It’s been 25 years since Matthew McConaughey made his debut in Generation X fable, Dazed and Confused. A through all the romcoms, through the McConnaisance and the much-deserved Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club, the 50-year-old Texan has only recently taken a trip to the dark side. And he enjoys it. “Being bad is the best,” he tells me. “It just is. It shouldn’t be, but getting to do bad stuff and have no repercussions, I like that.”
In the recent release, The Gentleman, McConaughey attempted to sell off his drugs empire to a bevy of billionaires, only to find the clamor for his stock is played out in gun-barrelled warfare where the list of ‘wants’ includes his own life.
As with any Guy Ritchie movie, there is a craft to the violence, and London’s gangster heartland is effortlessly represented against a backdrop of slick production, humorous scriptwriting, and perfect casting, which also brings in Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam and Michelle Dockery.
It’s another step forward it what now will become an otherwise backward move for an industry ground to a halt by Coronavirus. That’s a shame for someone whose status as one of the planet’s finest actors continues to ascend. Suave, and assertive, McConaughey is rooted deeply in the male stereotype and an icon for both men and women.
The American’s intelligent rhetoric is always delivered with a warm Texan drawl and a personal connection and warmth that so many of his contemporaries lack. And since his Oscar win six years ago, the actor has lined up a sparkling roster of performances from “True Detective” and Interstellar to Gold, Terence Malick’s Sea of Trees and Serenity. Here’s a star who broke away from the humdrum of Failure to Launch and The Wedding Planner and reinvented his brand. And now, he’s reaping the rewards – and awards – in spades.
Charming as always, he further discusses his joy at playing bad and why his children have a hard time accepting this side of their father.
McConaughey also chats about luck, early beginnings. The actor lives in Austin with his wife, Camilla Alves, and their children, Levi, 11, Vida, 10 and Livingston, 7.
STRIPLV: You’ve said Guy Ritchie is arguably the most interesting and unpredictable director you’ve worked with for his ability to completely re-write scenes as you’re shooting them. MCCONAUGHEY: (Laughs) I mean, you have to be prepared for things to change like that and I would say that if only from a personal point of view, it’s something which really keeps you on your toes. It can be frustrating when you hear that he is looking to do that until he presents the re-write to you, and you find that it’s better than what was there in the first place! That’s very interesting to be working with someone that versatile, though it does take a bit of getting used to. Guy Ritchie is just someone who gets the best out of everyone. You’re reading it out, and he says: “Man, that’s shit.” So, you start laughing because you think that either he is joking around, or he means the word “shit” as a compliment or something other than what he really does. (Laughs) STRIPLV: Sounds like Guy is improvising his way through directing a film? MCCONAUGHEY: Yeah! Often he will say that we need to change a line or the way it’s spoken, and he says: “I mean, who wrote that? Who would even write that?” Then I reply: “You did. You wrote it!” Then, as I was saying earlier, he would then do exactly as he says, and he will start re-writing the whole scene, the dialogue, and it’s quite a maddening thing that happens. However, again, as I said, he will go through everything with a fine toothcomb and a red pen, correct bits, and sometimes completely change others and you may be standing around or sitting down and waiting for about five minutes, and then he comes back to you with the changes. You sit there and take it all in, and then usually, you will see that it has changed for the better, although I can only say that from my point of view for the bits which he re-wrote or edited for me. STRIPLV: You haven’t played too many villains, but bad guys are always the most fun, right? MCCONAUGHEY: Moral complexity and ambiguity are always interesting. It keeps it exciting. You are guiding and delivering individuals, releasing them from their internal subterfuge, their own pretense. Does that make these bad guys? It’s hard to say. Certainly, a lot of them are evil from the outside perspective, but is it really evil to expose the hypocrisies of mankind? To strip them back and lay bare their contradictions, their lies. The lies we tell ourselves to sate the guilt, that fed me. That fuelled the journey. Playing darker actors opens up a whole world of opportunity I