Look out for more coverage of
Fool’s Gold in our magazines

THE MOVIE: Fool’s Gold

THE STARS:
Matthew McConaughey • Kate Hudson • Donald Sutherland • Alexis Dziena
DIRECTOR: Andy Tennant

THE CONCEPT:
Modern-day treasure hunter Ben ‘Finn’ Finnegan (McConaughey) is so obsessed with finding the legendary 18th Century Queen’s Dowry, that it has sunk his marriage to Tess (Hudson). She has taken a job aboard a mega-yacht owned by billionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Sutherland). When Finn finds a vital clue to the treasure, he maneuvers his way onto Honeycutt’s yacht to convince him and his celebutante daughter, Gemma (Dziena), to join him in finding the treasure, by funding the search.

U.S. RELEASE: February 8 2008, Nationwide
• Rated: PG-13

THE COMMENTS:

KATE HUDSON:
“Matthew and I had gotten quite a few opportunities to [work together again] but we both agreed...“

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY:
“…That it would be a repeat of How to Lose a Guy, and we didn’t want to do that.”

HUDSON:
“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.”

McCONAUGHEY:
“We were anticipating finding the right thing, knowing we wanted to get together again. I think there are definitely people out there that want to see us get back together again.”

DONALD SUTHERLAND:
“My character Nigel has a lot of time on his hands, more time than he’d ever had before, and he was never able to get the reality of his life in harmony, in sync. That was epitomized in his relationship with his daughter and her mother. I loved my character’s imagination. Just his eagerness to try and find a relationship with his daughter, and to have this opportunity to go on a treasure hunt and to grab at it, to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to pay this much money, and maybe my daughter and I will [get back together], what an adventure.’”

ALEXIS DZIENA:
“What an honor it was to work with Donald Sutherland. It’s a little intimidating to be working with people like him. But you get on the set and they’re just so sweet, so willing to help. Donald and his wife Francine pretty much adopted me while we were in Australia and took care of me totally. He always gives great advice, like I remember one thing he said was to make sure that when I’m doing off-camera lines I do exactly whatever I did on-screen.”

SUTHERLAND:
“Nigel loves women. You don’t feel like you’re seventy-two even though you are 72, and you have to constantly keep reminding yourself that you’re seventy-two because sometimes you feel like you’re 52.”

DZIENA on driving the jet ski:
“We had a few scares. I lost Matthew once or twice (she laughs). I would turn around and Matthew’s back [in the ocean] like this [she waves her arms in the air]. But he was a nice sport about it. There was one time when we had to trail the boat, and I was doing my best, and that was the only time that Matthew said, ‘I think we need the stunt doubles.’ It’s one thing to be on a jet ski with nothing in front of you, but if [you’re trailing the boat] and you go too fast you could be decapitated.”

HUDSON on shooting the underwater sequences:
“We had to know our emergency procedures. They became so second nature through doing them so much that it became easy. When you’re underwater, you really have to be sharp.”

McCONAUGHEY:
“You don’t fool around [underwater]. Behind the camera down there is almost as large of a crew as you have on land, because you get in an action sequence and the bubbles are going up around you and you can’t see. You don’t have any visuals, you don’t know if you are up or down.”

HUDSON:
“I was able to hold my breath for 45 seconds, which was pretty good. We did the whole blowhole sequence [underwater] in one take, where I had to wrap myself around the cannon, and they had this mechanism in the water that created the wave. That was actually the scariest moment, because I could not see anything so I was a little nervous. I had to trust that the people that were there could see me. But it was a lot of fun.”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official Fool’s Gold site
Images above © Warner Bros Pictures
Feature © 2008 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

Keep up with the latest movie news, reviews and features with every issue of Film Review and the Film Review Ultimate Special

VI DIRECT
Stores Info

You can order any of our magazines via this
secure service.

To SUBSCRIBE to
FILM REVIEW, use these
links to our stores: