• June 23, 1997
• Vol. 47
• No. 24

The Insider

By Mitchell Fink

Perhaps absence does make the heart grow fonder. Just ask Matthew McConaughey and Ashley Judd, who had a brief romantic fling while playing husband and wife in 1996's A Time to Kill. Since then he has been linked with another Kill costar, Sandra Bullock, while Judd most recently was with singer Michael Bolton. But none of that seemed to matter on June 7 when I watched McConaughey and Judd spend almost an hour together at the party following the MTV Movie Awards in Santa Monica. For most of that time they gazed into each other's eyes, seemingly oblivious to the 1,000-plus other revelers who had crowded into a tented hangar at the Santa Monica Airport. Although McConaughey and Judd arrived at the event separately, the two left together in his rented stretch limo and wound up, along with other stars Cameron Diaz, Salma Hayek and Claire Danes, at an intimate gathering at the nearby home of a studio executive. While there, says an eyewitness, McConaughey took off all his clothes in front of some of the guests and hopped into the Jacuzzi. Judd stripped down to only her underwear and followed him in. For her part, Judd says, "We're great friends who hadn't seen each other in a year." McConaughey doesn't deny being in the hot tub with Judd but swears he had on a red, white and blue Tommy Hilfiger bathing suit....

Last month at a Writers Guild Foundation forum in Los Angeles, Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri was bemoaning how the rigors of filmmaking—and 18-hour days—can take their toll. "Families break up," said Khouri, who added after a pause, "I don't mean that to anybody personally." That comment prompted a few hundred people in the audience to look immediately at one of Khouri's fellow panelists, Sling Blade Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton, who is embroiled in a nasty divorce with his fourth wife, Pietra. Thornton reacted to the attention by blushing, then laughing. By the way, Thornton's steady, Laura Dern, attended the event, and the couple later drove away in her black BMW....

Gillian Anderson of The X-Files has gone public with her new boyfriend. He's Rodney Rowland, who guest-starred on an episode of the show this past season as a killer who romances her unsuspecting character, Agent Scully. In real life, Anderson and Rowland were spotted passionately kissing at the June 5 AIDS Project Los Angeles-Gucci benefit. Anderson's representative says that the couple have been dating since April. Anderson has been separated from her husband, TV and movie art director Clyde Klotz, for more than a year....

A photographer covering the June 8 Pediatric AIDS Foundation picnic and carnival in L.A. asked Jack Nicholson if he wouldn't mind taking off his sunglasses so the lensman might get a better shot. Nicholson, who rarely removes his shades in public, responded, as only he can, by asking the photographer, "Are you new around here? I'm pretty sure."

• Contributors:
• Hugh McCarten.