Kate Hudson teased Jimmy Kimmel Live viewers on Friday that she was just minutes away from giving them a glimpse of stepfather Kurt Russell taking a nap. Hudson was doing the remote guest thing in Russell’s room and Goldie Hawn’s mother, and he swore to Kimmel that she tried to keep Russell hibernating in the painting, but unfortunately, we were not treated to the sight of a crumpled Kurt Russell snoring in the background. You can’t have everything.
Still, Hudson was there to talk about his recent Golden Globe nomination (she won by Almost famous in 2001), for singing and acting in Sia’s unexpectedly controversial new film, Song. The story of a neuroatypical young woman healed by the “power of love” (and probably by Sia’s music, sung by singers like Hudson and Leslie Odom Jr.), Song drew this controversy through the choice of neurotypical actress Maddie Ziegler, debuting director Sia, to play her main character, a nonverbal woman with autism. And while Sia didn’t exactly cover herself in grace and glory with his atonal defensive / abusive responses to criticism from members of the autism community (and others who think filmmakers should really have learned about acting at this point), Hudson was relatively relaxed when Kimmel brought up the subject.
“Nobody really asked me that,” said Kimmel’s Hudson, raising the question, and the actress was willing to have the discussion that she said was the right and necessary one. “It is not a sonic conversation,” said Hudson, “I think it is an important and ongoing dialogue about neurotypical actors playing neurodivergent characters.” See, Sia – not that difficult. Hudson even led Kimmel back to this delicate terrain when, at one point, the host mentioned her Golden Globe nomination, explaining: “I feel terrible”, that members of the neuroatypical audience were harmed by the choice of the casting director. (Hudson, however, did not enter into Sia’s widely ridiculed irritation about that community daring to question her artistic choices, only agreeing with Kimmel that Sia is a “lovable” person.)
Kimmel, who has been so vocal in your support of the autistic community (he told Hudson he has autism in his own family), as he has been scathing in his mockery of antivaxxers blunderingly blaming autism on life-saving vaccines, he maintained that frontal and central dialogue throughout the last half of the interview, with Hudson gently explaining his own willingness to listen. There was a “Hey, I just work here” touch on Hudson’s analysis of the problem, but at least, unlike some people involved in Songof production, she did not engage in cursing – and in one case, insulting—The same people she claimed to be trying to represent on the screen. (Or kind of apologizing, so excluding her social media.) Anyway, Song is playing on VOD and some IMAX cinemas now.