Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson Interview, Fool's Gold

MoviesOnline sat down with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson at the Los Angeles press day for their new movie, “Fool’s Gold.” Directed by Andy Tennant (“Hitch”) from a screenplay he wrote with John Claflin & Daniel Zelman, the movie also stars Donald Sutherland, Ewen Bremner, Alexis Dziena, Kevin Hart, and Ray Winstone.

Ben “Finn” Finnegan (McConaughey) is an affable, modern-day treasure hunter who is obsessed with finding the legendary 18^th century Queen’s Dowry – 40 chests of priceless treasure that was lost at sea in 1715. In his quest, Finn has sunk everything he has, including his marriage to Tess (Kate Hudson). Matthew McConaughey most recently starred in "We Are Marshall," playing a football coach in the inspiring story of a small West Virginia town's struggle with devastating loss. In 2005, he starred in the action adventure comedy "Sahara," with Penelope Cruz and Steve Zahn. He earned a People's Choice Award for his role in the film, which opened at the top of the weekend box office and marked the first major motion picture produced by his production company, j.k. livin productions. McConaughey followed with a starring role opposite Al Pacino in the drama "Two for the Money" before closing the year as People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive."

His recent film credits include the popular romantic comedies "Failure to Launch," with Sarah Jessica Parker, and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," opposite Kate Hudson; the sci-fi adventure "Reign of Fire," with Christian Bale; the ensemble drama "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing"; the horror thriller "Frailty," written and directed by Bill Paxton; and Adam Shankman's hit romantic comedy "The Wedding Planner," opposite Jennifer Lopez. McConaughey's production company, j.k. livin, executive produced the feature documentary "Hands on a Hard Body," and is currently in development on numerous projects with various studios and production companies, including the upcoming comedy "Surfer Dude." McConaughey will next be seen in "Tropic Thunder," opposite Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, slated for release in summer 2008.

Kate Hudson won a Golden Globe Award and earned Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations for her work in Cameron Crowe's acclaimed 2000 film "Almost Famous," set in the world of 1970s rock 'n' roll. Hudson's performance as legendary "band aid" Penny Lane also captured the hearts of audiences and brought her honors from critics groups around the country, including the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Breakthrough Artist. In addition, she received a second SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Cast Performance, shared with an ensemble cast which included Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Patrick Fugit, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Lee and Anna Paquin.

Hudson next starred in Robert Altman's "Dr. T & the Women," once again joining an acclaimed ensemble cast, which included Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Laura Dern and Liv Tyler. She was then seen in the romantic comedy "About Adam," with Stuart Townsend and Frances O'Connor, and in Shekhar Kapur's epic period film "The Four Feathers," starring opposite Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley.

In 2003, Hudson starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in the hit romantic comedy "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," which earned over $200 million at the box office worldwide. That same year, she starred with Luke Wilson in "Alex & Emma" for director Rob Reiner, and in Merchant-Ivory's contemporary comedy "Le Divorce," with an all-star international ensemble including Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Leslie Caron and Stephen Fry. Hudson then took on the title role of Garry Marshall's comedy drama "Raising Helen," followed by the psychological thriller "Skeleton Key," opposite Peter Sarsgaard and Gena Rowlands. Most recently, she starred in the hit comedy "You, Me and Dupree," opposite Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon and Michael Douglas. She will next be seen opposite Dane Cook in "My Best Friend's Girl" and recently made her debut as a writer and director with the short film "Cutlass," part of the Glamour Reel Moments program.

MoviesOnline: How was it working together again? Were you a little cautious about doing it?

KATE HUDSON: We had been. We had gotten quite a few opportunities to do it before and…

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: But nothing that we…

KATE HUDSON: Nothing.

KATE HUDSON: (referring to the sarong he’s wearing) That’s right up your alley. (Laughs.)

MoviesOnline: I’ve never seen anyone wear it like that before. It’s interesting.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: On the cutting edge of fashion. Right here. (Laughs.)

KATE HUDSON: Anyway, the things that kind of came, were sort of like, ‘Ahhh.’ We both sort of agreed….

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: That would be a repeat of ‘How to Lose a Guy’ and [we] don’t want to do that and then…

KATE HUDSON: …this came. And it just felt like it was – the relationship felt right, because it was kind of an extension of what worked with ‘How To Lose a Guy’ but at the same time it was completely different – two totally different characters.

ATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: It sounded like a lot of fun.

KATE HUDSON: Yeah, and we did. We had a blast.

MoviesOnline: Do you think it’s good for the audience too to see people together on screen that they have seen before?

KATE HUDSON: I don’t know.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: I think if it works, as it did in ‘How to Lose a Guy,’ I mean, in the same way we were looking for, anticipating finding the right thing, because we wanted to get together again. I think there are definitely people out there that want to see us get back together again. I don’t know how they are going to do it, but [they] want to see them together again in the same way as we wanted to. It was just finding the right thing. How many years was it between..?

KATE HUDSON: Five?

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Five years? Yeah. I hope it’s a good thing. Hopefully that’s the reason why people will want to go see it on the 8^th.

KATE HUDSON: It would be nice to work together again. We have fun working together.

MoviesOnline: Glamour magazine said, ‘We are the perfect pain in each other’s asses.’

KATE HUDSON: He said that!

MoviesOnline: Can you elaborate on that?

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: That’s a fact. That’s a fact. Yeah. She can be a real pain in the ass. (Laughs.)

KATE HUDSON: I’m not that bad.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: No! Just sometimes.

KATE HUDSON: I think it’s just a personal thing. Our relationship. We can drive each other crazy. But, what I was saying in the other room, is that there is like a real honest love for each other that is just because we love each other.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: A real honest love and respect. But it’s really easy when you get on screen when it’s a scene about, ‘Give me a break.’ You don’t’ have to go mining for that. (Laughs.)

KATE HUDSON: It’s also one of those things where it is like when you start knowing somebody so well that you love them like my brothers or even in relationships. The things that drive you crazy -- you love even the things that drive you crazy about them.

MoviesOnline: How did you work on that fabulous tan and how long did it last after filming?

KATE HUDSON: We followed summer for a year. Yeah, a year of summer for us. I was really tan which is why I am pale right now, which is great!

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: We went summer in Malibu. Then we go to Australia for six months. And then we came straight back to another summer.

KATE HUDSON: I actually came back and went right to New York, because I live half the time in New York and I was like, ‘Give me some…I just want to wear a scarf. I want to cover my body and wear cold [winter clothes], you know? Like Matthew, I get – Chris used to say that I’d sit and he’d watch me get tan over lunch. Because I could just sit there, because I’m Italian and so, I have that olive [complexion]. Actually, you’re a little redder.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: I don’t know where it comes from.

KATE HUDSON: Yeah, so, I could put on 40 sun block and we’d be loading on the sun block just getting…

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Torched.

KATE HUDSON: Oh yeah, it was crazy. And it lasted for a whole year.

MoviesOnline: How hard was all the underwater stuff you had to do?

KATE HUDSON: Yeah, I had a lot of – we had a lot of – we had to know our emergency procedures. Basically, the last month of shooting in the tank was all emergency procedures, you know? But they became so second nature through doing them so much, that it became easy. The only thing is, when you are underwater, you really have to be sharp. There is no laziness when you are working in water.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: You don’t really fool around. Behind the camera down there, it’s almost as large of a crew as you have on land. She has her girl who is a great diver who is behind the camera who has an extra tank in case the signal comes up. And I’ve got my guy and everyone has their person.

KATE HUDSON: I was doing a lot of free diving

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: And then you get in an action sequence and the bubbles are going up around you and you can’t see. And you don’t have any visuals.

KATE HUDSON: You don’t have your air.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: And you don’t know if you are up or down or if you’ve gotten inverted or what.

KATE HUDSON: It looks a lot easier…

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: You learn to hold your breath a little longer than you probably thought you could.

KATE HUDSON: I got 45 seconds which was pretty good, but I had to do that whole blow hole sequence and the thing is that they cut it and it looks like we weren’t doing it all in one take, but we were doing all that stuff in one take where I had to wrap myself around the cannon and hold myself against the cannon and the air, the bubbles would come – they actually had this mechanism in the water that created the wave. That was actually the scariest part for me, because I could not see. I couldn’t see anything and I was holding on, so I was a little nervous. It was definitely not, you know, you had to trust that the people that were there could see you go like this. [demonstrates hand signal for air] It was really fun though.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Lot of buddy breathing.

KATE HUDSON: Lot of buddy breathing.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Do you know what that is?

MoviesOnline: No.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Somebody with a tank on will go down and slowly submerge and get to the bottom and get their breath and then pull out and give you a share. Share the air. That also helps comfort in that you know that if you are in trouble, someone’s got it. There is a hand signal. Someone comes with the air.

KATE HUDSON: Do you remember my hand signal when I saw the [manatee]? When I was getting certified? (Laughs.)

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: I remember this one. Thumbs up.

KATE HUDSON: I was so scared. I was in the ocean. Because, I was getting certified and behind me was a manatee. And it’s like the size of this table.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: It’s like the size of a cow.

KATE HUDSON: And I saw it and I was like [sound of screaming underwater] and I had to take my mask off. And I’m in the ocean and there is this like, I didn’t know really what it was. It was murky. It looked like a whale. (Laughs.) And then even when I told my diving instructor Michelle, she was going, ‘Calm down, calm down.’ And then she turns around and she kind of went back and was like, ‘Whoa.’ And then we went up and I think the exact words out of my mouth were: ‘What the fuck was that?’ (Laughs.) And then of course everyone was just so excited to see a manatee.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: It turned out to be [something good]. That’s probably why Michelle reacted like that because you don’t see those. They’re rare and we were very lucky because we happened to be in the water.

MoviesOnline: At the risk of embarrassing your co-star, what kind of Daddy do you think Matthew will make?

KATE HUDSON: Oh, there is nothing embarrassing about that. I think he will be an incredible dad. There is something that people don’t -- I think that like everything, you know, because people see Matthew out always doing something whether it be out dancing at a bar or beaching around or taking a hike with some crazy bandana on – that was a good one (Laughs.). I think that, like anything, people take their image and what they want somebody else to be and then people just run with it. And when you really know the person and really love the person, you recognize that that person is nothing like that. You know what I mean? It’s not real. It’s just not. And Matthew happens to be one of the most loving and loyal people I know. And his family is important to him. And I think it’s one thing that we connect on. He’s great with kids and I think he’ll be a very responsible and absolute blast of a dad.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: And make no doubt about it, my kid will dance. He will be on the beach and he will be taking wild hikes. (Laughs.)

KATE HUDSON: Yeah, right. This is what I get to teach Matthew which is you think that now and then you have your child and you realize they are nothing like you expect them to be.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: He may not dance like I do.

KATE HUDSON: Just wait. Ryder doesn’t sing. He doesn’t like to sing. And you’d think, I sing, Chris sings, we’re singing, my mother sings, his grandfather, Stan, Nancy, everybody in the family sings. Ryder does not want to sing. He doesn’t want anybody to hear him sing. We’ve caught him a couple of times alone, but you realize that they really are who they are. I mean, you could literally give birth to a conservative Republican who is like a brainiac with math and you could go ‘I don’t know where he came from.’ (Laughs.)

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: He or she is still gonna have a little rhythm.

MoviesOnline: Matt, do you anticipate making any changes to your lifestyle?

