By: Moonah Ellison
Photographer: Evan Duning
“Off the grid” is not normally an apt description for movie stars but Wyatt Russell comes close. he knows what luxury and indulgence and privilege are—just look at his last name—but like his illustrious parents and siblings, he knows, for sanity’s sake, grounded is the way to go. As a recent road trip through half a dozen north western states in a camper van sort of illustrates so well!
“The nice thing about this [the van] is it’s cheap, the price of gas is usually good, and you’re cooking over the fire around the van or whatever. You’re not spending a ton of money. It’s the only vacation probably when you end up saving money. You’re not buying clothes, you’re not buying things….”
You can’t see past it, a cross between his famous father and famous mother, the son of actors Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Hazel blonde hair, Kurt’s eyes, Goldie’s smile. It. Is. All. There. I happen to catch Wyatt Russell back from vacation, where he was traveling by van up the Oregon coast, central Oregon, Utah, and a little bit of Colorado and Nevada. And actually Arizona too. He took a break with his fiance Meredith, but he’s happy to get back to the dogs they left behind. Oh, he’s really excited to talk about that van.
Now back to his parents. I would think most people wouldn’t trade places at all to be born into Hollywood royalty: nannies, MIA parents always working. Russell paints a different picture, one of a normal all-American life with the addition of riches and fame. “We went on a lot of family trips. Our parents were with us the whole time and my dad, he’s an outdoorsman, and he taught us to hunt, fish, ride horses, camp. It’s an important part of our lives.”
Always a sportsman, it’s Russell’s life’s arc that garners the most attention, having made the transition from being a hockey player to giving into the family profession of acting. Russell, 33, played pro-level hockey for the Richmond Sockeyes, Langley Hornets, Coquitlam Express, Chicago Steel, Brampton Capitals, and Groningen Grizzlies. He also played in college at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Injuries sidelined his career and he went into acting. Why not. It seems fitting that he’d follow the rest of the kin: mother, father, half siblings Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson.
But it was hockey that became easy for Russell. From the time he was young, he was creating the image of who he’d like to be, creating his own story. He saw how his parents were seen as important because of how other people treated them and it made him feel weird because he didn’t get why. People all around him were putting them on a pedestal, and it wasn’t something that he wanted to have happen to him. So at a very early age Russell discovered hockey. “It was really easy—I was a goalie—to judge the position I was in from the beginning, just from numbers: If you let in a lot of goals, that’s not good. If you block a lot of goals, that’s good. If you win a game, that’s good. If you lose a game, that’s not good. It’s real binary in a way that people could start to see me as someone who was competent at something that was relatively difficult to do.”
The injuries took a toll on Russell and by 24, after playing in college and in Europe, that was it. “And so when I got hurt for the last time, it really just became a decision that I just made. I knew this was the end. Hockey was no longer going to give me what I needed in my ‘story’ that I wanted for myself anymore.
The Woman in the Window is Hitchcockian to a fault, an upcoming American thriller with a killer cast in Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, and…Wyatt Russell. The movie is about an agoraphobic child psychologist who spies on her neighbors and witnesses a crime.
“I was going on vacation and sometimes I’ll get this thing when you get an audition and you go, ‘Oh fuck me,’” Russell laughs. “I had just got done working and it was just one of those things where I don’t want to give a shitty audition, I don’t want to do it half ass and I have to self tape it and I’m leaving for vacation in two days. And at the time my girlfriend says “we’re literally leaving for vacation in an hour to go to Europe, just fucking do it, come on.” And so I did it real quick, I kind of had an idea. I had been thinking about it for a long time on how to do it and I did it straight. Joe thought it was interesting, we talked on Skype. I gave him my little spiel and then we went through the rehearsal process and it was a fantastic experience. I feel I learned more on that movie than I have on most just because of the process of it.” It seems like destiny, but it took a lot of soul-searching and second-guessing during those injury years in the hockey rink.
So he went online and signed up for a film course at USC and took a summer film course and fell in love with it. That’s when he knew the family business was calling. “I took this course and I really fell in love, but when I stopped playing hockey, I didn’t want to spend tens years of my life again, which is basically what I had just done, beating my head against a brick wall trying to get an idea made and I wanted to go and I wanted to make money. I wanted to learn while I was on set and I thought this was a much better way, being around people doing their job. How the set really works.” It’s that observational aspect of being an actor and observing how everybody is doing their job, Russell gets it, and wants to be a part of that energy, that process. He’s currently producing a few projects with his brother, Oliver Hudson, and John Sahlberger, in a company they formed called Slow Burn. He also stars in Lodge 49, a show on AMC where Russell stars as Sean “Dud” Dudley, a drifting ex-surfer reeling from the loss of his father; Paul Giammatti is an executive producer.
“One of the things that’s very specific is he never smokes weed, he does not do drugs, because that would ruin the illusion. It’s always a funny thing. Drugs are an interesting thing in a movie when you use them as a device. It was very important that this character was not doing that, that it was coming from within a very specific place in his soul that was not manipulated or smoke screened with any type of drug.” Russell will take his slapshot with The Woman in the Window and Lodge 49. Starring in a major film with an all-star cast, as well as the lead in his own television show, that looks like a goal to us. Injury-free.
Groomer: Jamie Taylor @ The Wall Group
Stylist: Michelle Kelly