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Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman are kicking off their awards season with a prize for their new movie Song Sung Blue.
Hudson, 46, and Jackman, 56, appeared together at the 2025 Gotham Awards in New York City on Monday, Dec. 1, where they received the awards show’s inaugural Gotham Musical Tribute for their performances in their new movie about husband and wife Mike and Claire Sardina, who formed the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder in the 1980s.
While on the red carpet, the two actors opened up to PEOPLE exclusively about the one thing they learned from working with each other in the film.
“Hugh, his superpower is to connect,” Hudson tells PEOPLE of her costar. “Whether it’s on stage, whether it’s on set, whether it’s with anyone and everyone — he just wants to connect and he wants to make sure that everyone’s happy. I learned that one of the great gifts you can give people is that you actually have a desire to connect to them.”
As she turned to Jackson, Hudson adds, “I think you give that to everybody — even though I’m sure it takes a lot from you. You’re like a masseuse who’s constantly giving energy to other people, and needs energy for you.”
Kate Hudson/Instagram
Meanwhile, Jackman says of Hudson, “I learned a lot from Kate. I learned about acting on film, actually. I’ve done almost 50 films, but, somehow, working with Kate — it’s a very difficult thing to describe but the mixture of being prepared and just being instinctive is a really fine line and no one does it better than Kate Hudson.”
“Being with her, I learned and I think I became a better actor,” Jackson says. “Also, there were two key moments where she stuck up for the film, which was inconvenient for timing and everyone, but both of the moments are key moments in the movie now. So, it’s sort of that idea of picking your battles, knowing when you need to just really say, ‘No I disagree.’ And I learned that from Kate, because she’s the sweetest, nicest, kindest, always great. So when Kate Hudson says, ‘I think this is a mistake, I think we should go left and not right,’ everyone stops and listens.”
Hudson is receiving Oscar buzz for her role in the new musical movie as awards season kicks off.
“You never know with these things. I’ve been around now long enough to know just to enjoy that people are really loving the movie,” she tells PEOPLE of potential awards glory for the movie, adding with a laugh, “And just, you know, show up to where they tell me to go.”
In a Nov. 4 press release, the Gotham Film & Media Institute said that the tribute “will honor Hudson and Jackman for their outstanding musical performances that capture the heart and soul of Neil Diamond’s timeless music on the big screen.”
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Sarah Shatz/Focus Features
Hudson and Jackman’s new movie also costars Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson and musician King Princess in her big screen debut, as well as Mustafa Shakir, Hudson Hensley, Fisher Stevens and Jim Belushi.
Song Sung Blue is in theaters Dec. 25.
