Mom of two Jennifer Garner made her first public appearance since the January birth of her second daughter, Seraphina, at the premiere of her new romantic comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, co-starring Matthew McConaughey. She looks great and videos of the night show her being very friendly with fans as usual. The film is a modern take on A Christmas Carol, with a playboy bachelor re-living his promiscuous past and visiting the future to see what he missed by letting his childhood sweetheart get away. It probably won’t get glowing reviews, but the trailer makes it look like a fun mindless comedy and I would definitely go see it. In interviews Garner and McConaughey seem to have a kind of effortless camaraderie that looks like it translates well to the screen. There’s something fun and appealing about the two of them together.

The pair have had plenty of romps with romantic comedy, though few have caused them to reflect seriously on their past loves. There’s no escaping romantic history, however, with the Dickens-inspired Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, opening Friday. McConaughey stars as a heartless Casanova-type who gets his comeuppance when he is visited by spectral visions of his many flings. Garner is the long-ago love of his life, who may be about to find another soul mate…

McConaughey mentions a scene in which Garner’s character wakes up alone after spending the night with him. “He gets to go back and see what happened after she woke up. I’d be willing to say I’ve been there. I saw that and know I felt a little bit of that. I’ve had to end good relationships, and I know how we talked about them, and tried to be nice and everything, but I think … maybe that bruised a little bit more on the other side than I noticed, or than it did me.”

He leans in on his elbow and says, in a confidential tone: “Because when you flip it over, I know there were times when I was the dumpee or whatever, and I was like, ‘No way am I showing her how much this is hurtin’.’ ”

McConaughey’s cowboyish self-assurance fades as he considers the ramifications of being an invisible eyewitness to some of his own breakups: “There’s that old saying about three truths: what I say, what you say and what really happened. You never know how the other person really took it. You get behind the closed door, and you can see how your actions affected someone.”

During filming, the pair often talked about whether they would, if it were possible, go backward or forward in time to re-examine old or future relationships.

“Jennifer said, ‘Yeah, I would go forward, but not if I’m going to see a disaster that I can’t effect [sic] now,’ ” McConaughey says.

“Just to see it?” she adds, shaking her head. “No, I don’t want to see it.”

“The more interesting question is about going back,” he says. “Ghosts from your past or whatever …”

McConaughey goes back — way back — to some of his first experiences with romantic relationships.

“Those first times, though, I knew how to handle it,” McConaughey boasts with a grin. “We went to see a movie once, and slowly this right hand started moving.” Sitting beside Garner, he begins an infinitesimally slow drape across her shoulders. “It took me the entire movie to get there, and then the credits rolled. I was so concentrated on just getting there, I didn’t see one frame of the movie.”

“How far down did you get? Inside bra?” Garner says, calling him out on his vagueness.

“Yep,” he says, nodding. “And then the credits rolled.”

Garner laughs and says, “She probably spent the whole time thinking, ‘Am I going to brush that hand off? Am I going to move?’ She probably had to pee, but was like, ‘Well, no, because then he’d have to start from scratch.’ ”

“Girls just play defense,” Garner offers. “Guys are the chaser and pursuer.” Neither role is easier, she adds.

“I think it’s different now than it was when we were going through this,” she says. “It’s more equal. But when we were kids, you didn’t just call a guy. At least not a nice girl.”

“No, you didn’t call,” McConaughey agrees, like someone who remembers it well.

“There was no texting or IMing or anything. Your friends could go ask his friends if he was interested, but that was all,” she says. “You’d send your secretary of state out.”

“But the funnest and the hardest moments,” McConaughey says, “was the one where you go up and say, ‘Will you go with me?’ Just say those words, and then she says, ‘Yes.’ And I’d be like … ‘Great! Now what comes next?’ “

[From USA Today]

I kind of agree with Garner in that there’s nothing I’d like to see in the future if I can’t change it. There’s a little bit I’d like to visit from the past, but all of that is ancient history. McConaughey gets philosophical at the end of the interview and gives one of his common-sense but worthwhile quotes that reminds me why I’m such a fan. “I wouldn’t change any of the past – the victories, the glories or the pain. Cause they helped me get to where I am today.”

Here’s a pretty funny interview for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with a journalist from National Lampoon who takes off his shirt to somehow better relate to often-shirtless McConaughey. Garner tries to get the guy to take off his pants too:

And here’s the trailer for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It’s out on this Friday, May 1.

Thanks to WENN.com and O’Duran/Fame Pictures for these photos.