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Hudson soaks up Oklahoma
Kate Hudson is seen backstage at the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in January 2008 in Los Angeles. Reed Saxon / Associated Press
By GENE TRIPLETT NewsOK.com
Published: 7/6/2009 2:24 AM
Last Modified: 7/6/2009 5:31 AM
GUTHRIE — The young mother on the couch with the 6-year-old boy bore little resemblance to the glamorously windblown blonde in the yellow chiffon dress by Dior who recently graced the cover of Elle magazine.
She was now a brunette, for one thing, and she was costumed in a '50s-fashion sleeveless plaid blouse and denim pedal pushers.
But it was Kate Hudson all right. The sweet and wholesomely sexy smile was unmistakable.
She was dressed for the part of the schoolteacher she plays in "The Killer Inside Me," the $13 million theatrical motion picture that completed 6 1/2 weeks of filming in Oklahoma last week.
"I love the South, always," Hudson said in an interview with The Oklahoman during the first week of shooting in Guthrie. "The air smells different. It does. It really does."
Hudson, 30, is more accustomed to smoggy Los Angeles, where she lives with her son, Ryder, who's not shy about speaking up when he has an opinion.
"I'm not into it," the blond-headed boy said of his mother's new hair color.
"He doesn't like it," Hudson laughed. "That's OK; it can't last forever. It's just a wash."
The tint was as temporary as their two-week stay in Oklahoma, where the actress was co-starring with Jessica Alba and Casey Affleck in a film based on a 1952 pulp crime novel by Anadarko-born author Jim Thompson.
At the moment, Hudson was between scenes, sitting in an upstairs room of an old two-story house that was serving as a location base and dressing room on Noble Street, where much of the movie was being shot under the direction of British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom.
Other scenes would be shot later in Cordell, Enid, Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
"It's actually not my first time (in Oklahoma), because I've been here on the road with his dad a couple of times," Hudson said, referring to ex-husband Chris Robinson, singer of the Black Crowes.
The right direction
While producers said they chose Oklahoma for its scenery — and the production expenditure rebate program offered through the Oklahoma Film & Music Office — the story is actually set in west Texas, circa 1957.
Affleck plays a small-town deputy sheriff with a sinister past who is struggling to suppress his homicidal urges. Alba plays a prostitute who becomes involved with the deputy, while Hudson plays his more innocent girlfriend.
It's a role that required more than just a dye job for Hudson. It also necessitated coaching to affect a specific regional drawl.
"West Texas isn't as drawn out as the other ones," she said. "It's kind of sharp. I was surprised. It's not like, you know, Tennessee Williams."
That day's shooting would also require Hudson to do a bedroom scene with Affleck and soak in a hot bath while he looked on, but such tasks are just part of the acting profession, which she's watched mom Goldie Hawn practice for years.
Besides, Affleck's an old friend from two previous movies they made together, "Desert Blue" (1998) and "200 Cigarettes" (1999), which was one reason Hudson was attracted to "The Killer Inside Me."
"I love to work with him," she said.
Some scary stuff
The other attraction was Thompson's story, which is much darker than the romantic comedies for which she's become known.
"I have a great character," Hudson said, "and obviously the novel is famous. I didn't know about the novel until I got the script, and I kind of looked into it and read about how phenomenal the novel was for its time. I mean it's out there. Scary book. Scary. It's brutal."
The shooting schedule up to that point had been brutal, too, which Hudson credited to Winterbottom, best known for directing "A Mighty Heart."
"He's a worker," she said. "And it's really intense. We did a six-page scene yesterday, and he kind of shuts everybody out of the room and it's just all of us (actors and limited crew). It's like a play. It's pretty great. It's really different."
Hudson managed to break away long enough to dine in Bricktown one night, and Ryder has been entertained as well.
"You had a good meatball at Nonna's," she said to her son, who nodded in agreement. "You went to a lot of museums while I was working. You went to the cowboy museum, and then you really liked the science museum; that was fun. And what did you get at the science museum that was so good?"
"Oh, I got space food," Ryder said.
"It's really a nice lookin' city," Hudson said, starting to sound a bit Southwestern.
etriplett@opubco.com
By GENE TRIPLETT NewsOK.com
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