Kate Hudson on the hoops & dreams that propel the second season of Netflix basketball comedy Running Point
When the owner of the Los Angeles Waves dies, control of the professional basketball team was supposed to go to his oldest son, Cam Gordon (Justin Theroux). Unfortunately, Cam has issues with substance abuse, crystallized when he crashed his car while his bloodstream contained enough drugs and alcohol to fell a moose. With Cam ordered to rehab, it’s his younger sister Isla (Kate Hudson) — who’s spent years getting her life together after gaining a reputation as a party girl — who’s appointed new president of the Waves.
That was how Running Point began, and the second season of the hit Netflix comedy complicates matters further when Cam is released from rehab, scheming to undermine Isla and take back what he feels is rightfully his.
Meanwhile, the team’s neurotic, quirky new coach Norm Stinson (Ray Romano) is feeling the pressure of turning the team’s flagging fortunes around.
For Hudson, stepping back into Isla’s designer shoes has been a unique experience for her; primarily a film actress (who received an Oscar nomination for last year’s Song Sung Blue), Running Point marks her first starring role in a TV series.
“This is my first time doing a second season of anything, you know, so it’s the first time I’ve been in a show where I’ve had the privilege to do a character for longer than one season or one film and it’s really nice because you get to go further and you don’t have to lay so much foundation,” says Hudson. “You can kind of hit the ground running. And with Isla this season, having Cam back in the picture . . . kind of puts Isla on her toes . . . So it lends itself to a fun season.”
In Running Point, two scenarios play out simultaneously. First, there’s the team itself, with the players on the Waves forced to face down their own complicated interpersonal dynamics in order to start winning games, while Coach Norm must conquer his own insecurities. Then there’s the dysfunctional relationship between the Gordon siblings (which also includes Ness, played by Scott MacArthur, and Sandy, played by Drew Tarver), all of whom work together in the Waves’ offices.
“You know, you’ve got the basketball team — that whole world feels like a totally different world when we’re in it than when we’re doing the family dynamic front office scenes,” Hudson says. “It’s like you have these two different parties going on and then we all get to connect in it. It’s nice to be able to have the energy of a sport that is, like, so fun and so fast-moving and fast-paced. It’s really fun to get to be in the middle of that energy.”
Yet amidst all those rivalries, both sporting and sibling, there’s a central theme at the heart of Running Point. “This show’s all about love,” Hudson explains. “No matter what, the dynamics are that everyone in it really loves each other and it matters to them how the others see them and that they’re there for each other. Even when it’s the most challenging and difficult and dysfunctional, they really do all love each other and love the game.”
However, just exactly how that love manifests itself, particularly between Isla and her siblings, may seem a bit unconventional. “I think what’s fun about the Gordons is that they’re actually quite inappropriate and their morals are questionable,” Hudson observes. “And so it sort of lends itself to them discovering things that should be basic.”
As Hudson points out, families can be complicated — a situation that complicates further when families are in business together. “I think there’s something innate that we all know, that running or trying to create business with family, if you can get it right, is incredibly powerful, almost untouchable. But it can go horribly wrong. It can be the worst possible decision to make.”
When it comes to Hudson’s own family, she admits she’s been incredibly lucky to have Goldie Hawn as mother, mentor and role model. “Well, we gotta start with Mommy,” Hudson says. “I mean, I couldn’t have had a better role model for someone who is not only, like, in her divinely feminine power but also has a strong masculine energy that gets things done, that fights the good fight. You know, she was incredibly ambitious in getting the movies that she wanted to get made and producing them and she was the first female producer that starred in her own movies and got things done like that, so for me growing up, I mean, if that isn’t a role model to, like, you know, follow in those footsteps . . .”
However, at the end of the day, the primary goal of Running Point is to make people laugh, and Hudson is guided by the wise words of her mother. “Like my mom always said, when you sit in a theatre and you hear laughter, it’s like the kiss of God — that’s her line,” she says. “But to be in your home and to be with your family and to be in the comfort of your walls and to be able to enjoy and watch a show that everyone can be a part of, that everyone laughs at, that everyone feels a sense of ease and enjoyment about, and can relate to, even though it’s so unrelatable, is an incredible feeling to be able to be a part of.”
Running Point, streaming on Netflix