in Ecuador after a case of mistaken identity.
“I have to say, I didn’t miss it. I didn’t,” Hawn says with typical candour, pulling apart a chocolate chip muffin as she discusses her break from acting. “I didn’t go back and say, ‘I wish I could pretend again.’ I went back and said, ‘I want to move forward with something real and tangible.’ I love what I’m doing now, I’m having a ball.”
Performing remains integral to her character, even during our chat. She loves reciting her favourite movie jokes – she can still remember all of Overboard’s best one-liners – and though her laugh’s still as dirty and infectious as ever, she’s also shrewd and unafraid of talking business. She’s known as the matriarch in a Hollywood power brood – as long-time partner of Kurt Russell and mother to Kate Hudson – but Hawn was an early pioneer for gender equality in a famously sexist industry.
After winning 1970’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar, aged 24, for Cactus Flower, in which she played Walter Matthau’s suicidal ex-lover, she worked with Steven Spielberg on Sugarland Express, Warren
Beatty on Shampoo and executive produced Private Benjamin (earning her second Oscar nom, in 1981’s Best Actress category). Then came Protocol, Death Becomes Her and
The First Wives Club (sequel Divanation was last being looked at by Netflix).
Now that she’s returned to the limelight, the rumour mill’s back into overdrive. The death hoaxes have eased up (so far), but the latest Chinese whisper is that she’s in line to play the next Bond girl. “WHAT?! Oh my God!” Hawn cackles. “It’s so… somebody just plans this shit, it’s crazy. I mean, a Bond girl? Are they out of their minds?” Total Film points out we think she’d make a great foil for 007. “Oh sure, honey,” Hawn laughs. “Something different, that’s for sure!”
You’ve not acted since Banger Sisters 15 years ago. Did you consider yourself retired from movies?
No, you don’t ever officially retire, but I found something in my life that stimulated me and interested me and as time goes on, you really wonder what else you’re going to do. I think life has to be filled with lots of things, and as you get older you realise, “God that was a great script” – Banger Sisters was so great, she was a great character – but you’re not gonna get those kind of roles forever. So I wasn’t looking to work or not to work, I just redirected my focus completely on children and the needs of children today with my foundation, Mind Up.
What was it about Snatched that made you want to make another movie?
Funny, great characters. Important subject matter; mother-daughter. Amy’s amazing and I love her. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to be her mom in the movie?” And it’s really fun. So that’s the kind of role that’s exciting to do. Not every role is like that, so I feel very lucky to be doing this. It had something to say even though it’s a crazy comedy; it had some footing, some pylons, it wasn’t… It’s a mother-daughter story and all the issues around that. When you make a film – whether you’re a producer or a star; this one I’m just an actor-for-hire which is perfect – it has to matter. No matter how funny it was, and we wanted to make it as funny as possible, it had to be relevant.
That’s something you’ve always championed. Your comedies always have something to say…
In my mind, I could never make a movie about fluffy stuff that didn’t matter. And so whether it was Protocol or Private
Benjamin, even Wildcats, which was really
about a woman coaching a football team and being a woman, or First Wives Club, these movies were really about something. So that’s what I liked about Snatched.
You play a woman who’s afraid of everything. Could you relate to that?
No, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid. It’s a very opposite character to who I am. I’m cautious but I’m not fearful. I must admit, I did quit skiing because any sport with an ambulance waiting at the bottom of a mountain is not a sport I want to do anymore! But other than that, no… I think we need to be more afraid of people than things.
Did you find that you had a lot in common with Amy Schumer?
Family is very important to me in life, and I think Amy’s the same way. She’s very big on family. I think that family is where all your joy and all your troubles spring from. So when you look back to the way you grew up or what your parents did or didn’t do, or your sibling rivalry, or whatever it is you have to remember from that time, that’s what in my estimation one needs to take a look at. So much of dysfunction stems from that. But then I feel our families are… they keep us together. I have a friend who lost her husband just last night. Family is there and friends are there and they’re holding each other up. Without each other, without family, it’s a sad state of affairs. We need each other.
