Later this evening, Kate Hudson and her Song Sung Blue co-star Hugh Jackman will regale a packed house at Old Mates Pub in New York City. Jackman will stand atop the bar, his dinner jacket shed, and he’ll belt out the chorus to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” to a roomful of revelers who can’t believe their luck — to pick this bar on this night to witness this.
Hudson, halfway across the small room, glimmering in a silver dress and a wide smile, also holds a microphone, barely visible above the standing-room-only bar crowd. The star-struck patrons add their own cocktail-fueled choreography and accompanying sing-along of the Diamond staple, rattling the well bottles and fogging the windows on this first cold night on the first of December in downtown Manhattan. The frenzied scene is a far cry from how Hudson chooses to spend much of her downtime, nearly 3,000 miles away, at her recently purchased home at BIGHORN Golf Club in Palm Desert.
“I love the desert,” she says, speaking over Zoom in her hotel suite before heading out to the event. “The second I get into the Coachella Valley, I can just feel the negative ions go away, and my body shifts completely. I find a lot of peace in the desert. I feel like it’s the place where I can actually rest, and I love how quiet it is.”
This month, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the desert peace Hudson seeks will be briefly, albeit pleasantly, interrupted as she receives the Icon Award for her performance in Song Sung Blue. The film, directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Dolemite Is My Name), tells the story of Mike and Claire Sardina, who rose to improbable prominence in the 1980s and ’90s as the Neil Diamond tribute duo Lightning & Thunder. Performing to ever-increasing crowds in their hometown of Milwaukee, the couple’s devotion to each other and the music they lovingly reinterpreted translated into enough local fame that, at their height, Eddie Vedder invited them to open for his band Pearl Jam in 1995. He even accompanied them for a rendition of the Diamond hit “Forever in Blue Jeans.”
At first glance, Song Sung Blue might present itself as a traditional musical comedy that celebrates kitsch, and it is. But at its heart, it is a love story, with all of the accompanying triumphs, disappointments, and tragedy that can visit even the happiest couples over the course of living a full life together. Anyone who is already familiar with the story of Lightning & Thunder, or has seen the 2008 documentary (also called Song Sung Blue), will be prepared for how Brewer’s film confidently moves from musical highlights to the personal crises that comprise the entirety of the Sardinas’ emotional saga.
The chemistry between Hudson and Jackman propels the film through its musical numbers — which touch on most of Diamond’s hits, including a somewhat comical focus on one of his more experimental numbers, “Soolaímon” — with both actors singing their own parts with such palpable charisma, they’d be a worthy tribute act themselves.
Jackman is no stranger to the musical genre, having won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for The Boy From Oz (2004), and appearing in the films Les Misérables (2012) and The Greatest Showman (2017), the latter even garnering him a Grammy. Hudson, on the other hand, might not be the first person at the top of a casting director’s list to go toe-to-toe with a seasoned musical performer such as Jackman.
On set, Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, and director Craig Brewer review a take for Song Sung Blue. Jackman was the one who first brought Hudson’s name to the table, and the three quickly united around the idea of making the film together.
Photo courtesy focus features
However, Hudson comes from a musical pedigree. Her estranged father, Bill Hudson, was a singer in the Hudson Brothers, who saw some success in the early 1970s. (Hudson was raised by her mother, Goldie Hawn, and considers Kurt Russell to be her father.) She also has a memorable scene in Rob Marshall’s musical Nine (2009), in which she sings “Cinema Italiano” and dances in one of the film’s more elaborately choreographed sequences. In 2024, she fulfilled a lifelong dream and released a debut album of original material, Glorious, that features songs she composed with her partner, Danny Fujikawa.
She even performed at her first music festival at BottleRock 2025 in Napa. If anyone was worried about how she’d fare opposite Jackman in a musical, it wasn’t Hudson. In fact, love of music is what allowed her to understand the character Claire so fully that when the film turns toward its more challenging material, Hudson shifts with it without our losing a sense of who she’s portraying — a whole person, full of contradictions, complexity, and hope.
“I think anyone who is born with music in them has to get it out,” Hudson says. “It’s constantly scratching at you from the inside, and you feel like you just have to do it. When Claire says in the film that she disappears into the music, I see no difference between myself and her in that moment. We are completely different people and have lived completely different lives, but if you’re born a musician, you’re always a musician.”
“She rescued this movie for me … because she understood the tenderness.”
