Diane Lane Says She 'Couldn't Cope' When Matthew McConaughey Told Her She Was His First Crush
Matthew McConaughey is acting alongside Diane Lane now, but there was once a time when he could only admire the star from afar.
“I had a crush on her since a film she was in, Lonesome Dove,” McConaughey, 49, told Entertainment Tonight, Wednesday at the N.Y.C. premiere of their film Serenity, also starring Anne Hathaway.
“That may have been … that was almost pre-teens for me,” he said of the 1989 Western miniseries, which Lane starred in alongside Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover and Anjelica Huston.
“So then I get to work with her — she looks about the same as she did back then, and she’s one of our great actresses,” McConaughey praised his costar to ET.
Speaking with the outlet, Lane admitted she wasn’t sure what to say when she learned of McConaughey’s crush but “[wants] to live up to” his idea of her.
“I think I blocked it out,” said the 54-year-old actress when asked if he had told her of his crush before they began filming the drama. “I don’t think he lied — I think he did say that to me, day one — and I just had whiteout.”
“I couldn’t cope,” she continued to ET. “I said, ‘I’m gonna see a character. Thank you for the compliment. I’m dying, and … love you, too babe.’ “
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Of their new film, Hathaway described it during a Tuesday visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show as “a sexy, surrealist modern noir” where her character tries to persuade McConaughey to kill her “monster” of a husband.
“If you are into thrillers and you are into a morality that’s not black and white and you like to be taken on some kind of surreal adventure, you should check it out,” she added.
Serenity opens in theaters nationwide Friday.