Matthew McConaughey recalls instant connection with Kate Hudson during ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ audition
Matthew McConaughey is looking back at one of his most iconic movies.
During an interview with People, the actor reminisced about many of his most well known films, including "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." While speaking about the movie, McConaughey shared what it was like to work with his costar Kate Hudson on the film.
"Those casting, meeting couches, especially for rom-coms are — you want to see the chemistry between the two leads. You want to see how the jive is," he explained. "We're not reading through the script, we're not reading lines."
The two first met on the Paramount lot, with McConaughey admitting "immediately we were comfortable with each other."
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"We challenged each other, we busted each other's chops, and we laughed a lot," he said. "And there was a bit of rock and roll exchange that [we thought], 'Oh, this could be some heavyweight fun.' And I think that's why I was cast and that's why, to whatever extent, it worked."
In the movie, McConaughey plays Benjamin Barry, who heavily pursues Hudson's character, Andie Anderson, in order to win a bet he made with his friends that he can get a girl to fall in love with him in 10 days. On the other hand, Hudson's character is a journalist who is writing an article about how to lose a guy in 10 days, and she is trying everything she can to get Benjamin to break up with her.
The movie became a huge success, finding its way onto many lists of must-watch romantic comedies. It was such a success, Hudson and McConaughey would go on to star in a second romantic comedy together, "Fool's Gold," in 2008.
Both McConaughey and Hudson look back on their time making both movies fondly, except for one scene at the end of "Fool's Gold," with Hudson telling Gwyneth Paltrow on "The goop Podcast" in October 2020 that McConaughey "just had snot all over his face" when filming the kissing scene at the end of the movie.
"Well, there’s a lot of salt water and snot and all kinds of stuff that are in between those, and so you’re doing that, and you’re like, ‘OK, I think that worked, but did that look any good?’" McConaughey told Yahoo in November 2020 about why he was covered in snot. "[They’re] like, no, we better do another take. So there were always, like, elements that made it harder… We never got to have our nice romantic kiss, yeah."
Later in his interview with People, McConaughey spoke about working with Jennifer Lopez in the 2001 romantic comedy, "The Wedding Planner."
In the movie, the actor played Steve Edison, who meets Lopez's character after he saved her life, after which she begins to fall for him. Her hopes are crushed, however, when she realizes he and his fianceé are her clients, and she has been hired to plan their wedding.
"Look, I don't know what a five-threat is, but it's more than a four-threat, a quad-threat… Whatever a five-threat is is what she is," McConaughey said. "I've never seen someone be able to choreograph something so cleanly and clearly and actually hit the coordination of a scene."
"That woman's a worker and knows what she wants to do, and she does what she needs to do to pull [it] off," he added later. "I really appreciate that."