Reese Witherspoon Jokes About Fans Confusing Her Sweet Home Alabama Costar Josh Lucas with Matthew McConaughey (Exclusive)

Reese Witherspoon wants to set the record straight on her leading man in 2002’s romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama.

“All I want to say about Sweet Home Alabama is that it’s not Matthew McConaughey,” she jokes of fans mistaking McConaughey for her real costar Josh Lucas. “I know a lot of people think it’s Matthew. Matthew always says, ‘Everybody comes up to me and says, ‘Are you in Sweet Home?’ And I’m not.”

Sweet Home Alabama, which also stars Patrick Dempsey, was released in September 2002 and took its title from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song of the same name.

In its opening weekend, the film grossed over $35 million and earned over $130 million domestically during its theater run. It made another $53 million at the worldwide box office, with a budget of $30 million.

The film follows the story of Witherspoon’s character Melanie, a big-shot designer living in New York who must go back home to convince her ex to sign the divorce papers so she can get married again.

Witherspoon says although she didn’t work with McConaughey for this film, the duo have collaborated on three other projects.

“I’ve done three movies with Matthew, but he’s not in Sweet Home Alabama,” she says of their other collaborations — Sing, Sing 2 and Mud.

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The Nashville native, 48, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of June Carter in 2005’s Walk the Line and launched her Draper James line in 2015 and the media company Hello Sunshine in 2016, recently sat down with PEOPLE for the 50th anniversary issue and shared what it was like to be on the cover for the first time.

“When I was on the cover, it was surreal — you can’t believe it’s happening,” she says. “It’s like when your name is in a crossword puzzle. It’s because I have a lot of vowels in my name.”

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