Kate Hudson: 'Feathering' the Nest

NEW YORK – The giggles are expected. Kate Hudson can look and sound just like her mom -- Goldie Hawn -- when she breaks out laughing or crosses her eyes.

After a long day of promoting Four Feathers she settles in for a few minutes on career advice, a relatively new marriage to rocker Chris Robinson and the thought of raising a family in a world that will always have the memory of Sept. 11.

Bill McCuddy: How's married life?

Kate Hudson: Married life is excellent. Excellent, excellent.

McCuddy: Are you going to grow old together like the Osbournes?

Hudson: (Confused look) Weren't they brother and sister?

McCuddy: The Osbournes?

Hudson: Oh, the Osbournes! Oh my God, I thought you meant the, uh ...

(Off-camera crew member): The Osmonds?

Hudson: The Osmonds! (crosses her eyes laughing)

McCuddy: (Laughing) Yes you and your husband are just like Donny and Marie.

Hudson: Yeah, yeah (laughs)

McCuddy: You'll move to Salt Lake and that'll be a wonderful future.

Hudson: (Laughing) Yeah, that'll be great. Won't that be interesting.

McCuddy: That Christmas Special! I can't wait!

Hudson: (Laughing) Yes! (Composing herself) The Osbournes, hmmm. Possibly.

McCuddy: Would you ever do that?

Hudson: No.

McCuddy: Let cameras come into your household?

Hudson: No way man. Never do that. I don't know how they do that. That would drive me frickin' crazy.

McCuddy: 'Frickin' is the cable term.

Hudson: Yes. Exactly. No, I just don't know how you can do that. My hat's off to them for doing it and it's fun to watch, but it's definitely bizarre.

McCuddy: Leave the family life at home?

Hudson: That's what I say.

McCuddy: What's the best advice you ever got from your mother about acting?

Hudson: Take a year off and be a wife. (Laughs)

McCuddy: Really?

Hudson: That it's not as important as your family life. And then when your family life is set and secure and you're happy in it, you can do better work as an actor. And I believe that. When you're happy and your feet are on the ground you can go and you feel more comfortable with being vulnerable and giving yourself and you're not closing yourself off.

McCuddy: So you had that year?

Hudson: Right after we shot [Four Feathers] which was two years ago I took a whole year off.

McCuddy: How did Sept. 11 impact you?

Hudson: It changed my life and opened my eyes up to so many things that I never really thought about being interested in -- like the news, like what's going on in the world. Then my husband and I just got a chance to go and live in Paris for three months and that was even more interesting. Because you're in Europe and you're inundated in it, in what's going on. Whereas here you feel a little more separated and a little further away from what's still going on. And it's still happening. And Sept. 11 was the beginning of something that is really scary. I love this city. Somebody said, "What's the greatest single act of courage that you've seen?" And I just said, "The city of New York." But now it opens your eyes up to a whole new thing. I hope that when I have children that they're not looking over their shoulders all the time. And that somewhere, somehow this can be, uh, (trailing off, then, frustrated) oh, I don't know.

McCuddy: A lesson or give us some kind of closure?

Hudson: (Shaking her head) I don't know if there's a lesson in killing people. You know? I think that's a little bit of what this movie is about too. So (laughs) I don't know. It's all interesting. I just don't know the answer. I just hope that I live to see something beautiful come out of it.

McCuddy: I think that's what everybody hopes.

Hudson: (Smiling) Yeah.