never knew existed before. Bad guys, they don’t pander to limitations, the right thing to them is the wrong thing. Right is wrong, and as someone who morally believes in always doing the right thing, teaching my children the same, it’s fun to take a vacation from the moral code and see what that’s like. Push manners and morals to the side. STRIPLV: The intensity with which you approach movie-making these days is such a world away from the days of Dazed and Confused, which, a couple of years ago, celebrated its 25th anniversary. You said you were lucky to get that role, that break. MCCONAUGHEY: Luck plays a factor, of course, but I think there’s more of a scientific method involved, more than we realize. Luck dictates that you’re plucked out of the crowd, put into a movie and boom, that’s lucky. But there’s a job spec to fulfill, and you need to fulfill that criteria, you need to be able to do the job. Getting picked to do that job when there are thousands of others who can do the same, that’s your luck right there. And I sure as got my moments of luck that got me to where I am today. Dazed and Confused, A Time to Kill, that happened very early on for me. One minute I’m “Who’s that guy on the street?” to “Look over there, it’s that guy.” But luck won’t sustain you in this world. Luck won’t get you the job every time. Luck will toss you a bone, but then you have to prove yourself. That’s the wheel in motion, that’s the science. You have to build on what you were fortunate enough to come into contact with, to encounter. Now, run with it and build on it. STRIPLV: “Alright, alright, alright,” has followed you around ever since. Does it piss you off at all? MCCONAUGHEY: It’s flattering; it’s a compliment. In this business, you have that immediate recognition; that’s what you’re after. You’ve done a good job. Especially because it’s the first three words I’ve ever said in film, that’s what quoted back to me, and it serves as a really tender, nostalgic reminder of how far I’ve traveled. How far I’ve come when I thought that job, as David Wooderson in Dazed and Confused was meant to be a summer gig. When I found my passion, when I found what I was good at, at that moment, “Alright, alright, alright.” And I like it. It makes people laugh. It makes me laugh. Alright, alright, alright, it’s got a special power. If I’m getting up to do a speech in front of people and I’m nervous of all those eyes staring at me, I dig it out ‘alright, alright, alright,’ warms the air right up. (Laughs) STRIPLV: Did you say it in your Oscar acceptance speech? MCCONAUGHEY: You know, I don’t know. That whole four minutes, five minutes is sort of a blur in my consciousness. STRIPLV: How did the Oscar change your career? MCCONAUGHEY: I think the Oscar, gave me the chance to make a lot more personal choices in my work, which I’m very thankful for, allowed me to work on projects that I want to see. But also scare me. STRIPLV: You bring your kids on set. Do they know you’re playing the bad guy? And how do they feel about that? MCCONAUGHEY: They get it, they get it. But immediately, they want to know, Papa, why aren’t you the good guy? They don’t understand the appeal of the bad guy - so maybe I’ve done something right. (Laughs) My son Levi, he’s fully aware. He accidentally watched scenes of mine. One that comes to mind was when he was three years old, and We Are Marshall was on the TV. And he sees me and says, “Papa,” and there’s an explosion, and he sees fire around me and its tears all over. I had to make him understand, so I bring him to set, The Lincoln Lawyer, I believe, and he’s watching me do a scene, and then I show him on the monitor. Right there, click. He gets it. So he’s running back and forth between the monitor and the set. And he gets it. STRIPLV: How important to you are your kids? MCCONAUGHEY: Where do I begin? I think a lot of people spend a lot of time wondering what life is all about - I used to sit alone, just thinking, processing, but when the children came along, I realized there was no point. The past was gone, and the future was, well, who knows. It just clicked in me what the whole point was, family, and the here and now. Being a parent is wonderful. I love it. I had wanted to have my own family since I was young. It just took me a while to find the perfect person, and Camila is a beautiful, loving, and sexy woman who makes my life so much better every day. STRIPLV: Do you take a lot from your upbringing? MCCONAUGHEY: Yes, I think a big part of parenthood is me reinvesting in my kids what my father invested in me. I would say I also put some of my dad in my film roles too. Whenever I come across a character who has a huge appetite for living, it often makes me think of him. It’s important to have a sense of adventure and search for things or opportunities that shake up your life. That’s certainly what he taught me, and that’s how I want to be with my kids going forward. