Lengthy break allows Hawn to savor world beyond acting
Fifteen years have passed since moviegoers last saw Goldie Hawn in a new film.
Audiences might have missed the Oscar winner, now 71, but she hasn’t exactly missed the work: “To be perfectly honest,” she said, “not very much.”
Hawn — who will entertain crowds again with the release Friday of “Snatched” — detailed with passion her decision to step away from the spotlight after “The Banger Sisters” (2002).
“I think I have a particular philosophy, which is to live a life well-lived,” Hawn said by phone from a hotel in Santa Monica, California, during a recent
media weekend for “Snatched.” “And part of that is, ‘What are you going to do for the next section of your life?’
“I have been doing this for a really long time, since I was 21 — and it was great,” she said. “But as we grow into the next stage, ... I just can’t imagine sitting there waiting for phones to ring as you’re getting older, just to do a part in a movie.”
Hawn also gave up producing, which she did for years.
“It’s a lot of work, and I can’t tell you how many movies I wanted to make that just never got made,” she said. “I thought, ‘Life’s got to be interesting, challenging, and you’re still curious. You want to help. You want to change things,’ and I moved on.”
For the past 13 years, she has been helping children through her Goldie Hawn Foundation.
“Our main program, Mind Up, has been one of the most exciting modulations, if you will, in my life.”
After turning 50, she said, she found herself asking other women she knew, “What are you going to do with this next part of your life?”
“People look at things certain ways,” she said. “I don’t look backward. If you look backward, all you do is feel like you’re not moving forward. It’s like standing still. I don’t stand still. That’s why I didn’t look back, and that’s why I didn’t long to act or produce.
“I only started longing when my foundation was deeply rooted — we’ve reached 2 million children — and when everything was great, and I thought, ‘Hmm, I wonder if there’s something to do?’ I put my toe in a few times. Didn’t work. I was fine with that.”
Then “Snatched” happened along.
“It came to me through Amy (Schumer), and it came to me through all the channels. I thought it was a really funny movie and a great way to go back to do something that was fun.”
Hawn emphasized that she loved every minute of her time away from films. Besides focusing on her foundation, she spent time with Kurt Russell, her partner since 1983, as well as their children — Oliver Hudson, Kate Hudson and Wyatt Russell — and grandchildren.
“I was there for them,” she said. “I was able to take my son and go off to Vancouver and be a mom for our last child, Wyatt, to play hockey. I grew to have all new friends, traveled, studied, engaged with people who had nothing to do with my own industry, which was the only one I’d known.
“So it was an amazing period of joy and stimulation and growth and learning.”
And now, there’s “Snatched.”
Schumer plays Emily, a woman who has been struggling with work, romance and responsibility. When her boyfriend breaks up with her, Emily cajoles her mother, Linda (Hawn), into joining her on a long-planned vacation to Ecuador.
Linda, a bit of a recluse who lives with her agoraphobic son (Ike Barinholtz), envisions only bad things happening but reluctantly goes.
Then, of course, bad things happen, starting with a kidnapping and an attempted jungle escape. Along the way, the women have memorable encounters with a would-be rescuer (Christopher Meloni) and a tapeworm.
“Snatched” panned out, Hawn said, because of its hilarious script and promising experience.
Furthermore, in Linda she saw a fully formed character, not a caricature, and a co-lead rather than an ancillary character.
“She’s part of the movie, with Amy, who’s funny — funny, funny, funny,” Hawn said. “To be able to work with that in a whole movie, going from the beginning to the end, and to make this together as funny a movie as we could, was the greatest gift of all.”
Hawn emerged from “Snatched” impressed by Schumer, one of Hollywood’s fastestrising stars. She also, understandably, had maternal feelings toward her 35-year-old co-star.
“I felt very motherly, but I didn’t impose that on her,” she said. “I wouldn’t impose that on my children anymore — they’re so grown. But I have a very strong, very loving feeling toward Amy and also toward her life and happiness.”
Based on her experience with “Snatched,” Hawn declared herself “very open” to future acting: “I’m back into having fun with it.”