Kate Hudson is back to being blond after getting all brown and mousy for "Alex & Emma." The trademark golden ringlets once again frame her face as she explains her attraction to her latest romantic comedy, which co-stars Luke Wilson.
"When you read so many scripts that are romantic comedies — for some reason everybody wants you to be in romantic comedies — you're like, 'OK, I'll read it, but this is not the way my career's going to go. But I will do the ones that I think are original.'"
Hudson found the premise for "Alex & Emma" fresh enough to sign on for the project, especially because "When Harry Met Sally . . . " director Rob Reiner, whom she'd admired for years, would be the man behind the camera. Hudson plays an opinionated stenographer taking dictation from Alex (Wilson), a blocked writer who has to produce a novel in 30 days so he can pay off a gambling debt before he's killed by loan sharks.
"This is about two characters together in a room, like an old-fashioned play in a way," says Hudson. "It's not just set pieces and being funny but much more about dialogue and about character, and that appealed to me as an actor."
Though Wilson has mostly taken on supporting roles in films like "Charlie's Angels" and "Legally Blonde," Hudson believes he brings leading-man presence to "Alex & Emma." "Luke's got that sense of humor where some people get it and some people don't," Hudson explained.
"It's very old-fashioned. For some reason, now, everybody who's funny and young has to be goofy and stupid. Luke's the exact opposite. He's very internal and smart and neurotic, which is really the old formula for being a comedian. So I loved working on this movie because it's about two very eccentric people. The guy Luke plays is so narcissistic, he really has no interest (in Emma) and sees totally past this girl."
And Emma? "She's straight and uptight," says Hudson. "Being sexy has never been her game. She's much more in her brain, and I really like playing that. When we were talking about the characters I said, 'Emma's got to be brown.' There's no question. Just straight and heavy."
Becoming a straight-laced brunette meant deviating from the bubbly screen persona that has worked so well for Hudson the past three years. She earned an Oscar nomination for portraying groupie Penny Lane in "Almost Famous." After a dramatic turn in last year's unsuccessful period piece "Four Feathers," Hudson returned to lighter fare this winter with the hit romantic comedy "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days." Hudson recently finished a James Ivory film, "Le Divorce," and will soon begin work on "Raising Helen" with "Pretty Woman" director Garry Marshall.
"I don't want to get pigeon-holed," says Hudson. "First of all, I don't consider myself a classic beauty at all. I don't look like Nicole Kidman. I'm not putting myself down, nor am I fishing for compliments."
One might think that growing up in a Hollywood household with mother and actress Goldie Hawn and her boyfriend Kurt Russell made Hudson's career path all but inevitable.
It's not that simple, Hudson says. "When I was 16, my parents knew what I wanted to do: I was going to be an actor and it had nothing to do with them. They could have been lawyers and I still would have wanted to be an actor."
Hudson obviously takes her work seriously. But even though she was raised in Los Angeles' show business community, where everybody seems to know everybody else, Hudson likes to keep work and private life separate.
For Hudson, home means spending time with her husband, Chris Robinson, leader of the Black Crowes rock band.
In "Alex & Emma," she portrays the opinioned muse so convincingly one wondered if Hudson plays a similar role when Robinson is in the thick of his songwriting process.
"I just let Chris do his thing," she says. "Every once in a while he gets all psychedelic and I'm like, 'Honey, what are you doing?' He'll be sitting there with his guitar and all of sudden he's trying to make every strange sound he can make on his guitar, so I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
"I'm like: 'I have to get out of this place now, honey. I haven't taken any drugs and I feel like, "I'm dying!" ya know what I mean?' But then he'll come back later and show me the finished song and it'll be great."