Romcom queen Kate Hudson is back doing what she does best in Something Borrowed, which is out in cinemas this week. Susan Griffin reports.

It's cheering to see members of Hollywood royalty embracing clothing with the comfort factor.

Take Kate Hudson, for example. She might be the daughter of Goldie Hawn, stepdaughter of Kurt Russell and a one-time Oscar nominee, but that doesn't stop her walking into the room wearing a simple white shirt, black vest top and that great sartorial statement - leggings.

Blonde with blue eyes, Hudson boasts the kind of Californian glow befitting a golden girl of Hollywood - and that's despite not feeling on top form.

She even groans as she sits down.

For those who've missed the headlines, the 32-year old is six months pregnant (the dad is Muse frontman Matt Bellamy) and the pregnancy's causing her to get up at 6am every morning.

She manages a grin and there's a hint of the mega-watt smile she shares with her mum - one that's served to beguile audiences in films such as How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, which earned more than £100 million at the box office.

That winsome smile has had to put in overtime in her latest film Something Borrowed. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, it tells the tale of two lifelong friends, the introverted and loyal Rachel, played by He's Just Not That Into You's Ginnifer Goodwin and the charismatic but relentlessly self-absorbed Darcy, played by Hudson.

"Simply put, Darcy is all about Darcy. She's the kind of person who says things we wish we could say, who doesn't hold back and thrives on being the centre of attention," says Hudson, who says she's nothing like her character.

Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Like Darcy, she's been known to dance on a bar before.

"Of course," she exclaims. "I wouldn't say on tables, I'm not that kind of a girl. But yeah, on a bar, who hasn't?"

Baby bump allowing, Hudson loves to dance, and has done since she was a child. She even got to show off her moves in show-stopping 2009 musical Nine.

But unlike Hudson, Darcy isn't just an exhibitionist; she's the archetypal alpha female.

"Darcy thinks she's perfect because everything has always gone the way she's wanted it to," she says.

This could prove a turn-off to a predominantly female audience, so all credit to Hudson for making her so watchable.

"Darcy walks a fine line between what's funny and endearing and that could easily become unlikeable, which is always fun," she continues, flashing that grin again. "We would have days where I'd look at [her co-star] Ginny and go, 'Oh my God, what am I doing? She's just horrible!'"

As with all good romcoms, there are messy romantic entanglements.

In this instance, the reliable Rachel admits her true feelings to Darcy's fiance Dex, [played by newcomer Colin Egglesfield] in the wake of her 30th birthday. It's a moment of spontaneity, which brings into question the notions of loyalty and friendship.

"I'm a girl's girl," says Hudson emphatically when asked what kind of friend she is. "I've got a group of about six girlfriends that are really close and I feel like we can do anything when we come together."

Unlike the characters in the film (and rumour has it, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox) she's never found herself fighting with a friend over a man.

"I've heard about it though. I've had friends who have had real fallings-out over boys. What a horrible situation to find yourself in," she says.

"But the film does make you ask, 'If you really do love somebody, do all the rules go out the window?'"

Hudson's romance with Bellamy has been pretty whirlwind, as they only met at last year's Californian Coachella music festival. Asked what love means to her, she laughs: "That's a very loaded question... Respect, honesty, partnership - like real partnership, compromise, all the great stuff. I think that's the type of love that lasts."

Their baby will be Hudson's second child. She also has a seven-year-old son, Ryder, from her marriage to The Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson, which ended in 2006.

She admits having a child has changed her views on love.

"I think you understand what real unconditional love is," she says. "Relationships take work, where as loving your children doesn't. It becomes your big love and I've found relationships after having a child changed my focus on the kind of love I was looking for.

"You're not looking for the passionate, crazy love you want when you're younger."

Before Bellamy, Hudson's love life was a target of the tabloids.

Her relationships with cyclist Lance Armstrong, her You Me And Dupree co-star Owen Wilson and Madonna's former squeeze Alex Rodriguez weren't enough to quench the red-tops' unquenchable thirst for tittle-tattle, so Hudson believes they made it up instead.

"When you're single, you're with a different person every week, sometimes people you don't even know. That becomes the big joke," she says with a sigh.

"You learn not to pay attention to it because it becomes so ridiculous," she stresses.

Not that she allows the rumour-mill to affect her private life "because it's all lies", she exclaims.

Your real life, on a day-to-day basis, is so far removed from what is printed, discussed or talked about."

Pointing to a motley crew of photographers outside, she says: "Look at the paparazzi hanging out over there. You know all they want you to do is slip on a banana skin. Why is that?"

But she's willing to concede that it's all part of the Hollywood machine, or "the beast", as she refers to it.

And to a certain extent she considers she "got lucky" by bearing witness to her parents' fame.

On the other hand, she also faced accusations of nepotism and has talked about feeling the need to apologise for her success in the early days.

In 2001, however, she earned an Oscar nomination for her role as 'band aid' Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, which silenced critics. And even if she hadn't earned an Academy nod, you get the feeling Hudson would still be forging ahead.

"I never thought I'd be doing anything else," she says. "From singing, dancing and performing, to playing different characters and being a storyteller, it's just what I love to do.

"We make movies and it's an amazing circus to be involved in. The relationships you forge and the creative atmosphere we enjoy far supersedes everything that comes afterwards."

Extra time - Kate Hudson

:: Kate Garry Hudson was born on April 19, 1979, in Los Angeles.

:: Hudson's biological father is the musician Bill Hudson who she's never been close to.

:: Her style icons are Julie Christie and Anita Pallenberg in the Seventies, as well as Kate Moss who she describes as "spectacular".

:: Hudson loves shopping but the focus is usually for furniture for her home these days, as she loves interior design.

:: One of the reasons she was drawn to Something Borrowed was because of her character's downfall in the second novel, Something Blue, which she hopes will be turned into a movie.