‘Arguably best known for bringing the effervescent fizz to any number of romantic comedies, from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) to Bride Wars (2009) and her iconic flirtatious turn as groupie Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000), Hudson doesn’t have to prove to anyone how easily she can light up a screen. To Song Sung Blue director Craig Brewer, that means Hudson’s broader range is sometimes overlooked, despite her ability to tackle the kind of material she hasn’t typically been offered.
“I want to be very blunt about this,” says Brewer, when asked about how Hudson came to play the role of Claire. “When Hugh Jackman was attached to the project, I suddenly got a list from well-meaning casting directors and producers at the studio with all of the actresses who they thought should play the part. Kate was not on that list. I’ve known Kate for almost 20 years, and to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about her yet either. Then, I get a call from Hugh. He had just seen her on a morning show. She was talking about wanting to step away from Hollywood, and how her passion was for writing songs and performing them for people. At that point, I couldn’t think of anyone else but Kate. In the end, it was the three of us who decided. Just me, Hugh, and Kate saying, ‘Let’s go make this happen.’ And then we did.
“Kate has been underused and undervalued,” Brewer continues. “I think it might be that she is a victim of her own charisma. She’s very earthy, she can sound like your best friend. There’s really only a handful of people that can do that in a movie. But when you see her in a film like this, where you see her dealing with some sadness, with confusion, and pain — she’s just absolutely amazing. She rescued this movie for me two or three times, because she understood the tenderness between Mike and Claire, and she knows what an audience wants. I honestly don’t think I could have made this film without Kate.”
Hudson and Jackman move through a scene in character. For Hudson, the film depended on creating a lived-in partnership on screen, a commitment both actors embraced.
Photo courtesy focus features
From the musical numbers to the couple’s courtship, how they live at home and interact onstage, and how they treat each other and each other’s children, the story of Mike and Claire Sardina isn’t fodder for a let-the-sparks-fly romantic feel-good film. At times, it requires both Jackman and Hudson to temper their formidable charm and show real suffering at the cruelties that accompany a life lived at such a hopeful pitch as the real-life couple they portray. To be believable as a Neil Diamond act and perform his beloved hit songs is one thing. To carry that sustained sincerity into parts of a film that isn’t afraid to switch modes on a dime is something else entirely. For Hudson, it was just an extension of who she was asked to portray, all part of the same pursuit she shares with Claire — to live life with joy.
“When Hugh and I are onstage, we are just so happy,” Hudson says. “It doesn’t even have to be perfect. Give us a microphone, and we could sing karaoke all night. But after our first reading, I said, ‘This movie isn’t going to work if we don’t. I want to feel like we’re married. I want to be Mike and Claire, together.’ He completely agreed. Mike and Claire rescued each other. They had so much belief in each other. They loved each other so much, they could do no wrong. It didn’t matter what anybody thought. That’s what people loved so much about them. They could feel that they were real, so we had to be real.”
This all-or-nothing approach not only helped them to embody what made Lightning & Thunder so special to their fans; their interaction on set during filming had the crew enamored as well.
“I’m so honored. People are at this festival to celebrate and support filmmakers, and it makes me feel encouraged to keep working.”
“We were doing a costume test, when everyone working on the film saw them together for the first time,” Brewer recalls. “They were singing, we were watching them, they were looking into each other’s eyes, and some of the crew just stopped to look. Someone asked me how long they had known each other. ‘They’re singing to each other with a sparkle in their eyes. They look like they’re in love!’ It was just undeniable from that very first day.”
When Song Sung Blue is fêted at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Awards, Jan. 3 at the Palm Springs Convention Center, the event will be a sort of homecoming for Hudson. Her parents, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, have lived in the area for almost 25 years, purchasing a home at BIGHORN, where the entire family indulges in their love for golf. It was only a few years ago when Hudson found herself with the opportunity to buy her own place in Palm Desert and jumped at the chance to live part of the year outside of Los Angeles, a place she also loves. (“I love living near the water. I love going to the desert. It’s like being on vacation without having to go to the airport.”)
She plays golf and tennis and holds down the fort for her older kids and their friends when they descend on her new abode to attend the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. As for accepting her status as an icon in an area where she has spent so much time making memories with family, she is unapologetically grateful for the award.
“I’m so excited, I’m so honored,” she says. “People are at this festival to celebrate and support filmmakers, and it makes me feel encouraged to keep working. I really hope people go see this film in theaters where it gets such a wonderful response. As for the award, it might feel a little early to be considered an icon — but I accept the love, and I’m so grateful for it.”
