Matthew and Kate are "Foolish"

The cute-together non-couple of Kate Hudson and hunky Matthew McConaughey claim they are platonic friends...without benefits but they have great chemistry. Go figure. Kate and Matt made a great couple in the romantic hit How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and decided to team up again. They are co-starring in the romantic comedy adventure Fool's Gold... playing an estranged couple on a treasure hunt. Matthew's about to become a dad via his model girlfriend Camila Alves and he's stoked! Kate is divorced from her rocker hubby Chris Robinson, with whom she is still friendly, and is concentrating on son Ryder. The two shared with us their feelings and opinions about child rearing. Complicated!

We met with the funny, upbeat duo recently at a beach hotel in Santa Monica, Ca. and could see what everyone means about their chemistry. At one point Kate picked lint off Matthew's shoulder and briefly put her hand on his knee. They finish each other's sentences. The two were color-coordinated; Kate in jeans and gray and black patterned blouse with gray jacket. Some really cute beaded black and clear crystal bracelets finished the look. Now and then during the interview, Kate chewed on her red nail polish. Matthew, his hair shorter and more brown-ish than usual, wore a long-sleeved gray tee over black pants and brown boots. Of course, there was an on-site addition to his wardrobe. The duo had been given gift bags by a reporter and both were checking them out. Like a little kid at Christmas, Matt just had to open his right then and we were off and running....

Matthew: [opening his gift bag] I got a blue ribbon! Wow, Sarongs? So right [he laughs].

Matthew then wraps the colorful sarong around his waist over his pants. It oddly suits him.

Kate: Wow. That's awesome!

TeenHollywood: Very cute! Can I ask about you two working together again? Were you a little cautious about doing it?

Kate: We had been. We had gotten quite a few opportunities to do it before and...

Matthew: But nothing that we...

Kate: Nothing.

Kate: [checking out the hunk in the sarong] That's right up your alley! [we all laugh]. I've never seen anyone wear it like that before. It's interesting.

Matthew: On the cutting edge of fashion. Right here! [laughs]

Kate: Anyway, the things [scripts] that came, we were sort of like, 'Eh.' We both agreed....

Matthew: [We'd say] 'That sounds like it would be a repeat of 'How to Lose a Guy' and we don't want to do that and then...

Kate: This came. And 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.

Matthew: It sounded like a lot of fun.

TeenHollywood: Do you think audiences were waiting to see you two back together on screen again?

Kate: I dunno.

Matthew: I think if it works, which it did in 'How to Lose a Guy'. I think there are definitely people out there that want to see us get back together again in the same way we were wanting to. It was just finding the right thing. How many years was it between..?

Kate: Five?

Matthew: 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 8th.

TeenHollywood: In a Glamour magazine article one of you said, 'We are the perfect pain in each other's asses.' Can you elaborate on that?

Kate: [laughs] He said that!

Matthew: That's a fact. That's a fact. Yeah. She can be a real pain in the ass [he laughs].

Kate: I'm not that bad.

Matthew: No! Just sometimes.

Kate: I think it's just a personal thing. Our relationship. We can drive each other crazy. But, there is like a real honest love for each other.

Matthew: A real honest love and respect. But it's really easy when you get on screen when it's an [argument] scene about, 'give me a break.' You don't have to go mining for that. [laughs]

Kate: It's also one of those things where you start knowing someone so well that you love them... like my brothers or even in relationships. You love even the things that drive you crazy about [the person].

TeenHollywood: You are both really tan and tropical in the film. How did you work on that fabulous tan and how long did it last after filming?

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

Kate: I actually came back and went straight to New York and I was like, 'I just want to wear a scarf. I want to cover my body and wear cold stuff' y'know? Chris used to say that I'd sit and he'd watch me get tan over lunch. Because I could just sit there. I'm Italian and so I have that olive complexion. Actually [looking at Matthew] you're a little redder.

Matthew: I don't know where it comes from.

Kate: Yeah, I could put on 40 sun block and we're just getting...

Matthew: Torched.

TeenHollywood: How hard was all the underwater stuff you had to do in the film? Some of it looks kind of scary.

Kate: Yeah. We had to know our emergency procedures. Basically, the last month of shooting in the tank was all emergency procedures 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 at all.

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

Kate: I was doing a lot of free diving

Matthew: And then you get in an action sequence and the bubbles are going up around you and you can't see. You don't know if you are up or down or if you've gotten inverted or what. You learn to hold your breath a little longer than you thought you could.

Kate: [Proudly] I got 45 seconds which was pretty good, but I had to do that whole blow hole sequence. They cut it together and it looks like we weren't doing it all in one take, but we were. I had to wrap myself around the cannon and the bubbles would come at me. They actually had this mechanism in the water that created the wave. That was actually the scariest moment, because I couldn't see anything and I was holding on, so I was a little nervous. You just had to trust that the people that were there could see you go like this [she crosses her hands in front of her and gives a frantic thumbs up signal for 'up!']. Really fun though.

