Hawn, Schumer share spotlight
Amy planted seeds for film when Goldie was on her plane
New movie ‘Snatched’ features female comedians in high jinks in Colombia.
SANTA MONICA, CALIF. If you saw Goldie Hawn on a plane, you’d probably pitch her, too.
That’s how Amy Schumer broached the Oscar winner about co-starring in her comedy
Snatched (in theaters Friday), a farce that sends a buttoned-up mother and loose-cannon daughter to Colombia — where they are promptly kidnapped.
“I was like, ‘Let me just go aggressively plant the seed,’ ” recalls Schumer, 35.
Hawn, 71, has a different impression of that airport meetcute: “To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember the moment, honestly.” She shrugs. “People come up to you a lot.”
Things changed several months later, when Hawn bumped into Schumer at an awards show. “That’s when she really said, ‘OK, this is happening. I really want you, I’m writing this with you in mind,’ ” says Hawn, who immediately texted her agent to get on it.
Schumer has had major Hollywood momentum since the $110 million success of 2015’s
Trainwreck, which she wrote and starred in. A worldwide stand-up comedy tour followed, as did HBO and Netflix specials.
Hawn, meanwhile, had been MIA. “It’s not as if I didn’t want to do anything,” she says. “But, you know, I want to do something good. Otherwise, don’t do it.”
And so last summer, they took off for Hawaii (a leafy stand-in for Colombia).
Hawn grins talking about her oceanfront apartment. “I had three gorgeous rooms overlooking the water. I didn’t have to cook a thing.” Kurt Russell, her partner of 33 years, “was off doing his movies and I was doing mine. And I didn’t see him much at all. So making the movie was being apart — which was not a bad thing after so long being together.”
Hawn took a 15-year break from movies to create Mind UP, an international educational organization for children that focuses on brain health through mindfulness practices. “When you reach a certain age in your life, you’re either going to repeat what you’ve been doing forever or you’re going to be adventurous and you’re going to go out and learn something new and give something different.”
Schumer nods. Her stand-up routine has been evolving, she says, becoming a little bit more political and grown-up. But she’s mindful of keeping the audience who buoyed her to international fame. “Hopefully, we are all evolving,” she says. “With comedians, you want to see an evolution. You’re like, ‘ This again?’ It’s hard to sustain an act.”
Her schedule remains booked out a solid year: This fall, she’ll release Thank You for Your Ser
vice, a film about soldiers who struggle from PTSD upon their return from Iraq, and this summer she’s shooting a film called I
Feel Pretty. (The plot remains under wraps.)
“I have a real interest in women and confidence and having people feel better,” Schumer says. “That’s another thing that really connects us — Goldie is humble about it, but knows she can make people feel joy and laugh and feel things. That’s what I want, too.”