In pursuit of it all
DEEPWATER HORIZON’S KATE HUDSON HAS ALL HER BASES COVERED WITH A COMPANY, A BOOK AND A NEW MOVIE
Kate Hudson is an entrepreneur and an actress but she’s never all business. The easygoing mom of two boys is obsessed about her active wear company Fabletics and promoting her bestselling self help book Pretty Happy: Healthy Way to Love Your Body.
The 37- year- old also co- stars in the Peter Berg film Deepwater Horizon, which recounts the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster off the Louisiana coast.
In the disaster picture, she plays Felicia, the wife of Mike Williams ( played by Mark Wahlberg), one of the oil rig’s chief technicians. Hudson’s stepfather Kurt Russell plays rig boss Jimmy Harrell.
Hudson talked to Postmedia about her latest movie and her career adjustments during the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
Q How did you manage to be so natural as Wahlberg’s wife?
A Pete (Berg) allows you a certain amount of freedom to improvise so we took advantage of it. It helped us take our guards down.
Q Anything else? A Well, I am very open and I think Mark and I are nicely connected. And luckily we got along right away. There is never a guarantee.
Q Are most of your bedroom sequences improvised?
A Everything we were doing, like when I put my feet up on (Mark), was part of that. We immediately felt comfortable because we both got into it.
Q What do you have in common? A We both have kids and we’ve been in relationships, and we both know how it feels. There is a certain energy associated with being in a good relationship.
Q Was there pressure to get the chemistry right? A Yeah, we knew we had to capture that in a short period of time. If you don’t care about the characters at first you won’t have as much invested in how things turn out.
Q Do you agree there was a convincing bond between your stepfather Russell and Wahlberg? A Oh, yeah. Those were strong moments between them in the movie.
Q Why do they work so well together? A They’re both honest, relatable actors. They understand who they are and they understand the world of a working man. And neither of them have an interest in being validated.
Q Did your stepfather recommend you for the wife role?
A Oh, no. I’ve known Pete (Berg) since I was 17. He was a friend of a friend and then he became part of our family in a way.
Q Were you relieved to see you had a scene with your stepfather?
A Yeah, it would be hilarious if we didn’t even get to be in a scene together. And then we did, and then afterward I was thinking it wouldn’t make the final cut. But it did.
Q Was it fun acting opposite him? A I look forward to working with dad again. I mean really working with him.
Q Are you being more movie-selective these days? A I don’t look at it that way. My career hasn’t been that calculated.
Q So why are you doing fewer films? A Now that I am having success in other areas, my life takes focus on different things. If a movie is going to take me away from my friends and family and kids, I really have to want to make the movie.
Q How’s the arrangement working out?
A It’s great. The last thing I want is to be on a set at 5:30 in the morning and ask myself, ‘ What am I doing here when I could be taking my kids to school?’
MARK AND I ARE NICELY CONNECTED. AND LUCKILY WE GOT ALONG RIGHT AWAY. — KATE HUDSON