Kate Hudson

The divorce of Kate Hudson's parents a few months before her second birthday meant that she got to spend her childhood with an Oscar winner for a mom and an action hero as a step-dad. Naturally, she wanted to follow in their footsteps, but Goldie Hawn discouraged entering the industry right away, out of concern for her daughter's well being. Instead, Kate Hudson kept her artistic ambitions inside the class room through dance instruction and acting at the Santa Monica Playhouse. One of her early highlights was winning a school talent show by energetically bopping to the sounds of Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation."

Kate Hudson's enthusiasm for performing finally got the better of her mom when she was allowed to audition for a show featuring Howie Mandel. She won the part, but Goldie Hawn turned it down without telling her, but ultimately encouraged her daughter to take non-acting jobs on her movie sets. As such, she often helped the crew with make-up and costuming for films like Overboard (which starred both Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell), but still secretly hoped for a future in front of the camera.

KATE HUDSON STARS IN ALMOST FAMOUS AND HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS

After graduating from Crossroads Performing Arts High School and a busy summer performing in the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Kate Hudson made her television debut as Cory on 1996 episode of Jennifer Love Hewitt's launching pad, Party of Five. Kate Hudson's confidence that she could make it in the industry led her to shun an invitation to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and after playing a klutz on a horrible New Year's date in 1998's 200 Cigarettes, she landed a small role as Patrick Fugit's sister in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. When Sarah Polley dropped out of the lead female role of the free-living, musician-chasing Penny Lane, Kate Hudson stepped into the part and walked away with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Before the year was out, she would make two other films, the dark teen drama Gossip with James Marsden and Joshua Jackson and Dr. T and the Women with Richard Gere and Helen Hunt.

The warm reception by critics to her performance in Almost Famous caused a lot of scripts to be sent her way -- including some like Spider-Man that she turned down. Instead of going the comic book route, she hit her stride in romantic comedies, with her biggest hit coming from 2003's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, in which she played a journalist matching bets and sharing beds with Matthew McConaughey. Alex & Emma was also a female-friendly date movie but gave her the added challenge of playing five roles opposite her co-star, Luke Wilson. In 2005, Kate Hudson top-lined her first horror hit, The Skeleton Key, as a nurse spooked by the happenings inside a New Orleans house. Making her performance even more impressive was the fact that she shed 60 post-pregnancy pounds in a mere 12 weeks to do the role.

KATE HUDSON STARS IN BRIDE WARS AND NINE

Now recognized by the movie industry as Kate Hudson and not just Goldie Hawn's daughter, Kate Hudson continues to find success in films that are lighter in nature. She teamed up with Matt Dillon and Owen Wilson for the 2006 summer hit, You, Me and Dupree. Though Owen Wilson played an obnoxious houseguest in the film, he wasn't unwelcome in Kate Hudson's life, and the two enjoyed a romance as a result of working together. Her next two films, Fool's Gold and My Best Friend's Girl, earned her a dubious Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress, but the former film proved to be an audience favorite, no doubt due to her reunion with Matthew McConaughey.

Unfazed by her Razzie nomination, Kate Hudson fought it out on the big screen with fellow beauty Anne Hathaway in Bride Wars before moving on to surefire Oscar fare with the musical drama Nine alongside screen legend Sophia Loren and acting all-stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Day-Lewis. Kate Hudson will continue her genre-hopping as real-life painter Margaret Keane in Big Eyes and the wife of lawman-turned-murderer with Casey Affleck in The Killer Inside Me.