Kate Hudson has waited 25 years. She’s waited a quarter of a century to be recognized by her peers again. That’s how long its been between her SAG Award nomination for Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” and the newly rechristened The Actors Award for Craig Brewer’s “Song Sung Blue.” And, sure, she was part of an ensemble nod for Rob Marshall’s “Nine” in 2010, but in terms of individuall accolades? This was special.
READ MORE: “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” And “The Studio” Lead 2026 SAG’s Actor Awards Nominations [Complete List]
As Claire Sardina, Hudson portrays one half of the real-life Neil Diamond cover band “Thunder and Lightning,” a woman who’s life is so remarkable, Hudson says, “This woman, I mean, it almost feels like a story like this couldn’t happen.” The other half of the duo, Mike Sardina, portrayed by Hugh Jackman, had a life almost equally remarkable. And in Brewer’s music-fueled melodrama they capture the joy and heartbreak of the couple’s professional and personal lives together.
Thursday afternoon, after what Hudson beamingly describes a “celebratory day,” she jumped on a Zoom to chat about what the nomination meant to her, how awards season has changed so much over the past decades, making creative decisions around her kid’s lives, the spark of Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion,” and so much more. And oh, yeah. This daughter of the legendary Goldie Hawn embraces the passion for acting that runs through her family’s veins.
“We don’t do it because we have nothing else to do. We do it because we love it,” Hudson says. “So there’s something about this nomination that just made me really deeply emotional.”
Embrace it Kate. Embrace it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Playlist: You were were just saying it’s a celebratory day. It should be!
Kate Hudson: Celebratory day. It was so exciting.
I got to ask that, I don’t mean to date it, but it’s been 25 years since your last SAG nomination. What does it mean after all this time to get recognized by your peers like this?
It’s amazing. I mean, I can’t even. It’s emotional. Actually, I feel like I’ve been getting all my tears out really early on this movie. Today, I didn’t think I’d have the reaction that I did, or I got very nervous, and I was like, “I’m nervous!” And I realize it’s because I really love our movie, and the movie means so much to me. And then I thought, I haven’t been on an awards circuit in so many years, and it’s so different. There’s so much happening. It feels sometimes incredibly overwhelming. And then all of a sudden the nominations are being announced, and you’re like, “Oh my God.” I just started to cry. I’m like, whether I don’t get one or get one, I’m a mess. I am just a mess. But when I got one, I was so happy. And I know it sounds cliche and maybe I don’t know, but I love being an actor. I love it. I’ve always loved it. I grew up in the circus. I come from a family of actors. We’re all actors. We don’t do it because we have nothing else to do. We do it because we love it. I mean, there are so many better things to be doing to make money than what we do. It’s unpredictable, and it’s challenging and it’s intimidating and it makes you insecure at times. It gives you all of those things, but we still all do it. And so there’s something about this nomination that just made me really deeply emotional. It’s our peers. And at this point, 25 years later, I’ve worked with so many. And I love it. So, it just feels really good.
So, from the outside looking in you were super busy for a while. You helped grow a very successul clothing company that you stepped away from and are an advisor on now. But it seems like over the past couple of years, you’ve wanted to get back into acting. And maybe that’s the the wrong take, but has that been a goal? Have you been like, “Hey, send the message out into the world, call me. I want to find great projects and work more”?
No, no. I’m not a calculated artist. I never have been. I’m instinctual, whether those instincts have been right or wrong. I have been a mother my entire adult life. I had Ryder very young, and then I had Bing, and then I had Rani. I have a seven-year-old. So, I go from 22 to seven, and there’s so many factors to all of this. It’s not just one. It’s not just the industry. It’s my life. It’s my children. It’s how long films take. It’s how they take you away from your family. Starting businesses? I’m an Aries. I get real bored. I like to be home. What can I do to diversify my life so that I can maybe do the things that I’d rather be doing and want to be doing versus things that I have to do to put my kids in private school. I pay for everything. I’m a self-made woman. My choices come from so many different angles, but something happened in COVID. And I think that was the big shifting point for me as an artist about the things that I wanted to be putting out in terms of art. And that was music. So, for me, there was this big hole, and it wasn’t just movies. It was like I had my output. I wasn’t happy with my creative output, because there were risks that I wasn’t taking. And so I’d rather pull back and do other things than not do the things where I’m taking risks in my art. So, that’s really what it is. And then inside of that, making choices that involve doing certain things that maybe people haven’t seen, but that got me “Glass Onion.” So, like going and doing “Mona Lisa in the Blood Moon,” which was one of my favorite movies. I love that movie. And Rian Johnson seeing it and going, “This movie is awesome.” And then wanting me to do “Glass Onion.” It’s all of those things. And it was more about pulling back than it was about the things that were there for me. Does that make sens?
It actually does. Are you as excited when you see the streams for your music as you are from the Box Office or Awards? Is that as fulfilling now as all this stuff?
