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Oliver Hudson is from one talented family — and now his son Wilder has made his movie debut.
The actor, 49, raves about his eldest child’s first feature-film acting gig in A Merry Little Ex-Mas, recalling to PEOPLE how Wilder, 18, “had never done anything before” and “had just finished an acting class outside of school” when he got the part of Gabriel, the son of Oliver’s Everett in the Netflix rom-com.
In a scene near the end of A Merry Little Ex-Mas, Wilder’s Gabriel delivers an emotional monologue. Oliver says, “He was really nervous about it, because it was a big speech.”
“I’m sitting there listening in the movie, and after his first take, I, for the first time, just started crying. Because I couldn’t believe that this was my son,” he says. “I stepped out of myself a little bit, and I’m like, ‘This is my son who is doing great and who has never done this before. He’s just going head first into the fire, and he’s in my world now, and I’m just so proud of him.’ ”
“I just swelled with this pride that I’d never felt before, and it was just overwhelming and it made me emotional,” Oliver adds. “That was a moment for me that I will never, ever forget.”
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Oliver and Wilder traveled to Toronto and stayed together while filming, which the father of three — who also shares son Bodhi, 15, and daughter Rio, 12, with wife Erinn — was looking forward to in terms of them reconnecting a bit, to the point where he upgraded the house they stayed in.
“I was like, “F— it, I’m just going to pay extra. I want this to be an experience,’ ” he tells PEOPLE. “I got this cool little spot, and I had this musical-montage idea of us running lines and having dinner together and watching movies and falling in love, essentially, again with my son.”
But once they arrived at their temporary home away from home, “[Wilder] stomps up the stairs and I’m like, ‘Dude, you want to get some food?’ He’s like, ‘Nah’ — goes into his room and closes the door,” Oliver says. “I’m like, ‘Oh s—, here we go. We’re just back in L.A.’ ”
“But at the same time, living together for six weeks, being in each other’s space … was incredible,” the Happy Gilmore 2 actor adds.
A Merry Little Ex-Mas follows Oliver’s character Everett, a doctor who moves with his wife Kate (Alicia Silverstone) to his quaint hometown, the fictional Winterlight, to start a family. It’s a decision that Kate makes willingly, though it requires her to give up her dream job of working as a big-time architect in Boston.
But years after welcoming daughter Sienna (Emily Hunt) and son Gabriel, the couple enter into divorce proceedings as they face becoming empty-nesters — only to realize that maybe the solution to their unhappiness isn’t so black and white, fueled by Everett seeking companionship in a new girlfriend, Tess (Jameela Jamil), and Kate retaliating with the hunky Chet (Pierson Fodé).
It’s the latest project from the Hudson-Hawn-Russell family of thespians, from Oliver’s mom Goldie Hawn and “pa” Kurt Russell, to sister Kate Hudson and brother Wyatt Russell.
Of Wilder in particular, Oliver tells PEOPLE that when they wrapped A Merry Little Ex-Mas, his son told him of acting, “Dad, this is it.”
“Because it’s so much fun,” he raves. “When you’re working, it’s the greatest job in the world. It’s a tough racket … it can be difficult. You have dry spells; it’s just the nature of this business. But he wants it. He wants it, and he loves it.”
And his son aside, “All the kids, all the cousins, Kate’s kids, my kids — everyone wants to be an actor,” Oliver adds. “It’s just in the DNA, I guess.”
A Merry Little Ex-Mas is on Netflix Nov. 12.