Matthew: Lot of buddy breathing. Somebody with a tank on will go down and slowly submerge and get to the bottom and pull out [the respirator], give you a share, pull out, give you a share. Share the air. That also helps comfort you. You know, that if you are in trouble, someone's got it. There is a hand signal. Someone comes with the air.

Kate: Do you remember my hand signal when I saw the [manatee]? When I was getting certified? [laughs]

Matthew: I remember this one [a desperate Thumbs up].

Kate: [laughing] I was so scared. I was in the ocean because I was getting certified and behind me was a manatee.

Matthew: It's like the size of a cow, a sea cow.

Kate: And I saw it and I was like [indicates panic]. I didn't know really what it was. It was murky. It looked like a whale [laughs]. And then when I told my diving instructor Michelle she was like, 'Calm down, calm down.' And then she kind of turned back [and saw it] and was like, 'Whoa!' And then we went up. And I think the exact words out of my mouth were: 'What the f**k was that?' [laughter] And then of course everyone was just so excited to see a manatee.

Matthew: I turned out to be [something good]. Because you don't see those. There are very few in the water.

TeenHollywood: Kate, risking embarrassing your co-star, what kind of daddy do you think Matthew will make?

Kate: Oh, there is nothing embarrassing about that. I think he will be an incredible dad. There is something that people don't [know]. Because people see Matthew out dancing at a bar or beachin' around or taking a hike with some crazy bandana on - that was a good one [Laughs]. I think people take their image of what they want someone else to be and then people just run with it. And, when you really know and love the person, you recognize that the person is nothing like that. It's not real. It's just not. And Matthew just happens to be one of the most loving and loyal people I know. And his family is important to him. I think it's one thing that I we connect on. He's great with kids and I think he'll be a very responsible and absolute blast of a dad.

Matthew: [who has been smiling all through this] 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: Yeah, this is what I get to teach Matthew. You think that now. And then you have your child and you realize they are nothing like you expect them to be!

Matthew: Well, he may not dance like I do.

Kate: 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, everybody in the family sings'. Ryder doesn't want to sing. He doesn't want everyone to hear him sing. We've caught him a couple of times alone, but you realize that they really are who they are. You could literally give birth to a conservative Republican who is like a brainiac in math and you could go 'I don't know where you came from.' [laughs all around].

Matthew: [pouting] He or she is still gonna have a little rhythm.

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

Matthew: My instincts will take over when the young one greets the world. One thing I've heard that's consistent, and I have a lot of great mom and dads around me from my own to elders to peers of mine, and one thing 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. I wouldn't dare do that now.

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

Kate: No sleep.

Matthew: I'll find out about that. The thing I've always dreamed about and looked forward to is...we go make movies, we have goals, we achieve them and we build something up; we are architects of things. Well, the greatest architect I can be, the one I have always looked the most 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. [I want to] bring in a healthy child and to raise him the right way to a certain point and then let him go, and then to still see him afar. He'll come back and get back together and you'll see how they grow into a young man or young woman. Hopefully, an old man or old woman, that's the greatest miracle in the world.

Kate: It's also one of those things where you have kids and you 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, everyone raises their kids differently. Everyone has their own ideas of what is right and what is wrong. At the end of the day, you just hope they are happy. And when you see your kids happy, that's the moment when you realize, 'Ah! 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 greatest reward for everything. When you see them when they are not happy, it's the most devastating. You just want to take it away. It becomes all-consuming and there are no answers. No right or wrong. It's like some people don't feed their children meat. Some people do. Crazy world.

TeenHollywood: Kate, how are you enjoying single life right now?

Kate: I like it! [laughter] I like it! I mean, my single life is me, Ryder and Chris [she laughs]. It doesn't change. Chris and I, over Christmas, we were like in Aspen and we were like, 'Should we go to like a bar?' [we all laugh] But really my main focus is Ryder. I feel like just 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.

TeenHollywood: Matthew anything going on with your production company j.k. Livin'? Anything you're working on? Still working with the band?

Matthew: Yeah, with j.k.[Just Keep] Livin', we finally got a real Matthew McConaughey website and I'm really proud of that. Getting online into that world is something I'm excited about. I'm real proud of that site. It's real personal. It's finally my official one. We just finished production on Surfer Dude, a j.k. Livin' production and we've been developing that for seven years and are in post production now and that's the first really home grown film from the beginning through the end that we've done. The third thing is we just finished producing my first music album, Mishka. That's the guy from Austin that we had down there in Austin City Limits. 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 and here in the next couple of days. So far, so good. It's really a buzz.

TeenHollywood: Matthew, what's with you and these tropical movies; Tropic Thunder, Surfer Dude, now Fool's Gold. Do you just love the beach that much?

Matthew: I just happened to be there. Naw, I just feel a great connection to nature in all these places for sure.

TeenHollywood: Not to end on a down note, but can you talk about the tragedy with Heath? Kate, you worked with him on The Four Feathers.

Kate: Everybody is still processing it. It's hard to talk about. It's very sad.

Matthew: It is.

Kate: He is loved and I'm just thinking about his family right now.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.