“At the time that I was in Fool’s Gold, I was getting divorced, and it was a really hard time for me,” Hudson, now 43, recalled during a BAFTA interview released on Friday, December 23. “To be on that set with Matthew, it was just the best.”
The 2008 romantic drama follows treasure hunter Ben “Finn” Finnegan (McConaughey), whose obsession with finding the legendary Queen’s Dowry reunites him with his estranged wife Tess (Hudson). It was their second collaboration, following 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
In October 2007, while filming the film in Australia, Hudson received notice that her six-year marriage to Robinson, now 56, with whom she has a son Ryder, was over. They’d split up a year before.
“I remember my divorce had just finalized — if anybody’s been through this before, it’s an interesting moment — and we were going on a boat out to the outer reef,” Hudson recalled. “I couldn’t have been at a further point of earth. On a satellite phone, it’s like, ‘Your divorce went through.’ And I’m like ‘OK,’ and I didn’t feel celebratory at all. It felt sad and I was looking out over the water, and I’m like, ‘My god, what does this mean?'”
Luckily, her costar was there to cheer her up. “Out of the top of the boat popped Matthew — shirtless — [and he was] like, ‘You ready, Hudson?’ And I was like, ‘F–k yeah, I’m ready, let’s go. Let’s do this.'”
She said that McConaughey helped her get through the difficult transition. “He was a big part of that for me in that movie,” Hudson said. “So that was great, and there is a shorthand, for sure. I know his ways. I know how he gets into stuff. i know how crazy it can get. I love his process, it’s wild.”
After moving on from the Black Crowes frontman, the Glass Onion actress married Matt Bellamy and gave birth to their son, Bingham, in 2011. They divorced three years after their son was born.
Hudson started dating Danny Fujikawa in 2016, and the couple welcomed their daughter Rani in 2018. The happy couple got engaged in September 2021. According to the Sunday Times, the Fabletics founder’s blended family is extremely happy.
“It might not look traditional from the outside, but on the inside, I feel like we’re killing it,” she told the London newspaper in November 2022. “The unit that I’ve created with three children with three different fathers is a seriously strong unit, and it’s ours. I’m not interested in forcing some conventional idea of love or marriage.”