NEW YORK ? Kate Hudson plops down on a plush leather couch in the drawing room of the Greenwich Hotel, leans back into the cushions, beckons you over and insists you touch her pregnant belly.
By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY
Brides-to-be: Ginnifer Goodwin, left, and Kate Hudson are both engaged in real life, but in Something Borrowed, out Friday, they're in love with the same guy.
By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY
Brides-to-be: Ginnifer Goodwin, left, and Kate Hudson are both engaged in real life, but in Something Borrowed, out Friday, they're in love with the same guy.
The baby inside, gender unknown, is hiccupping. Quite raucously, it seems. Hudson takes your hand and guides it to the exact spot where you feel those rhythmic little vibrations the most.
"Isn't this the best?" Hudson, 32, says with a smile. "The baby moves around all the time. It's getting harder to sleep. I'm due in like two months. We'll see. But it will come early. I can feel it."
Her son, Ryder, 7, from her first marriage to singer Chris Robinson, is upstairs in their room with a caretaker. Hudson says both he and her fiancé, British Muse musician Matthew Bellamy, can't wait to meet the new addition, which Hudson suspects is a girl.
"I looked at Matthew and said, 'We're almost there.' It's so easy to find out. But this way, there's no expectation on what the baby is. You're not thinking about what they look like. You're literally just going, 'Is it a boy or is it a girl?' People see you and try to guess. And on the day (you give birth), the motivation becomes very different."
TRAILER: Get a peek at 'Something Borrowed'
Ginnifer Goodwin, Hudson's more reserved co-star in the romantic dramedy Something Borrowed, leans over to catch a piece of the in-utero action, placing her hand on Hudson's belly. "That's awesome. A little baby," sighs Goodwin, also 32. "I'd also want it to be a surprise."
Not so surprising? Their affection for each other. The two play friends-turned-frenemies in Borrowed, which opens Friday. Both of their characters exhibit moral deficiencies. Hudson's rowdy, oblivious Darcy is marrying Dex — who happens to be the love of her best friend's life. So Goodwin's Rachel ends up bedding him behind Darcy's self-involved back.
Neither woman is particularly likable or sympathetic. Rachel, eaten up with jealousy, can't bear to be around the insufferably happy Darcy as she preps for her wedding. Darcy, meanwhile, is too fixated on the meaningless to notice; she tries out waterproof mascaras because she's planning to cry on her big day — for maximum dramatic and emotional impact, of course — but doesn't want to mar her makeup.
Opposites on-screen and off
"I've never played that character before," Hudson says. "The subject matter is pretty controversial. Everyone in it has done something unlikable. It doesn't make them a bad person. We've all been in situations in which we treated someone in a way we maybe didn't want to treat them. Darcy doesn't recognize the consequences to her actions until everybody is gone."
Goodwin's Rachel appears to be unsure and pliable but has few qualms about going after her best friend's guy. Goodwin says she was "inspired by the challenge of playing a character I judged so harshly. I learned a lot from this (job). Everyone on the planet can justify what they do."
In person, the two women seem equally different. Goodwin is poised, pristinely attired and unfailingly polite, quietly leaving money behind to pay for her meal when she has to depart early for a meeting. Hudson is more loose and loquacious, radiating a casual ease that's a little misleading: She has a sharp memory and recalls everyone who has ever interviewed her, for example.
Still, they meshed well, says the film's director, Luke Greenfield.
"They had a great mutual respect for each other," Greenfield says. "Ginny is this sweet girl from Memphis. She's very polite and has a strong moral compass. She's highly intelligent and very decisive, and she goes with her heart and she knows what she wants. And you have Kate, who's interested in music and art. She exudes confidence and certainty. As a person, she's very clear about what she wants and how she's going to do things."
The two met for the first time at the table read. "It was fun because we realized we were really going to like each other," Hudson says.
Goodwin: "Immediately."
Hudson: "We knew it would be a fun spring/summer in New York."
