Goldie Hawn Opens Up About 15-Year Break From Hollywood: 'I Never Wished to Be Acting Again'
Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson are still learning about each other.
Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson are still learning about each other.
The mother-daughter pair sat down for a conversation for Interview's May issue, where Hudson asked all the important questions.
"Now, let's begin with your relationship with your children: who's your favorite?" Hudson jokingly begins the interview, before quizzing her mom on more serious aspects of her career, like why she started seeing a therapist after making it big as an actress.
"What I wanted in life was happiness, to be honest, and in my young life, I always read about how screwed up Hollywood was. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to have a normal life. I wanted to have children," Hawn explains. "And when I was picked out of a chorus line and cast in a TV series, I got anxious, so I took the bull by the horns and went to see a psychologist. And it was the greatest move I ever made."
"At that early age, in order to reduce your sense of imbalance, you have to learn more about yourself," she continues. "So after about a year of studying -- revealing some of my deepest fears inside that room -- I realized that the way people see me, as a star, has nothing to do with me."
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Hawn also learned to find "liberation" in being able to behave however she wanted to.
"When women were first becoming liberated, I was 23. And I met a woman who asked, 'Don’t you feel bad because you’re sort of acting like the stupid airhead blond?' And I totally surprised myself. I said, 'Liberation can also come from the inside,'" she recalls. "My sense of liberation and the freedom to speak the way I want to and to feel solid in my shoes was getting stronger and stronger. That’s what helps me move through other people’s perceptions of how I should or should not be liberated. I would never listen to those rules."
"Don’t tell me I can’t do that. Watch me. Don’t tell me I can’t direct this movie. Watch me," she adds.
Hawn's new movie, Snatched, marks her first acting role since 2002's The Banger Sisters. But according to the 71-year-old Oscar winner, she knew the industry was changing long before she took a break from the spotlight.
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"The business was changing while I was in it. Conglomerates were coming in, starting to buy studios. Now it’s all about being on the stock market, building amusement parks. Videotapes started back then, and I remember Jack Nicholson saying, 'I'm never going to be on one of those small screens!' And I thought, 'Dude, I don’t think we have a choice!'" she says, before opening up about her 15-year hiatus from Hollywood.
"I believe that life is about doing. It’s about changing. It’s about transitioning. I can’t imagine, as a human being, not being able to grow," she tells Hudson. "When I turned 50, I asked some of my girlfriends, all actresses of the same age, 'What are we going to do now?' I wanted to go live somewhere for a while, learn archaeology, or take part in healing the world on some level. I wanted to dig deep and say, 'Who am I now? What do I have to offer? What do I have to learn?'"
"I started learning about the brain, psychology. And after 9/11, I decided, 'I know what I’m going to do.' I ended up writing two books and creating MindUP. It’s now in Jordan, Serbia, the U.K., America, Canada, Hong Kong. I never looked back. I never wished to be acting again," she explains. "I was so engaged."
Snatched, co-starring Amy Schumer, hits theaters on May 12.