The poster for Cameron Crowe’s rock-band-on-the-road odyssey Almost Famous, which turned 25 this week, depicts an extreme close-up of the actor Kate Hudson, in character as the ambiguously aged muse and groupie Penny Lane. Her eyes are hidden by reflective shades, and her face is framed by tight blonde curls. But despite being the face of the film’s advertising campaign, Hudson isn’t the star of Almost Famous. In reality it is Patrick Fugit’s bright eyed and bushy tailed music journalist, William Miller. She is, though, the film’s heart and soul.
Crowe wrote Almost Famous based on his own experiences touring across the US with rock bands throughout the Seventies. He was just 15 when he began writing cover stories for Rolling Stone magazine – profiling acts such as The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He remains the youngest journalist to ever do it. The film is vaguely autobiographical in nature, with the frontman of the movie’s fictional central rock group Stillwater inspired by Glen Frey of The Eagles. “Just make us look cool,” Frey once told Crowe – the line made it into the movie, inserted into the mouth of Stillwater’s lead singer Jeff Bebe (played by actor Jason Lee).
Penny wasn’t inspired by a single person. She’s more of an amalgamation, formed by the stories of famous real-world groupies including Pamela Des Barres and Pennie Lane Trumbull. To Crowe, these women weren’t simply individuals having sex with rock stars but real inspiration for the music. Penny in Almost Famous is not merely designed to form part of a love triangle between a musician and a journalist – she is their muse.
Penny even says so herself. “We are not groupies,” she tells William early in the film. “Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band-Aids.”
The power dynamic between the pair is apparent from their first interaction. Penny is framed standing above William on the ramp outside of a stadium – two ordinary people, but one far more worldly than the other. Penny wears chic blue sunglasses and a fur coat, William dresses in plain corduroys and a field jacket. Waltzing into the venue past security, she manages to get William backstage even though he’d been denied mere minutes before. Penny is a chameleon among cool people, and can show William how to fit in.
It’s the women in Crowe’s film who push William to leap into the unknown. His mother, Frances McDormand’s Elaine, moves William ahead two grades because she knows he’s academically capable. His older sister Anita (played by Zooey Deschanel) leaves her records for him to explore the “forbidden” genre of rock ‘n’ roll. It is Penny who convinces William to stay on tour until he finishes his interviews with Stillwater’s chilly guitarist Russell (Billy Crudup).
As inspirational as Penny is, however, the role would have been nowhere near as impactful if the cool, unflappable, dazzling Hudson hadn’t been cast in the role – and she nearly wasn’t. Hudson was initially cast in the role of William’s sister Anita, while Penny was filled by Sarah Polley, then one of Hollywood’s most buzzed-about young actors, who is today best known for directing Oscar-nominated films such as Women Talking and Away from Her. Scheduling conflicts ensured Polley had to drop out of the film, leading Hudson to campaign to replace her. It was only after a series of gruelling auditions, and support from the film’s casting director Gail Levin, that Hudson was in.
Hudson ended up winning a Golden Globe for her performance in the film, as well as an Oscar nomination in 2001. While Penny is certainly a force to be reckoned with on the page, thanks to Crowe’s Oscar-winning screenplay, it is Hudson’s performance that truly elevates the role. When Hudson enters a scene, all eyes are on her. She’s a north star, transforming her gait and her delivery depending on the person she shares the screen with – the ultimate muse. When she’s alone with William, she is honest and vulnerable. She casts a sweet, caring smile to signal that she’s listening, as they sit eye-to-eye together. The two confide in each other about their real ages, a secret Penny has kept hidden from everyone else. When she is alone with Russell, however, Penny is aloof, flirtatious but guarded.
With every new person she meets, Penny dons a new mask. Hudson imbues the character with layers upon layers, building on the history of the women who inspired Crowe, but adding so much more.
