McConaughey visits very hands-on fans

There were many reasons people came out to see actor Matthew McConaughey when he paid a visit to Newport Beach Thursday night.

Well, mostly just one reason.

“We’re hoping he’s going to take his shirt off,” said a giddy Haylee Coshow as she sat beside her mother and her friend awaiting his appearance inside the Island Cinemas.

This was almost a consensus opinion among the crowd of mostly girls and women who shared Coshow’s enthusiasm for the celebrity’s physique.

McConaughey planned to stop in to promote his new movie “Surfer, Dude” and the Coshows decided to make it a family affair…with the notable exception of husbands and brothers.

“We’re only making room for one man in our lives today, and that’s Matthew,” said family friend Carissa Callaway.

McConaughey was scheduled to arrive at the theater at 7:15 p.m., and the room was alive with expectant murmurs, until a theater staffer reported that his limousine was stuck in traffic.

Half an hour later, a voice came on the PA system. It was his, and the audience — some members of which had an uncanny knowledge of his personal life — immediately recognized it and the room came alive once again.

Speculation abounded as to which door he would come through. Then the exit door in front of the theater opened and a rabid flock of girls rushed the front, camera flashes went off and McConaughey was surrounded.

He immediately warmed up to the crowd with his Texas drawl, explaining the plot of the movie — which is about an avid surfer confronted by a summer with no waves — and telling the audience that it was made in just 28 days with a budget of $6 million.

“You’re going to think it’s me surfing in the movie, but I got you tricked,” McConaughey said.

It only took him about five minutes to say what he wanted to say, then the sea of women surrounding him parted and he left out the same door through which he came.

On his way out a man in the crowd yelled, “what do you like about high school girls?”

To which McConaughey replied, “I get older, but they stay the same age,” finishing the much-loved refrain from his 1993 classic “Dazed and Confused,” and drawing a wave of laughter from the crowd.

After he left, the room turned into the forum for a heated bragging contest with the attendees boasting about how close they got to him and how good the pictures they took were.

“I touched his stomach. It was the best moment in my life,” said 15-year-old Kayla Chozen who sat in the front row with about a dozen screaming girls from Corona del Mar High School.

Lauren Banning, 18, claimed to be the biggest fan in the mob; but unlike her friend, she didn’t get to take a swipe at him. She cried, her friends reported.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].