(Credits: Far Out / Apple TV+)
Sat 14 March 2026 20:15, UK
While he’s often mentioned in the same breath as Jeff Bridges because they’re two veteran actors who were born into the business, started off young, and have maintained phenomenal heads of hair into their 70s, Kurt Russell has never come across as being particularly musically inclined.
Whereas Bridges has been open in calling music his first love and has continued pursuing it alongside his on-camera exploits, releasing several albums and touring with his band, The Abiders, Russell’s closest connection to the music industry is tangential at best and tied to one of its ultimate icons.
He made his big-screen debut in 1963 by kicking Elvis Presley in the shins in It Happened at the World’s Fair, and then he played ‘The King’ in the made-for-TV movie that united him with John Carpenter for the first time, reprising the role again with an uncredited cameo in Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump.
Russell has belted out a few tunes in movies over the years, most recently when he was playing Santa Claus, of all people, in Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles, and he did accidentally destroy a vintage guitar when making Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, but he’s never felt the need to try and test his chops in the recording booth.
That’s probably because he knows he wouldn’t be any good at it, with Carpenter sharing that his vocal performances in Elvis were overdubbed by Ronnie McDowell because, “He can’t sing; he can’t do anything.” He looked the part at least, which was the bare minimum to be expected.
There are musical talents in his family, though, with Kate Hudson belting out a few tunes in Rob Marshall’s Nine, Sia’s Music, and Craig Brewer’s Song Song Blue, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actress’. She also released her debut album, Glorious, in 2024, and dished the dirt on Russell’s preferences.
That said, she did reveal that “there wasn’t a lot of music in the house” when he was around, and if it wasn’t classical, it was beardy as fuck. “Kurt loves a little rock music,” Hudson said. “He loves ZZ Top.” Of all the classic rock bands you’d expect Kurt Russell to love, you’d have to admit that ZZ Top would be pretty high up on the list.
He just looks like someone who’d enjoy their work, and he once tried to tie them to his work, even if it fell on deaf ears when he starred in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. “If I was to throw one in there from the right time period, I can envision Star-Lord coming down the stairs to ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ by ZZ Top,” he pitched. “Yeah, I think that’d work.”
The song didn’t end up on the soundtrack of the comic book blockbuster, but he was probably listening to it in his trailer anyway, lamenting that he didn’t manage to get his favourite rock band into one of his movies.