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Garner and McConaughey Explore Old Relationships in ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’

April 28, 2009

By Gayl Murphy

HOLLYWOOD, CA (RPRN/HT) 4/28/2009 — “I personally never had a playbook. I thought it was more fun and a little less mechanical to play the guy of someone who didn’t have like a ‘here’s the playbook for how to get women,” said Mathew McConaughey, known for his boyish charm and rugged good looks to Hollywood Today. “I played him more like he was just a guy who loved a whole bunch of women.”
New Line Cinema’s rom-com “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” stars Matthew McConaughey as a freedom-loving celebrity photographer confronted by ex-girlfriend karma on the eve of his brother’s wedding. Jennifer Garner plays his childhood best friend and Michael Douglas plays the ghost of his late Uncle Wayne, a hard-partying, legendary ladies man.



McConaughey is attached to Brazilian model Camila Alves who recently replaced Jaclyn Smith as the host of Bravo’s hit reality show, “Shear Genius,” the two recently had their first child, a baby boy named Levi. Wearing fatherhood well, he says that the threesome have left the country five times already, among other travels. “We’ve gone 7300 miles on a road trip in the AirStream for 42 days.”

Garner, celebrating her 37th birthday, told Hollywood Today that the birth of her second daughter, Seraphina, in January helped to make this an “incredible year,” adding that her life is “pretty balanced.” McConaughey brought Garner cupcakes for her special day.

When asked if she’s ever done anything she regrets, Garner pontificates that while she doesn’t think she ever “did anything…intentional or cruel,” she “was a dodo. You know, who isn’t when you’re 17 or 22 or…” She attributes these stumbling blocks as part of “growing up and making mistakes and learning the basic things.”

While the basic things are forgivable, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” shot in Boston, gives those with heftier dating sins a chance to feel the weightier consequences of their actions.

Proving the tagline, “You can’t always run from your past” folklore has it that Garner’s husband Ben Affleck was originally supposed to play McConaughey’s character back in 2003, but the failure of Gigli caused New Line to back out one month prior to shooting.

Director Mark Waters, also responsible for “Mean Girls” and “Just Like Heaven,” has his lead character experience life-changing revelations once he is a ghost.
McConaughey explains, “To see that getting up and leaving in the middle of the night was whoa! I didn’t know that she felt like that! To go back and relive and see…how your actions affected somebody else that you cared about. That’s, I think, where the real romance sort of literally came out.”

Texas-natives Garner and McConaughey enjoyed each other’s similar work ethic and sense of humor while shooting. Garner flatters, “he’s a Texan in the best sense of the word.” McConaughey observed that Garner was, “very elegant…and funny.” Adding, “There is a simplicity about her in the way she works that I really appreciate…she doesn’t add drama anywhere it isn’t needed.”

With a plot not too far from her romp “13 Going on 30,” where childhood sweethearts get a second chance at the one that got away, in “Ghosts” Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey rifle through issues of monogamy and forgiveness to find common ground and maybe even love.

In fact, Christa B. Allen, who plays teenage Jenny, the younger version of Jennifer Garner’s character in the movie, also starred in “13 Going on 30,” as the teenage version of Garner.

Regarding Connor Mead, who Garner jokes is aligned with the real McConaughey, the blonde hunk said, “I liked that, that he wasn’t sort of a programmed womanizer.” Placating to Mr. Big’s everywhere, he adds, “You could call him a playboy.”
The recent father continues, “Connor learned from his Uncle Wayne the Michael Douglas character, right? Sort of these ways of seeing relationships. And he saw some moves that actually worked.”

Because some closets are filled with more bones than others, certain men will sympathize with Connor Mead — who has a lot to reckon with before his brother’s wedding day.

And to all those women out there wondering how to get a guy like Connor Mead to settle in for the long haul, McConaughey offers this advice, “Say keep playing, just with me.”
Ghost of Girlfriends Past opens in U.S. theaters are May 1st, 2009 against “X-Men: Wolverine.”

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Release Date: May 1, 2009 (wide)
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sexual content throughout, some language and a drug reference
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Studio: New Line Cinema

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