Goodwin: "Didn't we go out that night? You had a birthday party?"
Says Hudson with a sigh: "God, I can't wait to have a cocktail."
Goodwin reveals: "I usually don't like my co-stars. I hope I don't show it, but I'm very guarded around actresses. I can get along with anybody. But I don't usually trust people the way I immediately trusted you," she says, turning to Hudson. "With Kate, what you see is what you get. She's forthcoming with her love."
And with gifts. "Good presents. That's my new thing," Hudson says.
Says Goodwin, passing around an apple-colored Smythson wallet monogrammed with GG that Hudson gave her: "You do give good presents. Thoughtful."
Speaking of love, it's something of a four-letter word for the ladies. Both women marvel that they're asked to share relationship tips in interviews, simply because of their proclivity for starring in rom-coms. Goodwin, who is engaged to actor Joey Kern, is tired of imparting romantic wisdom after starring in 2009's hit He's Just Not That Into You.
"The number of times I've been asked if I've ever been rejected by a man — anyone who became an actress has a (expletive)-ton of baggage she's trying to act out, demons she's trying to expunge," she says with a laugh. "I love that anyone asks an actor for love advice."
Says Hudson: "Nobody has the answers."
Lessons from childhood
Hudson, though, is trying to find them. The actress says she's "really into" self-help books and is now tackling Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth.
"It's fascinating to me how many books are written about relationships and how to do live your life positively. I grew up with a mother who provided those tools for us. At the same time, you realize how many people didn't have those tools," she says. "My favorite one, because of the title, is called Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting. People are always searching for happiness, and they think they find those things in relationships, in love.
"At the end of the day, it's really the old cliché: You have to understand what makes you happy and love yourself."
Would either of them stick around in a bad relationship or pursue something that clearly wasn't working?
"You justify anything. I was in (He's Just Not That Into You), and I still do it. I have no perspective. I get too close to things," says Goodwin, who played a myopic singleton in the film.
Hudson, meanwhile, would do the opposite. "I have to be honest. I'd walk away. I wouldn't justify anything. I'll fight for something to be good, if the other person is fighting with me. But I'm the person who just walks away. I think it's an ego thing."
Midway through the interview, Hudson's phone rings. It's a girlfriend, checking in on her. Later on, another friend swings by to say hello and make plans for later in the day.
On film, they may do wrong by each other. Reality is different. "I can hang with the boys. But I'm a girl's girl. I'm loyal," Goodwin says.
Hudson was raised by mom Goldie Hawn and her partner, Kurt Russell, in a blended family with three siblings: Oliver Hudson, 34, Wyatt Russell, 24, and Boston Russell, 31. (Kate and Oliver's biological father is musician Bill Hudson.) "So when I was younger, I was more comfortable around boys and had a lot of male friends that somehow always made their way into the tabloids. I walk into a party and I say hi, and (the tabloids have us) canoodling," she says.
Her favorite fake hookup? A guy her son considers a de-facto uncle. "The funniest one? (Cleveland Cavaliers guard) Baron Davis is someone I've known since I was 10 years old," she says.
Goodwin prefers to retain an air of mystery. "I've been linked with several people I've never even held hands with. I like that no one actually knows who I've actually dated."
Talk turns to work. Goodwin just shot the pilot for ABC's Once Upon a Time, playing Snow White. She's praying to the network gods, she says, that it will get picked up. "And I'm getting hitched and reading fall projects," she says.
Hudson doesn't have a wedding date set and says she's not even thinking about it. Her priority now? To order crib sheets for her two nurseries, one in Los Angeles and one in London. And she says that in terms of films, she's trying to figure out a balance now that she'll have two kids to raise.
"It's really just prioritizing. For Ryder, he definitely does slow down my ability and desire to work. At the same time, I will work because I have to. I love it.
"Now that I'm going for Round 2, it's gonna double. Whatever is going to take me away from being mom on a daily basis is going to have to be really worth the experience."
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