You’ve been with Kurt Russell for 34 years, and your daughter Kate Hudson’s gone into acting. You’ve shown it’s possible to be a family in Hollywood and not get spat out by the machine…
Yeah. Where are your priorities? Like I say, no relationship is perfect and everybody’s different. Would you want to be with somebody who’s exactly like you? Sometimes we think, “Wouldn’t it be great,” or maybe not? When you look back at what your values are, Kurt and I have the same values. We want the same thing. You might go about getting it differently obviously, but where children are concerned, I don’t know what I would’ve done had I met some socialite man. I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it.
You’ve always been a champion for mindfulness. It’s quite different to the break-neck Hollywood approach where everything is always expected to have been done yesterday…
Yeah, I mean, you know we all want to move fast, but honestly things that we have [ to live with] in Hollywood… It’s really not about Hollywood, it’s about your life, and I never lived in that life. People respect you because [ of what you’ve accomplished], but I’ve never been in it. I’ve been hired to do movies and stuff but I’ve never been in the Hollywood way. So that means going out with people and going to events, doing those kinds of things. If I could stay home, I’d stay home.
Hollywood’s changed a lot over your career. Is it difficult being the target of tabloids, even in your seventies?
It’s ridiculous! It’s like [ the rumours that] Katie and Brad Pitt [ are dating]. There’s not even a whisper. I haven’t seen Brad in years and neither has Katie. Katie’s like, “Mom, what is this?” I said, “You know what, that’s how bad this has gotten.”
family is where all your joy and all your troubles spring from
I said, “You know, we just don’t even respond.” It’s ridiculous, but that’s the kind of stuff we go through. “This one’s dead, this one duh-duh-duh…”
With Kurt, Overboard is the big film you made together, but it was a box-office flop at the time. How much of a disappointment was that?
It didn’t do well, but it did rise 10, 20 per cent every weekend. It was really weird because it was testing through the roof. People were moving out of that [ release] slot because of it, but what we didn’t think was that Terminator would take everything! And it did! It just blew everything up, so next thing you know, we weren’t the first in line that weekend. But what
Overboard did do was it went up every weekend. Very rare, and it stayed on for a while. Then they did the stupidest, craziest thing. The [ studio] sold $4m of all the ancillaries [ rights to non-theatrical markets such as TV and video] to get more money back. [ If] they kept those ancillaries, they’d be so rich today.
Is it gratifying to now see it turn into a cult favourite?
It’s a cult favourite, no question, ’cos babies, even little ones, can see it. It’s one of those movies that never misses. Between the kids and the guy – Kurt was so perfect as Dean, he was such a shit! She was so confused about who she was. [ laughs] Kurt and I look back and we go, “Shut up and eat your Checkers!” Those moments we have together, it’s really funny. “I don’t know who I am but I’m sure I have a lawyer.” It was like, what a great line! Of course, it’s such a commentary, everyone has a lawyer! Then she says, “Come on, Annie, you remember hiiiiim. You remember him, don’t you?” She looks in the mirror, “Roy?” Roy! Perfect name, perfect for that joke. “Roy?” I mean, that’s the brilliance of that movie, it was so well-written, so true and so meaningful.
Do you think that’s why it’s stood the test of time so well?
You look at it and you think, it has love, it has great comedy, it has a story, right? You don’t know what the outcome is except they’re going to fall in love, but it has so much heart. That movie was used by psychologists during that time working with integrated families, blended families, so they could see how the new wife, how it can fit together and everybody can have a good time. To the point where the kids actually missed their [ step] mom [ in the
movie]. It was so emotional when they were running after her and she was crying, you know? It was so great. So those movies last because they’re good.
How does it feel to finally be getting a star on the Walk Of Fame?
It’s a lovely thing to have in your lifetime. It’s like an Academy Award and it’s a wonderful thing, it’s a symbol and it’ll be there hopefully even after the earthquake, I don’t know. It’s a lovely thing but I’ll tell you what’s more important is that Kurt was asked to have his done and he said, “I don’t want to do it unless Goldie has one with me.” So when we do it we’re going to do it together. And we’re not getting married, it’s a different kind of ceremony. [ laughs]
You won the Oscar for your first major role in Cactus Flower. Was it surreal to win so young?
