The More ‘Messed Up’ Goldie Hawn Looks Onscreen, the Better
Goldie Hawn has, of late, been shutting it down on the red carpet, wearing sleek Cinq à Sept and Christian Siriano numbers. But a boutique is pretty much the last place on earth you’ll find the comedy icon and star of Snatched, opening Friday. It’s “fun,” admits Hawn, when her stylist Sophie Lopez brings her chic ensembles to wear to events. But otherwise, fashion is not her forte.
“I’m not a very fashionista type of a person. I like to be comfortable. I don’t like shopping. I don’t like to try things on. I have so many more important things to do,” Hawn tells Yahoo Style.
In fact, she sticks to the tried and true, what she calls her go-to gear, partially culled from daughter Kate Hudson’s Fabletics line. “My uniform every day is workout clothes. I mean, really. I put Kate’s on. I like to feel pulled up. I feel like I’m dancing again. It makes me feel good. You throw great things over it, like great tops and tights and great pants,” she says.
That same sense of less being more applies to her beauty regimen.
“My mother had beautiful skin. It’s genetics. I massage my face every night. I give myself about five minutes. It’s important to bring circulation into your face. Your face gets tired. It brings blood to the surface. Your cream is important, but how you apply it is important,” she says.
Hawn’s entire aesthetic made Snatched a dream project of sorts, largely because she spends most of the film roughing it. The mom of three — Kate and Oliver Hudson, and Wyatt Russell, with longtime partner Kurt Russell — plays Amy Schumer’s protective parent in Snatched. The two are kidnapped and trapped in the Amazonian jungle while on vacation together.
“What I loved most about the movie is that I had three changes of clothes. I only had to change how dirty the T-shirt was. There it was in my dressing room. I never had to deal with specific clothes,” she says.
Which meant that no one would be using any lint brushes on her or straightening her jacket between takes or setups. “I like it when I was all messed up. Her tied-back, that crazy flower in her hair, I thought that was funny. My most comfortable look was the most disheveled look. I like my hair in my eyes. I like my bangs in my eyes,” she says.
Hawn, 71, and Schumer have been largely inseparable while promoting the film. Each woman is serious about her comedy, which formed their bond. “We have a similar eye on what’s funny. We had an amazing connection. It was fun. It’s nothing like who I am. Nothing,” says Hawn of the anxious and tightly coiled character she plays in the film. “Everything about her was nothing like me.”
Unlike her Snatched matriarch, Hawn raised her children to be themselves and never hovered.
“I parent differently; I’m not overprotective. Children make their mistakes. I’m not smothering or demanding. It’s how you look at stuff. It’s more about thought. Behavior follows thought. It’s how you think and how you create your reality,” says Hawn.
Hawn approaches her life with an astounding clarity. She meditates. She’s almost impossibly present and responsive in interviews, never doling out pat, canned answers. And she’s most passionate not about films, but about MindUP, a program created by her foundation to help kids cope with school pressures and societal stress.
“It’s the greatest thing in my life that I have done. I bring this program to children. We’re teaching them how to manage their emotions and become self-regulated,” she says. “They understand how to manage their fear and anxiety. They can work through the school day. You’re talking about my heart.”
It’s also been her focus, as she’s taken a break from acting; Hawn’s last film was 2002’s The Banger Sisters, with Susan Sarandon. She won an Oscar for 1969’s Cactus Flower and remains indelible for her emotionally madcap turn in Private Benjamin.
“I’ve done quite a few movies that studios didn’t think would make money. It’s still a problem,” says Hawn, even though her 1996 hit The First Wives Club grossed $105 million domestically. “It’s an industry that wants to make money. That’s why there’s all these tent-pole movies. One has to be passionate about storytelling. Where women are concerned, it’s never, ever not been hard.”
Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style: