[IMG:L]They’re as much fun to talk to as they are to look at.
After completing Fool’s Gold, their second film together, the conversation between Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey is exactly as breezy and laid-back and you’d expect it, and their real-life chemistry is more in line with a brother and sister who like to tease each other than the squabbling-but-sizzling lovers they play on screen. Hollywood.com chatted up the unedited stars, who talked about the trickiness of re-teaming, year-long tanning, Matthew’s impending daddyhood and one thing he insists the new baby must do.
Hollywood.com: After the success of How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days, how eager were you both to re-team on another project?
Kate Hudson: We had been, but we’d gotten quite a few opportunities to do it before.
Matthew McConaughey: But nothing really that we said yes to.
KH: The things that kind of came we were both like, ‘Eh.’ We both agreed on that.
MM: We were like, “For so-and-so that would be a repeat. Don’t want to do that, don’t want to do that.” Then this came.
KH: Then this came and it just kind of felt like the relationship felt right and it was kind of an extension of what worked with How To Lose a Guy, but at the same time it’s completely different with two totally different characters.
MM: It sounded like a lot of fun.
KH: And we did have fun. We had a blast.
MM: I think that if it works, which it did in How To Lose A Guy, in the same way that we were looking for and anticipating finding the right thing because we wanted to get together again–I think that the audience might want to see McConaughey and Hudson get back together again. “I don’t know if they’re going to do it, but I want to see them together again.” That’s just the same way that we wanted to [feel].
[IMG:R]HW: Matthew, you’ve said about your real-life relationship with Kate: “We are the perfect pain in each other’s asses.”
MM: That’s a fact, yeah. She can be a real pain in the ass!
KH: I’m not that bad. I think that it’s just a personal thing. On a relationship we can drive each other crazy, but what I was saying earlier is that there’s like real, honest love for each other that’s just because we love each other.
MM: Yeah. There’s a real honest love and respect that’s really easy to get onscreen when it’s a scene about “Give me a break.” You don’t have go mining for that [laughs].
KH: It’s also one of those things that when you start knowing somebody so well and you love them, like my brothers or even in relationships, you love the things that drive you crazy about them.
HW: The way you shot this film, you ended up being nice and tan for nearly a year.
KH: We followed summer for a year. It was a year of summer for us. I was really tan, which is why I’m so pale right now. I’m taking a break.
MM: We went and had a summer in Malibu. Then we went to Australia for six months and had summer there and came back straight to another summer.
KH: I actually came back and went straight to New York because I live half the time in New York. I was like “Give me something. I just want a scarf. I want to cover my body and wear cold clothes.” Chris [Robinson] used to say that I’d sit and he’d watch me get tan over lunch. I could just sit there because I’m Italian and I have that olive [tone]. I could put on 40 sunblock and we’d be loading up on the sunblock and getting just–
MM: Torched.
[IMG:L]HW: Kate, what kind of daddy do you think Matthew‘s going to make?
KH: I think he will be an incredible dad. I think that because people see Matthew always out doing something whether that’s out dancing in a bar or being on the beach or taking a hike with some crazy bandana on, I think that like anything they take their image and what they want somebody else to be and then they just run with that. When you really know the person though and you really love the person you recognize that that person is nothing like what people want. It’s not real. It’s just not. Matthew happens to be one of the most loving and loyal people I know and his family is important to him, and I that’s one thing that I believe we connect on. He’s great with kids and I think he’ll be a very responsible and absolute blast of a dad.
MM: Make no doubt about it. My kid will dance. He will be on the beach and he will be taking hikes with a wild bandana on.
KH: This is what I get to teach Matthew, though. You think that now, and then you have your child and you realize that they’re nothing like what you expect them to be.
MM: He might not dance like I do.
KH: Just wait. [My son] Ryder doesn’t sing. He doesn’t like to sing. You think, “Well, I sing, Chris sings, we’re singing, my mother sings. his grandfather –Everybody in the family sings.” Ryder does NOT want to sing. He doesn’t want anyone to hear him sing. We’ve caught him a couple of times alone, but you realize that they really are who they are, and you could literally give birth to a conservative Republican who is like a brainiac with math and then go “I don’t know where you came from.”
MM: Regardless, he or she is still going to have a little rhythm.
HW: Matthew, do you anticipate making any changes to your lifestyle?
MM: My instincts will take over when the young one greets the world, but one thing I’ve heard that’s consistent–I’ve got a lot of great moms and dads around me from my own elders to peers of mine–is that all the grand plans that you want to make, take them and throw them out. So, nothing in particular. I wouldn’t dare to be doing that right now.
[IMG:R]HW: What are you most looking forward to about being a dad?
MM: Every day.
KH: No sleep.
MM: I’ll find out about that, but honestly the thing I’ve always dreamed about this is … that we all have projects. We have goals that we achieve and we build something up. We’re architects of things. Well, the greatest architect that I can be and that I’ve always looked the most forward to is being the architect of raising a child of mine. That’s going to be brand new every day and it’s never going to repeat itself. To bring in a healthy child and to raise them the right [way] to a certain point and then let them go and see them from afar and they’ll come back and you get back together and you’ll see how they’re growing into a young man or a young woman and hopefully an old man or an old woman. That’s the greatest miracle in the world.
KH: When you have kids you just do the best that you can and everybody goes through difficulties with parenting. They go through the joys of it. They go through the difficulties of it. It’s the greatest journey of all, which is such a cliché, but it IS. And at the same time everybody raises their kids differently. Everyone has their own ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. At the end of the day, you just hope that they’re happy and when you see your kids happy–those are the moments when you realize that there’s nothing else on the planet that you’d rather be doing than watching your child be that happy at that moment. That’s the greatest reward, I think, for everything. Then when you see them when they’re not happy, which you do, it’s also the most devastating and you just want to take it away. It becomes all-consuming and there are no answers. Nobody can tell you to do things the way that you want to do them. No one can say what’s right or what’s wrong.
[IMG:L]HW: Kate, how are you enjoying single life right now?
KH: I like it. I like it. My single life is me, Ryder and Chris [laughs]. It doesn’t change. Chris and I were in Aspen over Christmas and we were like, “Should we go to a bar?” But really my main focus is Ryder, and the same with Chris. I just feel like personally I’m in a really nice place because I’m so happy being alone with our son. 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.