Well, I was in London and it was surreal because I was awakened in the middle of the night for somebody to tell me I won. And I said, “I won what?” They said, “You won the award!” I went, “Oh my God, I forgot they were on tonight.” Then it was surreal because I was sleepy, so I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I had no idea.” It was crazy. Then I called my mom and dad and that was a cry-fest, that was really great, and that’s how I remember it.
What did you do with the trophy?
It sits on my mantel now in my bedroom. I put it all around in different places. It’s very coveted, really, but it was my first movie and I’d just started. I thought, “Gee, I wonder if that’s a drop in the bucket of what, maybe, I could accomplish.” But there was something about having an Academy Award so young in the Best Supporting Actress category, I thought that was maybe a sounding of the knell for Best Actress for a long time.
Did it open doors for you or make certain things possible?
Yeah, but in those days you signed fourpicture deals, so when I did Cactus Flower, I signed on to four other pictures, and each picture [ the pay] only went up incrementally by $50,000. So that’s what
as an actress, it can be a doubleedged sword to get great acclaim
happened. I didn’t get much bump in my salary, but my next four pictures were with him, [ producer] Mike Frankovich.
You were quite pioneering, though. What was it like as a young woman in the industry really pushing to produce and make the movies that you wanted to make?
You know, I didn’t find it that tough because I was working with people that actually wanted to work with me, and those four movies, I didn’t have any trouble with that. The answer is that, depending on who your director is, sometimes you have to tiptoe around a director. Like Richard Brooks, the wonderful writer who wrote Dollars. He was paranoid, but very interesting. He walked around with a locked briefcase; noone could read the script. There was a lot of that going around, people not wanting you to read the script. But he was really… to me that was weird. But he was the kind of guy that you didn’t just go up to easily and say, “Gee, do you think whatever?” You know what I mean? He wasn’t easy, that was a lot tougher.
How much do you think your success helped you get your voice heard?
As an actor, that was one thing because you could go up and say, “Do you want to do it this way or that way?” As a producer, or an actress who suddenly gets great acclaim, it can be a very double-edged sword, because suddenly you have been deemed powerful. And when a woman is powerful and she happens to be ‘that girl’, in those days, it was a confusing dichotomy. People just thought I wanted to do things my way.
So your success could be a hindrance?
I didn’t get a pile of good directors who wanted to direct some of the funny movies I wanted to make, because they didn’t want to make “a Goldie Hawn movie”. And I worked with some great directors, but they weren’t things I’d produced personally. So I’m not saying I was terrible but, boy, did I feel a difference. And then, if I had used any amount of real push… I only pushed when I felt we were being manipulated. That’s when I pushed.
You held firm when it came to doing a sequel to The First Wives Club, though?
When you are trying to develop a movie as a sequel to The First Wives Club… and that movie does so well, and you’re on the cover of Time and all that stuff, when you do that, the studio gets excited and we all took a cut. But because they were afraid of
women of a certain age, when they came to do the sequel, they wanted to pay us exactly the same amount. It was such an insult. That’s the kind of stuff I look at and I go, “You know what, I’m taking this other movie.” I got paid very little for it, and that movie was Banger Sisters, and I love that movie. She was a great character. It wasn’t about the money, it was about respect. It was about being treated that way, which was awful. Unheard of!
Was First Wives Club kind of a pastiche of the ditzy blonde that people assumed you were back in the day?
No, I think people were realising that I was changing.
But you wanted to try darker roles?
