Kate Hudson may have a myriad of roles on her résumé but her romantic comedies led her to be called a “rom-com queen.” However, she is opening up about why she wasn’t sure how she felt about that label.
While appearing on Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce podcast, the Running Point star says she has a “mixed feeling” when looking back at the success of her rom-coms and being typecast in those roles.
“It’s a mixed feeling because…now that I’m older, I love it,” Hudson said. “I think what happens when you have a very successful rom-com, it sort of becomes what people expect from you and want from you, and as an actor you’re sort of like, ‘Yeah, but I want to do a million different things.'”
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The actress starred in numerous romantic-comedy films including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fool’s Gold, Something Borrowed, Bride Wars and My Best Friend’s Girl. But she reiterated that “as Hollywood goes, they love to put you in a box. They love it,” Hudson said.
“And so I think when you’re younger, you don’t want to be pigeonholed into this idea that that’s what you do. And the second you have success in a rom-com as a woman, it’s like they just want you in that. So it’s like you love it, and then at the same time you’re like, ‘Yeah, but I want to do other things. I don’t want to just do this all the time,'” she explained.
Coincidentally, Hudson’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days co-star Matthew McConaughey has also reflected on being labeled the “rom-com dude” given he also starred in a variety of projects in the meet cute genre.
“When I was rolling off the rom-coms. And I was the rom-com dude, man, that was my lane, and I liked that lane. That lane paid well and it was working,” the actor explained on the Good Trouble podcast last year. “But the lane was … I was so strong in that lane that anything outside of that lane, dramas and stuff that I wanted to do, were like, no, no, no, no, no McConaughey. Hollywood said no, no, no, no, you should stay there, stay there.”
He continued, “I didn’t want to. So, since I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I stopped doing what I was doing. And I moved down to the ranch in Texas, and I went down there and I made a pact with my wife [Camila Alves McConaughey] and said, ‘I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do.'”
In addition to rom-coms, Hudson’s credits include the musical Nine, horror film The Skeleton Key and murder mystery Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. She’s currently starring in Netflix’s comedy series Running Point, which was co-created and co-written by Mindy Kaling. In the show, Hudson takes charge as president of a pro basketball team after a scandal forces her brother to resign. The series was recently renewed for a second season.
