She’s conducting her career by example

If there’s one thing that Kate Hudson knows more than most actresses, it’s the slings and arrows of show business fortune. The 23-year-old Hudson grew up watching her mother, Goldie Hawn, go through the ups and downs of a high-profile film career. So after the breakout success (and Oscar nomination) for her role as a rock groupie in “Almost Famous” in 2000, Hudson took it in stride when her big studio follow-up, last year’s “The Four Feathers,” sank at the box office. Now she’s taking her biggest career leap yet, starring in the romantic comedy “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” and she seems unfazed.

When asked in a recent interview about the pressure that must accompany the role, she replies, “To be completely honest, it’s zero. The people who care about that, the people who focus on that, will be miserable.”

From Hawn, she learned the importance of balancing professional and personal priorities. “If things aren’t going well where I take pride the most, with my family or my relationship [Hudson is married to Black Crowes rocker Chris Robinson], then I’m in trouble. But as far as my career goes, if I do the best job I can and I go out and with my heart and my soul put it out there, that’s all I can do.”

Like her mother, Hudson holds her own in the glamorous spotlight of awards show red carpets. While talking about her new film, though, she looks thoroughly comfortable in more casual attire, blue jeans offset incongruously with a silky beaded top and frisky Dior high heels, which are quickly cast off. To describe Hudson as petite would be to overstate what is obvious to anyone who’s seen her on the big or small screen, but unlike other gamine-like film women, she isn’t painfully thin. Hudson makes a point of saying that she loves baking from scratch for her husband.

“Chris loves my apple pie, so I make that a lot,” she says. Homemade cheesecake is another favorite. But does she eat any of her creations? “I eat a little bit,” she declares, quickly adding, “I don’t go crazy, but I definitely have a few bites.”

Lately, though, Hudson has had barely a moment to catch her breath between film projects, much less concentrate on her homemaking skills. She stars next in “Le Divorce,” a Merchant Ivory adaptation of Diane Johnson’s popular novel, which opens in June. She’s also wrapped “Loosely Based on a True Love Story” with Luke Wilson, directed by Rob Reiner, a “twisted” romance loosely based on a story by Dostoevsky. And last week she began work on Garry Marshall’s “Raising Helen,” in which she co-stars with Joan Cusack, Helen Mirren and John Corbett in the story of a young woman called on to care for her sister’s children after a fatal accident.

Like many young actors and actresses, Hudson has started her own production company, hoping to follow her mother’s example. Hawn achieved one of her greatest successes as star and executive producer of “Private Benjamin” (1980). Hudson’s Birdie Productions operates under the Cosmic Entertainment banner, which is also the creative home to Hawn, Kurt Russell, and Hudson’s brother Oliver. (Younger half-brother Wyatt Russell aspires to be a professional hockey player.)

“I’ve always been fascinated by the process of making movies,” says Hudson. While growing up, she spent a lot of time on film sets, traveling with Hawn and Russell whenever they went on location. (Hudson’s father is Hawn’s ex-husband, singer-comedian Bill Hudson, but the young actress refers to Hawn and longtime partner Kurt Russell, who have been together since Kate was a toddler, as her parents.)

“When I was watching my parents make movies, it was a job, it was their work,” she points out. “And they put us to work! If we were going to hang around the set, we were either working as a p.a. [production assistant] or in wardrobe or in hair and makeup or helping out in the camera department.”

And how did all those tough Teamsters feel about the nonunion laborers? “It was more about getting to understand how much work went into making a movie than any actual payment,” she recalls, laughing. “I think maybe we got slipped a five by our parents at the end of the movie.”

According to “10 Days” producer Lynda Obst, Hudson learned her on-set lessons well. “Kate really understands the business in all of its flat-footed, non-rose-colored glasses realities,” Obst says. “And what’s even more remarkable, when you watch Kate at the monitor watching the work, she’s never just watching her own work. She’s always watching the whole shot, the background action, the other actors, the props. She’s not figuring out how Kate Hudson is doing in the shot, she’s figuring out how the shot’s working in the movie.”

And figuring out her place in the film industry as well. “I always know that there are so many girls in front of you and so many girls behind you that can do the job just the same if not better than you can,” Hudson acknowledges. “I concentrate on what I’m doing in the here and now. I love what I’m doing right now. I’ll take the highs and I’ll take the falls. I’m prepared for it all.”