He had made up his mind and told his parents he was finished, and the only reason he went to the audition at all was that his mother pointed out he had already accepted it.
Hudson opens up about being five years old, watching a Tom Cruise film his father let him stay up for, and coming out of it with an unusually precise idea of what he wanted, which was not to be that man but to make an audience feel what he had just felt. He talks about three straight years with no callbacks at all, and about how a child interprets that silence, which he describes without softening it. He gets candid about the things nobody told him he was doing wrong, from the quality of his self tapes to the fact that he was reciting lines instead of listening to the other person, and about the exact moment that distinction landed. Hudson walks through the preparation for his role, including a playlist he was handed by the person he was portraying, and the conversation they had afterwards. He also reflects on going straight from a set full of A-listers back to walking dogs at home, an encounter that left him unable to produce actual words, and the object he brought for the show’s new closing segment.
An essential watch for anyone about to write off the thing they have been chasing.
