I log into Zoom to be greeted by two powerhouse and sharply dressed women, and almost instantly, I feel the palpable, playful vibe in the room. Kate Hudson quips in a teasing tone: “She would give me tons of line readings.” Brenda Song quips back, “Oh my god! How dare you?” Kate continues to tease her, “She was like, ‘Is that how you’re gonna play that scene?” while Brenda laughs, “Pleasssse.”
That’s exactly how this scene plays out when I ask Hudson and Song about their on-screen friendship, having never worked together. The answer was now seemingly clear to me.
Hudson, 45, and Song, 36, star in Netflix’s new basketball comedy, Running Point, co-created by Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen. Kaling has long helmed shows that gave us three-dimensional female characters while also being incredibly funny—from The Mindy Project to Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls, each one of these shows has been thoroughly entertaining (all of which I highly recommend watching if you haven’t already).
Adding to this list of bingeable, breezy and funny comedies is the 10-episode series, Running Point. It is no surprise that Hudson has impeccable comic timing—her film resume has proved she has killer delivery. There’s one hilarious scene in the series that still lives rent-free in my head, and it hits you when you least expect it. Hudson, who has never done a 30-minute series before, carries the series on her shoulders with her knack for comedy and charisma, matched with an equally stellar wardrobe.
She plays Isla, whose family business is the Los Angeles Waves, which is run by her three brothers as their dad didn’t trust her with the family business. She was relegated to the charity department of the business. When a scandal with her oldest brother breaks loose, she is tasked as President of the LA Waves, given her strong knowledge of basketball. Yes, the other two brothers are just as shocked about this decision as she is. Her support system is her best friend and Chief of Staff Ali Lee (Song), who’s quite a force, so much so that even the basketball players are afraid of her.
The character of Isla is loosely inspired by the life of Jeanie Buss—who serves as executive producer on the series—the president and controlling owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, while Ali is inspired by Linda Rambis, Chief of Staff of the LA Lakers.
While Hudson and Song had never met, they say in unison that it “was so easy.”
Song said, “For me, obviously, going into this, I was so nervous. I’m doing a scene with Kate Hudson. Oh my god, I’m getting fired.” At this point, Hudson chimed in, “She did not seem nervous.”
Song continued, “You know what it is? It’s the fact that this cast is so incredibly talented. Every time we got into a scene, it just felt harmonious. Like, in this work environment, we got to play and see what worked and what didn’t. You could give Kate a new speech, and it was amazing to watch.”
Hudson added: “There were a lot of new speeches. Well, I had that once before where on the day where you’d get a new scene, and you’d be like ‘Ahh!’ but we had a lot on this. I was like, ‘Okay, give me a second.'”
“But that’s what’s cool with comedy, you’re always trying to keep it fresh and working and on the fly,” said Song.
Hudson jumped in to add, “Look, Brenda’s been doing this her whole life. This isn’t my first show. So when you’re working with seasoned actors, it’s just everybody comes with their version of their professionalism, and then the magic is when you end up loving that person. We just had so much fun.”
Like Isla, Hudson too comes from a family of three brothers, so it’s easy to draw parallels between their two worlds. “I definitely feel protective of my family’s legacy, my parents and the work that they’ve done. I don’t wanna let them down. So there’s definitely things that I can relate to.”
The Almost Famous actress, who also serves as EP on the series, has known Buss since she was a teenager. “Even though we’re not the same age, when I was younger, I got to meet her because she ran the forum, and our family were huge Kings fans. So she kind of made sure I stayed out of trouble, basically, that I didn’t go into the bar underage.” She laughed as she mimicked Buss, “Kate, you’re not allowed to go in there.” “I’m not?” “No.”
Hudson is impressed by what Buss has done in her career. She explained: “To be the first woman to run an enormous basketball franchise and own it is pretty incredible and the fact that she wanted to make a show that was a comedy that kind of had this sort of fun life, that didn’t take itself too seriously about what the inside of that is for her, I mean how great is that?”
For her part, people assumed Song played a mother with two kids because she has two kids in real life (which she shares with her partner Macaulay Culkin), but in fact, that wasn’t something that was written for her. “Linda has two boys, and I just happen to have two boys. I have a deep love for basketball. I very much respect Linda and Jeanie and what they do. And for me, I feel like my love of basketball is really what I have in common with Ali. It’s like we are obsessed with it, and it runs our lives.”
The series does a commendable job of showcasing two dynamic women in positions of power who are calling the shots with such confidence. I wonder where confidence stems from for these two actors, who have lived so much of their life in the public eye since they were young.
For Hudson, it varies. She noted that confidence is an important quality, one that comes from a good sense of self. For her, it’s something that she wants to instill in her children. “You hope that they have confidence in the things that they do. I was talking with Mindy earlier, and part of that is preparation. But the biggest part is just loving yourself. I think when you look at your kids and you watch them grow, the biggest thing is you want them to love who they are because they’re never going to achieve everything they want. You’re always gonna end up failing. You’re never always gonna get it right. You’re gonna have great days, and you’re gonna have really terrible ones.”
“But if you have a good sense of self and you’re self-possessed and you feel good, they sort of fall off your shoulders better. You don’t carry them with you. So I think confidence is something that changes wherever you are in your life and how good you feel about how prepared you are in that moment.”
For Song, confidence has a lot to do with her support system. She looks at confidence differently now since becoming a mother. “Like Kate was saying, you wanna instill confidence in your children, and it made me realize, what does that actually mean, and what does that mean to me for my kids? And so it’s really ever-evolving for me, but I realized that my confidence comes from my support system. Knowing I have this safety net where, whether I fail or not, I know that these people love and support me, and they teach me how to love myself. It’s one of the things that I’ve learned in my personal life is that when you have a support system that supports you no matter what, that can’t help but instill confidence.”
Hudson added, “It’s so true. When you have that kind of intimate relationship with people in your life, it just brings a sense of peace that allows everything else to not have the same kind of weight.”
She equated it with ego, noting: “Ego is a funny thing, isn’t it? Because confidence mirrors your ego. It’s sort of like, ‘I wanna do this right.’ It’s like, for who? You know? I think it’s almost weirdly attached to the ego, good or bad.”
One of my favourite episodes involves superstitions and rituals to ward off the evil eye. Isla keeps wearing her lucky shirt until they get to the playoffs. I was curious about Hudson and Song’s rituals.
Hudson admitted she has all kinds of stuff with her crystals, etc. It changes energetically, as she’s drawn to certain things at certain times. “I have to have it when I’m doing certain things, and I always wear certain things when I travel just because they make me feel good. I have little things.”
She revealed she always brings an evil eye with her. “Because I’ve been going to Greece forever, and so I always have something. I like all that stuff. I like all my crystals.”
Song joked, “I did that thing where I was like, I don’t wanna depend on anything,” at which point Hudson quipped, “That’s very Aries of you.”
Song admitted she likes to do rituals before big meetings or something just in the car like spending five minutes to herself. “They’re small things like that I think are just, at this point, habits more than anything. But I don’t really have trinkets or things like that. But you know what, now that I travel, I always bring a little garbage truck, one of my son’s car toys, so I always have something of theirs that I bring with me.”