I did a movie called Deceived, I did some other things, but the thing is people don’t want to see you do that because you make them feel good, and they want to feel good. If that’s your gift then that’s your gift, right? And that’s what you should be doing. I don’t need to make people think I’m the greatest actress in the world, I don’t have that need. I don’t have to show off. I’ve shown off enough! Now, would it be great to tackle something like that? I did it when I did Romeo And Juliet when I was very young. I did this play [ aged
14], 3,000 people. It rained and nobody moved when I was doing the potion speech. Would I do that again? No, I did it! My dad came backstage and he was crying. He said, “Gold, where did you learn to do that?” That was my award. Right? It’s in my heart.
Have you always naturally gravitated towards comedy?
My point is, I could do [ darker roles], but when there’s something that you’ve been blessed with, if you can see it and serve it – I’m not saying ego, I’m saying observe yourself – that’s an important thing that you know you are in service to. That’s what I think is important, because I think people who do what we do are like court jesters in a way. And those court jesters weren’t stupid! They heard every argument, they knew everything that was going on in the court. It’s the same with us. Court jesters were there to bring joy, to make you feel like everything’s going to be OK… [ that’s a] powerful prescriptive.
Things have changed a lot for women in comedy since your heyday…
I think that more women are headlining, comedic actresses, Melissa McCarthy, and so forth. I don’t think there were too many back in the day, but I think the business
it wasn’t about the money, it was about respect
has changed more than women. I think the business is quite different and studios aren’t making quite as many movies, unless they’re tentpole movies. We used to do what we’d call ‘tweeners’, which were comedies and romantic comedies, romcoms and they are sort of out.
Do you get something particularly from comedy? Did you always want to make people laugh?
Yeah, I’m a performer. There’s no question about it. I started out dancing, expressing myself that way, sharing, smiling, selling. I perform. You know, you can’t take the performer out of the person. Or you can’t take the girl out of… I always get them wrong! I’ve always looked at it that way. I’d walk into the theatre, hiding, listening to the laughter of movies that I’ve done, and I have to tell you, it brings tears to my eyes. Those people are laughing, they’re having fun. They’re in a state of momentary joy. That matters.
Improvisation is a big thing in comedy now. Did you enjoy sparring with Amy Schumer on Snatched?
The improvisation with her is so much fun. She’s a master at it, and although I can improvise, that’s an art of its own. The first thing I saw Amy in was on television, but Trainwreck was really what I saw her do and I thought, “Wow. This girl has a lot of talent.” She was able to [ be] really funny and really emotional and that’s not an easy thing to do. Not everybody laughs, or rather, cries when somebody can be funny. It’s a sign of being really good at what you’re doing, so she’s gifted in many ways. She’s a gifted writer, she’s kind, she’s really smart and her instincts are great. She has empathy and her empathy comes out in everything she does – even when she’s at her most outrageous, you forgive everything because innately she is so good.
Death Become Her is one of the edgier films you made…
Ageless. And how brilliant to think that’s what people are doing now. Stem cells. They’re just staying younger, all the time.
That film said something interesting about ageing. Did that speak to you?
No, but the movie speaks to me generally because it’s where everyone is going. It’s not about movie
stars wanting to live forever, it’s everybody. And the science going on, back then, it was just the beginning. In fact, stem cell and any of that stuff wasn’t around, but those elixirs, those things to drink, it was such a great metaphor.
How was it working with the CGI?
Easy! For me it’s easy because I was a dancer, I know how to move and do whatever the director needed. Most of my stuff was stomach; you could see through my stomach. I think Meryl [ Streep] had more to do. I had the contacts, they were great, weren’t they? So spooky!
The movie originally had a different ending, though, didn’t it?
Yes. The original ending was Meryl and Me, Madeline, in Switzerland. I say, “Where do you want to go now?” She says, “Paris.” I go, “Oh, Paris, again? Again?! We’ve already been there.” She looks out over the lawn and she sees Bruce Willis and Tracey Ullman, and they’re old. Their hands are all old, they’re vulnerable, they were in love and they married. Of course, he was the one that they both wanted, and now he’s old. Meryl looks down and says, “Look how pitiful they are.” I’m looking down and I’m crying. That’s what she wanted and she sold out. It was too dark! So they ended the movie and put in the one where we fall down the stairs and our necks break. Hilarious, right?