Kate Hudson was running point on her career from an early age.
The actress, 46, who is the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn, revealed during a live taping of the “Awards Chatter” podcast while at Newport Beach TV Fest on Thursday why she turned down an acting job at the age of 16.
At the time, Hudson had begun seriously auditioning for roles when her stepdad, Kurt Russell, wanted her to try out for the part of a young girl in his 1996 project “Escape from L.A.”
“I went in and auditioned and got that part, and I sort of realized, ‘Oh, this is when you start to make choices that will define your career,’” she recalled. “And, ‘Do I want to be defined by being Kurt’s daughter who got this part? No.’”
“[It doesn’t] matter if I got it because I was good enough,” continued Hudson, “it would never be what people would ever think. And I knew that and was like, ‘No, I can’t.’ So I ended up saying no to that, too.”
The “Running Point” star shared that she went on other auditions and ended up landing a small part of series like “Party of Five” and “EZ Streets.” A few years later, Hudson landed her breakout role as Penny lane in the 2000 comedy/adventure “Almost Famous.”
But one thing was for certain, Hudson always knew she wanted to be an actress.
The “Bride Wars” alum also recalled visiting Russell, 74, on location as a young child, which spurred her love of acting.
“My dad’s sets were the fun sets,” Hudson told the audience. “It was like ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ and we had slides that would go down into rubber fish, and these amazing costumes.”
“And the thing is, when you grow up on a movie set, it’s not that fun,” she admitted. “[There] is a lot of waiting around, so you realize you really love it when you don’t want to get off the movie set.”
Hawn, 79, first started dating Russell in 1983, and the “Glass Onion” actress shared that in order to be on set with either of her parents, she had to take a job on the film.
Her role included being a “runner” for wardrobe and makeup. Hudson added that since she “loved the camera,” she would help the crew “organize the film cans.”
“Performing was always something I knew I was going to do,” Hudson explained. “There was never a question, but really falling in love with the circus was something that I don’t think all kids actually have when they’re on a set.”
In fact, prior to auditioning at 16, Hudson had landed her first role at 11, but Hawn turned it down because she wanted her daughter to lead a “normal life.”
Now, when it comes to Hudson’s own kids, she can see one out of three have the acting bug.
The Hollywood star said sons Ryder, 21, whom she shares with her ex-husband Chris Robinson, and Bingham, 13, who she welcomed with ex Matt Bellamy, get “kind of bored when they go on movie sets; they don’t really want to be there.”
But her daughter Rani, 6, whom she shares with fiancé Danny Fujikawa, “is like [excited whisper] ‘What is this place?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, she’s going to get the bug.’”
These days, along with continuing her acting career in the hit Netflix show “Running Point,” Hudson is also showing off her vocal chops. The star is performing original songs all around the country – most recently at BottleRock in Napa Valley last month.
In April, the singer set the record straight for anyone who might think her new path has come too late in life.
“There was someone who said to me — and it kind of jarred me a little — it was when I was in my early 30s, and they basically said, ‘It’s done, it’s passed. You can’t, you’re too old,’” Hudson recounted during an interview with CBS’s “Sunday Morning.”
“And you know, for me, it wasn’t just about being a performer, it was about wanting to write music,” she shared. “So it kind of, like, kind of resonated there for a bit. And then I was like, ‘Eh, f–k you.’ No, no one tells me what to do.”
Hudson didn’t listen to the haters and just released her debut album, “Glorious,” in May 2024.
“I just don’t care anymore about what people think, probably,” she said about putting her focus into music. “It was never right, whether it was my own stuff or feeling afraid to mess up my movie career — just never felt right. Until now. I’m just doing it.”