Kurt Russell has reflected on his decision to leave Los Angeles for Colorado decades ago, a move that raised eyebrows in Hollywood at the time, but which he has never regretted.
speaks to PEOPLE at the Madison FYC Panel in Los Angeles on May 30, the 75-year-old actor opened up about the log cabin ranch he and partner Goldie Hawn, 80, built together in Old Snowmass some 40 years ago and why life in Colorado suits him in a way that city life simply never did.
“When Goldie and I got together, a few years later, we both built a ranch together there where our family grew up,” he said.
“That was 40 years ago.” The move was driven by a desire to live closer to nature and eventually get into ranching, a world away from the industrial city he left behind.
“What I want to look at, what I want to be a part of, all the things that Colorado has to offer,” he explained.
“I eventually wanted to get into the ranch life.”
At the time, the decision was seen by many in the industry as professional suicide.
“When I did it, nobody else was doing it,” Russell recalled. “I had a lot of people say to me, ‘Well, it’s goodbye. That’s it.’ I said, ‘Well, we’ll see.'”
He was careful to clarify that the move was never about running away from anything.
“I didn’t run away. I just lived where I live,” he said. “I was lucky it really didn’t make any difference.”
Years later, he has seen others follow a similar path out of Los Angeles, something he notes with no particular satisfaction.
His feelings about the city itself remain straightforward.
“I don’t like LA. It’s just not my preference for how I like to live my life.” And on society, he chose instead: “Everyone who lives there, they live there because they want to. I can’t say that about LA”
For Russell, much of the satisfaction came from raising his family in that environment.
He and Hawn share son Wyatt Russell, while also raising her children Oliver and Kate Hudson from her previous relationship with Bill Hudson, along with Russell’s son Boston from his marriage to Season Hubley.
“They have grown up with a good dose of what nature has to offer,” he said. “There are difficulties with it, but there are also great rewards with it.”
Growing up reminded him of his own childhood in Maine.
“Once you’re exposed to that kind of thing, it’s always home,” he said. “I’m really, really glad we were able to do it.”
