Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have a long-lasting love story, but they never thought it was necessary to walk down the aisle.
“At that time, we constantly got asked, ‘When are you going to get married? Why aren’t you married?’” Russell, 71, recalled in Hawn’s Variety cover story, which was published on Wednesday, March 8.
“And we were like, ‘Why does anybody care about that?’ We’d asked our kids if they cared about it. They didn’t. We didn’t.”
Russell, 77, and Hawn, 77, first met on the set of 1966’s The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, about 17 years before they started dating.
After appearing together onscreen in Swing Shift in 1983, the Overboard co-stars started dating. The couple, who had a 36-year-old son named Wyatt Russell, also liked combining their families.
The First Wives Club actress has two children with ex-husband Bill Hudson, Oliver Hudson, 46, and Kate Hudson, 43, while Russell has a son with ex-wife Season Hubley, Boston Russell, 43.
Raising their family has been a source of great pride for the Christmas Chronicles actors several times.
“You’ve got to work for a living, stay compassionate and stay realistic and I’m passing that on because that was what my father taught me: ‘Stay in reality. Don’t get taken away with everything.
The rest of it is up to them,’” Hawn told Variety of being a role model to her children and grandchildren. “Being there for them and knowing that they’re going to have to work stuff out themselves, as hard as it is.”
Hawn and Russell have also maintained their love for one another throughout the years.
“Kurt is extraordinarily brilliant and creative and collaborative — not in the kitchen,” the Snatched star gushed to the outlet in Wednesday’s profile. “But really he’s just amazing. … Kurt and I are very similar.
He doesn’t consider himself a movie star. Nor do I. Neither one of us walks around thinking about that stuff.”
While Hawn and Russell maintain relationship goals, they have been open about their decision not to marry.
“A lasting relationship isn’t about marriage. It’s about compatibility and communication. And you both need to want it to work,” the Washington, D.C. native previously told Porter magazine in 2015.
“If one person does not want it to work, it isn’t going to work. The intention is the key. It’s also about not losing yourself in each other.
Being together, two pillars holding up the house and the roof, and being different, not having to agree on everything, learning how to deal with not agreeing. Everything’s a choice.”
She added at the time: “[Kurt] came from three sisters and a very strong family unit. I came from one sister and two parents and a big family unit. That’s what we care about.
We talked about relationships and commonality early on. We had nannies, there’s no doubt about it. We’ve both been working. But we were very present with our children. It’s the same way we grew up.”
