KATE Hudson hates watching herself on screen at the best of times.

Even when she is playing the kind of effervescent, luminous, life-loving blonde in rom-coms such as Bride Wars, Fool’s Gold and How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days for which she is so well known, Hudson cannot stand seeing herself act.

So watching herself in controversial director Michael Winterbottom’s noir thriller The Killer Inside Me, in which she plays a small-town girl-next-door with a dark, masochistic side and a penchant for spankings, was almost unbearable.

“I didn’t recognise even myself in it,” she says. “I have a really hard time watching movies I am in, so this was multiplied by 10.

“I was totally captivated and disturbed, which is exactly what was supposed to happen.

“What a movie Michael did – it’s so well done, but I don’t know if I could sit through it again.”

Since her entrancing Oscar-nominated breakthrough role in the 2000 rock drama Almost Famous, Hudson has occasionally deviated from rom-com parts.

She has dabbled in horror (The Skeleton Key), period drama (The Four Feathers) and musicals (Nine), but nothing has come close to her role in the violent but compelling film version of Jim Thompson’s 1952 book that Stanley Kubrick called “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered”.

On the phone from Tokyo, Hudson – who calls direct rather than through an army of publicists – is warm, open, thoughtful and funny.

She is ambivalent to the suggestion her latest role may shock fans.

“It’s always hard to talk about yourself from somebody else’s perspective,” she says. “That made-up version of myself through media or tabloids is not something I associate with.

“I don’t feel it necessary to prove myself to people. I was raised to do the best work I could do, and to be the best mum I can be and to be a good friend and remember to call my brothers on their birthdays.”

Hudson describes her upbringing as “unconventional”.

Her mother, comedy great Goldie Hawn and her biological father Bill Hudson divorced when she was 18 months old. Kate and brother Oliver were raised by actor Kurt Russell.

She grew up seeing her parents on screen in all manner of roles – from sex scenes to death scenes – and has no qualms about Ryder, her son with former husband Chris Robinson, seeing her films when the time comes – no matter how confronting.

“I came from a very unconventional family and the way I see making films is as story telling,” she says. “My son is raised in a similar environment so it’s a story and, if you are going to tell it, then tell it well. Obviously I don’t want him seeing this film until he gets older but I am not concerned about it.

“I would like to raise my son to be able to see everything and make wise decisions and be knowledgeable about everything.”

Hudson has consulted a psychologist in the past to help her plumb the depths of her characters and find relatable traits and events in her life.

But she admits she was at a loss at times with the troubled Amy in The Killer Inside Me, who is seduced by a clearly unhealthy and abusive relationship with the film’s deranged protagonist Lou, played by her friend Casey Affleck.

“Sometimes it’s good to look at it on a clinical level,” she says. “This movie was so extreme that you have to separate yourself from it.”

For her spanking scene with Affleck, with whom she worked on the films Desert Blue and 200 Cigarettes more than a decade ago, having that friendship made it a lot easier when he had to land a few stinging blows on her bare backside.

“We could take breaks where we could laugh and say, ‘Look what we are doing’,” she says, laughing. “You feel safe when you feel a little protected – then you can go there and then come out of it with them. You can laugh with them out of this horribly uncomfortable place.”

The only time Hudson becomes a little cagey is when discussing the new man in her life, Muse singer and guitarist Matt Bellamy.

They were introduced by mutual friend Nic Cester, of Jet fame, at the 2007 Big Day Out, while both had other partners.

Rock fan Hudson had never heard of Bellamy’s band, but was blown away by their huge sound.

“I remember being on stage and looking at the audience and going ‘Who are these guys?’ ” she says. “I had no idea who they were and yet they were just massive.”

Since her amicable divorce from Robinson in 2006, Hudson has been linked with actor Owen Wilson, baseballer Alex Rodriguez and cyclist Lance Armstrong.

She reconnected with Bellamy this year and, while she admits they are “having a good time” and was seen watching Muse side-of-stage at the Glastonbury and Fuji Rock festivals, Hudson says people should take what they read about their relationship with a big grain of salt.

“Don’t believe any of that stuff,” she says of reports Bellamy was nervous at the prospect of meeting her famous parents. “I also heard we were moving in together. What I have learned since I got divorced is that every time you say anything it turns into a completely different story and it’s so ridiculous.”

Next up for the in-demand Hudson is the drama Earthbound before a return to more familiar territory in the romantic comedy Something Borrowed, opposite Ginnifer Goodwin and John Krasinski.

She says the experience of playing a terminally ill woman in Earthbound put her into a “character depression”.

“It was an amazing experience and very emotional,” she says. “It actually took me a while to get out of that.”

Hudson says she is happy to keep fans guessing with her roles.

Family comes first and there are no grand plans for her career.

“The older I get the more I realise there is no crystal ball and you make your decisions based on what’s available and what feels good,” she says. “I am comfortable with that.”

The Killer Inside Me opens on Thursday.

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