A quarter century ago, Kate Hudson followed in her mother’s, Goldie Hawn, footsteps delivering a performance of such impressive range as Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous for which she received a well-deserved Academy Award nomination.
Like Hawn, she was only in her early 20s, and it was one of her first film roles. Also, like Hawn, she won the Supporting Actress Golden Globe. Hawn went on to win the Oscar for Gene Saks’s Cactus Flower (1969). Hudson, despite being the front-runner, lost to Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock, one of many Supporting Actress upsets in the last few decades.
Now, Hudson is deservedly in the Oscar conversation again—and just snagged her fourth Actor Award (formerly SAG) nomination–for her truly nuanced work in Craig Brewer’s dramatic, musical-comedy biopic of sorts, Song Sung Blue. She plays Claire Sardina, real-life wife and stage partner of Mike Sardina. Together they formed the Neil Diamond tribute band, Lightning & Thunder in the 1980s and became a sensation into the 1990s.
Brewer’s narrative, which closely follows the real-life events of the couple, is a fairly standard rom-com for the first third but then takes a very real and very disturbing turn—one audiences will not see coming, unless they know the story.
Hudson radiates joy as the Patsy Cline song interpreter who falls mad for Hugh Jackman’s charming Mike, but must then come to terms with a devastating reality. It’s the kind of performance that surprises in its complexity.
The actress made her film debut in the 1998 film, Desert Blue, before splashing in Almost Famous two years later. She went on to become somewhat of a rom-com queen and had a hard time breaking free from being pigeon-holed in that genre.
Her film credits include, Robert Altman’s Dr. T & the Women (2000), James Ivory’s Le Divorce (2002), Rob Reiner’s Alex & Emma (2003), Donald Petrie’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Gary Winick’s Bride Wars (2009), Rob Marshall’s Nine (2009), Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013), Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) and Max Minghella’s Shell (2024).
The thesp is currently starring in the hilarious Netflix sports comedy series, Running Point, which has been renewed for a second season.
She received her third Golden Globe nomination for Song Sung Blue. Her second was for Sia’s controversial film Music in 2021.
Song Sung Blue, released by Focus Features, is currently playing in theaters.
The Contending had the pleasure of a video chat with Hudson.