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: You know my instincts will take over when the young one greets the world. One thing I’ve heard that’s consistent and I’ve got a lot of great moms and dads around me from my own to elders to peers of mine and one thing that is consistent that I’ve heard is that all the grand plans you want to make, you might as well throw them out buddy, because it doesn’t happen like that. So, nothing in particular. No, I wouldn’t dare do that right now.

MoviesOnline: What are you most looking forward to about being a dad?

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Ummm. Everyday.

KATE HUDSON: No sleep.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: I’ll find out about that. The thing that I’ve always dreamed about and looked forward to is this – I mean, we all have projects. You know, we go make movies, we have goals, we achieve and we build something up – we are architects of things. Well, the greatest architect that I can be and the one I have always looked forward to is being the architect of raising a child of mine. And that’s gonna be brand new, every day, and it’s never going to repeat itself and to bring in a healthy child and to raise him the right way and to a certain point and then let him go, and then to still see him [from] afar? He’ll come back and we’ll get back together and I’ll see how they grow into a young man or young woman and hopefully an old man or old woman. That’s the greatest miracle in the world.

KATE HUDSON: It’s also one of those things where like for everybody you have kids and you just do the best you can and everybody goes through difficulties with parenting. You go through the joys of it, they go through the difficulties of it and it’s the greatest journey of all, which is such a cliché, but it is. And then at the same time, everybody raises their kids differently. Everybody has their own ideas of what is right and what is wrong. And at the end of the day, you just hope that they’re happy. And when you see your kids happy, that’s the moment when you realize, ‘Ah! I am so…there is nothing else on the planet I would rather be doing than watch my child be this happy at this moment.’ That’s the great and true reward for everything. And then when you see them when they’re not happy, which you do, it’s the most devastating. You just want to take it away. It becomes all-consuming and there are no answers. There is nothing. Nobody can tell you to do things a way that you don’t want to do them. Nobody can say really what’s right or what’s wrong. It’s like some people don’t feed their children meat. Some people do. It’s a crazy world.

MoviesOnline: How are you enjoying single life right now?

KATE HUDSON: I like it. I like it. I mean, my single life is me, Ryder and Chris. (Laughs.) It doesn’t change. Over Christmas, Chris and I were in Aspen and we were like, ‘Should we go to like a bar?’ (Laughs.) We don’t ummm…but really my main focus is Ryder and staying with Chris and I just feel like personally I’m in a really nice place because I’m so happy being alone with our son. And Chris is too. It’s kind of a really nice place to be in. I’m not really interested in a relationship right now. I’m interested in my son.

MoviesOnline: Is anything going on with JK Living? Is there anything you’re working on? Are you still working with the band in Austin?

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Yeah, I’ll touch on those with J.K. Living. First thing we did over the past two years was we finally got a real Matthew McConaughey website, .com, and I’m really proud of that because the only way you can share information is through your art. So, getting online into that world is something I’m excited about. So, we got that going which took two years to do. I’m real proud of that site. It’s real personal. It’s finally my official one. Two, we just finished production on ‘Surfer Dude,’ which is a J.K. Living production and we’ve been developing that for seven years and we’ve finished shooting and are in post production now and that’s the first really home grown from the beginning through the end film that we’ve done…

KATE HUDSON: I’m excited about that because Robb, the director, is really wonderful.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: The third thing is we just finished producing my first music album, Mishka. That’s the guy from Austin and that album will be out sometime in February and he’s on tour right now with Xavier Rudd, who is doing the score for ‘Surfer Dude,’ and they are hitting Canada here in the next couple of days. So far, so good. It’s really abuzz.

MoviesOnline: Not to end on a down note, but can you talk about the tragedy we hit this past week?

KATE HUDSON: Everybody is still processing it. It’s hard to talk about. It’s very sad. Heath is loved and I’m just thinking about his family right now.

MoviesOnline: Do you have a favorite love song for Valentine’s Day?

KATE HUDSON: Such a good question.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: ‘Coastline Journey’ by Mishka (the reggae band he mentioned before).

“Fool’s Gold” opens in theaters on February 8^th.