Yeah. Yes. And I also just feel like I’m in a different … I’m in my middle age, and I’m not so sure the external validation isn’t what fuels me anymore Because I know how it can be one great thing one minute and then the next it’s something totally different. Like I was saying, it’s so unpredictable. So, I look at it more like when someone comes up to me and says that they love something or when I see how it makes them feel, that is the validation for me of like, “Oh, I’m on the right track.” But by the way, you have to understand, I get that for “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “Bride Wars.” And people have relationships to movies that I’ve made that haven’t always gotten me a SAG nomination, but stay with people generationally. I’ve been so lucky. I think what’s happening now for me is it’s almost like it does feel a little bit like a full circle moment because taking a step, but the choices you make matter, right? It’s like that’s just at the end of the day, like why you’re making the choice. It’s like Rick Rubin when he talks about making art. Wwhy do you make it? Why do you do it? And you have to kind of do it for yourself first, the only way, because it moves you in a certain way, and that’s sort of been my goal.
When this project came your way, what made you say, “O.K, I’ll stop. I’ll take the two months or three months it’s going to take to be away from my kids to go do it.“
I mean, at that time, like we were saying, those weren’t really the roles that people were sending me. It’s like having a Wisconsin accent and transforming into this woman and going to those places. And when I first read it, it was I think about a year before they were even doing the movie. And, so I was really only hoping that I’d be on a list. And I loved Craig, and I’d known Craig for years, but it was really like Hugh who saw the CBS Morning Show with me on it who was like, “Oh, it should be Kate in this movie.” So when they called, I just felt so lucky. The script was so good. This part, Claire, her life story is just remarkable. I can’t even believe that she’s been through the things that she’s been through. And when you watch the documentary, you’re just like, “This woman, I mean, it almost feels like a story like this couldn’t happen.” And what a dream to be able to hit all these notes in one movie. It just doesn’t happen very often. So, I was sort of like,”Yes.” And then yeah, here I am, like a year ago, my daughter’s six. I finally felt O.K. being away for two and a half weeks at a time, and I was alone. I was like, “I’m alone.” I’m never alone. I have so many kids. I have such a loud, boisterous, full home life. And so when I come back from work, it’s always loud. And there’s always a responsibility. And I got to go home and to my apartment and be by myself and just create and work on Claire. It was really different for me. All these firsts, all these new things.
I was going to ask about Claire. Obviously, there is the doc about her and Mike’s life. Craig has his script. Did you want to talk to her before filming? And I you did, o you remember anything specific that stayed with you?
Yes. Well, first and foremost, I was excited to chat with Claire. Craig was very much like, “I feel like you should meet Claire when we start shooting.” And he didn’t want me to move away from any of my own personal instincts, which I understand. It’s funny when I was talking with Jeremy Allen White about it on the actors on actors, it was interesting because that was his instinct. He didn’t want to get too close to Bruce [Springsteen] because it makes you feel like the expectation becomes harder. You put too much expectation on yourself versus focusing on the story. We’re still making a movie. I don’t want to be thinking about a story that Claire told me that’s not in the movie, that might inform a different type of instinct. So, I think Craig’s instinct was correct. Stick to the doc. Then I started shooting, she came on set, and we started spending time together, and she was so great. It was like the best. I have a great video of us on set, and it’s like our profiles, and we’re laughing and smiling and talking to each other in the director’s chairs. I was like, “I have to post it because it makes total sense that I’m playing Claire.” And we looked so much alike in our profiles and with our hairdos, it was so cute. It’s a really cute video, but she’s so happy. She has so much joy, and she was so excited to be there. And it actually, I think Craig’s instinct as right. It made it more enjoyable for me than feeling like I had to mimic versus do what felt more instinctual.
You sing so many songs in the movie, was there one in particular that you just would look forward to singing the most?
I mean, I love “Sweet Dreams,” the Patsy Cline song. I know it’s not a Neil Diamond song, but singing that song is…Yeah, I mean, as a singer, that’s just one of the most beautiful pieces of music. I’d never heard that song. I didn’t know it. It’s actually a really challenging song to sing. If it was in my set, it’d be the song I’d be like, “O.K.” Because it sits in a weird register. I can’t go to any falsetto, and it’s kind of low, but the song is so beautiful. So, I loved singing that song. It was also very hard to control myself in that scene because the song is just so emotional. I remember after we shot that scene, I had to walk away and then I kind of lost it. I was like, I held that whole scene, and then afterwards I needed to let the floodgates go. And part of that is Neil’s words. He’s such an interesting songwriter. I’d never known anything about Neil Diamond’s music until this movie. And really listening to his lyrics, because it’s such a big part of how we tell a story, was such a gift. If you would’ve told me that I would’ve ended up being a huge Neil Diamond fan, in my life, I would’ve been like, “Neil Diamond?” And here I am, what an amazing songwriter.
“Song Sung Blue” is now playing nationwide
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Editor-at-Large Gregory Ellwood is one of the entertainment industry's most respected journalists and critics. Based in Los Angeles, he's the only current awards expert who previously worked on Oscar campaigns at a major movie studio. Over the years, he has written for the LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Vox, among others. He also co-founded the entertainment news site HitFix, which spawned a legion of influential Emmy and WGA Award-winning alumni.
