Matthew McConaughey Recalls Easy Chemistry with Kate Hudson (Exclusive)

Matthew McConaughey is looking back on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days — and just how easily he and costar Kate Hudson bonded on set.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE for the magazine’s 50th anniversary, McConaughey, 54, opens up about how quickly he and Hudson, 44, developed their stellar onscreen chemistry for the 2003 romantic comedy.

According to the actor, no one in the cast or crew knew ahead of time just how palpable their energy would be, but it “felt like” they had magic movie chemistry right away.

“I remember we met Linda Obst on the Paramount lot,” he tells PEOPLE, referring to the film producer who has worked on blockbusters such as Interstellar.

“Those casting, meeting couches, especially for rom-coms are — you want to see the chemistry between the two leads. You want to see how the jive is,” he explains, adding that he purpose is just to see how the leads get along. “We’re not reading through the script, we’re not reading lines.”

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days follows Hudson as Andie, a magazine writer who pitches a story about trying to — you guessed it — get a guy to leave her in 10 days. McConaughey stars alongside her as Ben, a suave advertising executive who bets his co-workers he can get a woman to fall in love with him in 10 days.

For McConaughey, he and Hudson were “immediately” comfortable with each other in the roles.

“We challenged each other, we busted each other’s chops and we laughed a lot,” he says. “And there was a bit of rock and roll exchange that [we thought], ‘Oh, this could be some heavyweight fun.’ And I think that’s why I was cast and that’s why, to whatever extent, it worked.”

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Elsewhere in his interview with PEOPLE, the Dallas Buyers Club star opens up about another one of his iconic rom-com pairings from the early days of his career — Jennifer Lopez. McConaughey praised his The Wedding Planner costar Lopez, 54, for her immense work ethic, calling her not just a triple or quadruple treat, but a “five-threat.”

“Look, I don’t know what a five-threat is, but it’s more than a four-threat, a quad-threat… Whatever a five-threat is is what she is,” McConaughey says.

“I’ve never seen someone be able to choreograph something so cleanly and clearly and actually hit the coordination of a scene.”

While filming the movie, which opened at number one at the box office and went on to gross nearly $100 million worldwide, McConaughey says Lopez nailed it every time. “It would be a two-minute scene. Take one’s two minutes. Take two is 2:01. Take three is 1:59. Take four, it’s 2:01,” he says. “She had it down.”

Lopez was a pro, the Oscar winner says, attributing it to “all the work she would do preparing for the scene.” “That woman’s a worker and knows what she wants to do and she does what she needs to do to pull [it] off,” he says. “I really appreciate that.”

For more on our 50th Anniversary, check out our special digital issue, and pick up the latest copy of PEOPLE, on newsstands April 12.