Kate Hudson Receives 2025 Pioneer Of The Year Award

Kate Hudson is the Pioneer of the Year.

The star received the 2025 top prize from the venerable Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation “in recognition of her distinguished leadership of humanitarian causes and philanthropic endearvors, and in recognition of the eminence she achieved she achieved in the entertainment industry and community at large”. The event, held Wednesday evening at the Beverly Hilton, raised $1.3 million for the Foundation.

Named for iconic entertainer and humanitarian Rogers, the foundation is a motion picture exhibition industry-fueled charitable organization dedicated to helping those in need and has been honoring industry notables with their Pioneer Award since 1947. Based in Rogers’ beloved Pacific Palisades, where Hudson also lives, it found itself in need after Rogers’ historic house and barn was among the many lost to the horrific Palisades fire in January. Hudson, sitting at a center table surrounded by her proud parents Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell as well as brother Oliver Hudson and others, told me before the ceremony this award literally hits close to home and meant so much to her to receive it, remarks she expanded on in her acceptance speech. “I grew up at Will Rogers State Park, playing soccer, walking the trails, wandering through the museum and his home. And when I learned (about this award), I realized I had not been back since the fire. It was very emotional for me, because his house and his barn are gone, but his spirit remains, and his belief in community and in connecting the artist to humanity will always live on,” she said.

Ceremony host Ike Barinholtz who was recently Emmy-nominated for his role as Sal Saperstein in The Studio, and also is a producer/writer of Hudson’s Netflix series Running Point (now shooting its second season) said “I love Kate Hudson because to me she is Los Angeles. I joke that Kate wasn’t born, she just one day emerged from the Pacific Ocean, but we know that’s not true because she came from one of our greatest stars, and like her mother she’s become a huge beacon of light in our business and in her community of the Palisades,” he told the packed ballroom. “Kate loves her neighbors so much, and I know how deeply affected she was by the fires. She was lucky enough to make it out that night but a lot of friends of hers lost a lot and she has been doing so much to help that community, and to help her friends get back to normal, and for that she deserves everything.”

Cameron Crowe, who directed Hudson 25 years ago in her celebrated Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe winning role as Penny Lane in Almost Famous took the stage to present her with the Pioneer award saying. “She’s so unpretentious as a person that she makes her work as an actor, singer, a philanthropist, author, cultural icon, seem almost effortless. She blazes her own path, her own way, and that’s what makes a pioneer right out of the box.”

Crowe hilariously recounted a story about showing the finished film to his idol, then-93 year old Billy Wilder in an otherwise empty Zanuck Theatre on the Fox lot. Crowe published his unforgettable book, “Conversations With Wilder” during that time and he said it was an agonizing 90 minutes of watching the silent Wilder and his wife Audrey watch the movie. But then suddenly he heard Wilder’s unmistakable accelerating laugh burst out during a key moment for Penny Lane when she is sold for a case of beer, has a tear come down her face, and trying to hide her heartbreak utters the infamous line, “what kind of beer?” Crowe imitated the laugh. “It rose up like a coyote and was this howl of delight, and the first thing he asked when the lights came up, ‘who is this girl in the coat?’, and after being told it was Kate Hudson he said, ‘keep her close, hold on to her, for my next picture’. He sounded like he finally found the cinematic leading lady to complete his match set of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. He loved Kate.”

During her remarks Hudson also touchingly saluted the impact her parents have had on her life. “For me, personally, carrying on a tradition of values that have been passed down is incredibly important. I was raised with an incredibly strong family unit, and I’ve always felt that when I do represent something larger than myself, it’s my family, it’s my children, it’s my inner circle, it’s a larger circle. And I don’t
strive for perfection. I find that very boring, but I do try to live in a way that they can be proud of. So thanks for being here tonight,” she said, and then directly addressed her mother.

“She is the great philanthropist of our family who’s dedicated the last 25 years of her life not to the arts, but to children. Thank you for teaching me to think not about what I will do in my life, but who I’m continuing to become and to live with purpose and compassion. Thank you for raising me in your vibrant world, for keeping me grounded and reminding me of the power of narrative and the importance of building character, and not just in the roles that we play, but in life and in the home. And I want to thank my mom for being an example of true love and what commitment is, and for my parents both having the courage and the confidence and the discipline to have the same hairstyles for 40 years.”

Also at an adjoining table was Focus Features Chairman Peter Kujowski who on Christmas Day will be releasing Hudson’s next film, Song Sung Blue, a remarkable true story about a Wisconsin-based Neil Diamond tribute band in which she co-stars with Hugh Jackman (who was among those amusingly congratulating Hudson in a tribute reel). Crowe praised the movie in his remarks, and the film was shown to exhibitors attending a NATO conference in L.A. this week. Reaction I heard at the pre-reception, and to the trailer shown during the ceremony, was very upbeat. Focus plans a Best Actress campaign for Hudson, as well as touting Jackman and Craig Brewer’s heartfelt film too.

Kujowski, holding a hot hand this Oscar season, told me that no matter what the eventual success rate for the company’s new movies (which also include Hamnet, Bugonia, and Anenome) he is thrilled with the creative results. “Whatever happens these are the movies we set out to make and I am enormously proud of how each of them turned out” he said. Sitting next to him at his table were the producers of Song Sung Blue, John Davis and John Fox, both clearly excited for the prospects of having a crowd-pleasing kind of inspirational movie coming for the holiday season. Davis also told me they will be reuniting with Eddie Murphy (for whom they most recently collaborated on Dolemite Is My Name) on two new films. The first is Murphy’s longtime passion poject on funk musical legend George Clinton to be directed by Bill Condon, and the second a remake of Stanley Kramer’s 1963 classic comedy about greed, It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World which will star Murphy and about 40 other current comedians.

Opening the proceedings was Will Rogers Foundation President, and Focus Features distribution chief Lisa Bunnell. Past Pioneer of the Year honorees include Greta Gerwig, Erik Lomis, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, Tom Cruise, Donna Langley, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Elizabeth Banks, Jim Gianopulos, Dick Cook, Michael D. Eisner, Alan Horn, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Sherry Lansing, Frank G. Mancuso, Sumner Redstone, Terry Semel, Tom Sherak, Jack Valenti, Jack Warner, Darryl F. Zanuck and Cecil B. DeMille.