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, very strong, very determined, who led us by example. I was always asking her a thousand questions. Who? What? Why? I would never stop. I’m very fortunate that my job enables me to travel and meet new people and learn about different moments in history. I want my children to search for answers about their world too, and understand as much as they can in trying to get closer to the truth. It’s a process that never stops. STRIPLV: Do you get to take them away much? MCCONAUGHEY: Sure, and showing my children the world out there really excites me as well. I love taking trips to wild places in South America or Thailand, sometimes with the kids, and sometimes by myself, it really depends how I feel or if I am trying to get my head into a creative space. Camila always tells me that I can take as long as I need, which is very gracious of her, but I also know that she has to bear a lot of the burden of looking after the kids when I’m shooting a movie, so I try to be as respectful as I can of her time and our time together as a family. There are lots of families where one parent has to be absent for a period of time, and we’re lucky in that we’ll always be able to put food on the table for our children and offer them a lot of advantages. You just have to work out the details because, in the end, we’re a big, loving unit. As for what having that solid family life does for me as a person, well, I’ve always said the more secure a man is at home, the higher he will fly when he gets outside, and I absolutely believe that. STRIPLV: Are you a strict father? MCCONAUGHEY: Over the years, I’ve learned a parent has to walk a fine line between being a parent and being a friend. Those two roles intersect and overlap. I’ve seen many examples where adults are trying to be friends to their children in circumstances where they’re actually doing a disservice to them, but I understand how hard it can be to know which role you need to play at the right time. The kids ask some tough questions, and we give them the license to do that. All kids get so deeply involved in serious issues, even when the spark is perhaps something that has happened in an animated film, perhaps. Perhaps the most serious thing for me when it comes to being a parent is dealing with baby car seats. They are a huge pain in the you-know-what, and it doesn’t get much more intense than that. You just can’t attach those things quickly, you know? I’m just not very good at that, and the kids love making a mess of things. There’s always crap stuck in the car seat and down below. Over time I’ve learned that if I can’t find the toys in the house, they’ll be buried somewhere in the back of the car! STRIPLV: How easy is it to find the time to stay in shape? MCCONAUGHEY: My attitude towards fitness is really the same as my attitude towards working out and staying in shape. On set, I need to hit it. I need characters that get me motivated and fired up, and the way I am in the gym or out in the open air is the same. I’m not one of these people who can just do some gentle reps and leave it at that. I need the energy and the anger. My approach in the gym is I always need to go one better than last time. If I don’t, I know I’m in trouble. It’s like luck as an actor. You may get lucky with a role, but it won’t sustain you in this world. It won’t get you the job every time. Fitness is the same, you’ve got to keep the wheel in motion, and that sort of science only ever comes from inside. STRIPLV: Is gym work mental, physical, or a combination of the two? MCCONAUGHEY: Well, I’m a big believer in the psychology of fitness really making a difference. I am always counting when I’m working out. I can’t do 10 minutes of lifts or crunches or even treadmill work. What I will do is break it down into a three-minute challenge, a four-minute segment, and another three. I am maintaining physical impact but breaking it down mentally, so I don’t tail off. I haven’t always been into protein shakes and complicated supplements, but I do see the value now. Traditionally I would be focused on good nutrition and eating sensibly, but as time has gone on, I do understand more the benefit of shakes and formulas. I think being into fitness means drawing in from what’s around you too. We are in an era now where there are so many role models, many more than when I was growing up. There isn’t the attitude to fitness now that’s it’s done by eccentrics or posers, that’s what it was like when I was young.