Matthew McConaughey on Leaving Hollywood, Raising Kids with a Strong Foundation, and the Power of Faith ｜ Ep. 1156
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 9 minutes
Words per Minute
198.91821
Summary
From small-town Texas to the bright lights of Hollywood, Matthew McConaughey burst onto the scene with a line that became legend. From breakout star to king of the romantic comedies, he s risen to become one of the most compelling voices in film. Today, on The Megyn Kelly Show, he shares the lessons from that incredible ride.
Transcript
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I'd never been on stage, I'd never done acting before, um, any of that.
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Today, on The Megyn Kelly Show, from small-town Texas to the bright lights of Hollywood,
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Matthew McConaughey burst onto the scene with a line that became legend.
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From breakout star to king of the romantic comedies.
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The nice guy roles, and nothing wrong with that.
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I was so successful at them that any dramas I wanted to do, Hollywood was not offering me.
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Even if I took a huge pay cut, they're like, no, no, no, McConaughey, stay in your lane.
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At the height of all that fame, he walked away.
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I was ready to stand up for things that I believed in and stand against things I didn't.
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You might have just written yourself a ticket out of Hollywood.
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That's when I started becoming more of a good man.
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Redefining himself as one of the most compelling voices in film.
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I'm trying to do my best to be the good wolf, knowing that the bad wolf's still hungry.
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Today, he's here to share the lessons from that incredible ride.
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If you want to get into this, I'm not saying you've got to have thick skin,
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but you've got to know what's important to you.
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Knives are going to come at you whether you deserve them or not.
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We have a first-time guest on the show today who you likely know very well, or think you do.
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Matthew McConaughey is an American actor and an Academy Award-winning one at that.
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And he's a deep thinker who is out with a new book in which he shares decades of reflections.
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Poems and Prayers is the name of it, and it's out right now.
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It made me stop, reflect, and be more thoughtful about everything from faith to my own life philosophy
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in terms of getting after it or downshifting into a lower gear.
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And I didn't realize how much I had in common with you, Hollywood man,
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because you're really more of a Texas man who's been through a fair amount.
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One thing we have in common is we both lost our dads at very young ages.
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And in both of our cases, it changed, of course, our lives, but also our life choices and our life philosophies.
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Like the you before you lost your dad and the you after.
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So, I don't know about you, but I, at that time, I mean, I didn't think my dad could die.
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I mean, I knew practically he had to one day, but I thought he was the abominable snowman.
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And when I didn't, I didn't, there wasn't any lead up to it.
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It just happened and happened the way he said it was going to happen.
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Said, boy, when I go, I'm going to be making love to your mother.
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And that's how he moved on from a heart attack.
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And I remember my knees dropping out from my mother.
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And then dealing with that, you know, going back to the wake with the brothers and my mom
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and hearing stories where you find out that, oh, the message maybe was a little different than the messenger,
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which I was quickly able to forgive because I understood that to just be a reality.
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My phrase came from that because I remember when I went back to work six days later,
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I was on the set of Days Confused, my very first film.
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And I was talking with the director, Richard Linklater, at Magic Hour, Sundown.
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I was like, you know, he's physically no longer here.
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But spiritually, I think I can keep calling him.
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Added on top of that, look, I was scared because he left.
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He was, to me, what was above the law, above government, above religion.
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Boy, if I was in a pinch and really need someone to have my back, that was going to be my dad.
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And so I quickly was like, okay, boy, talking to myself.
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Better quit acting like the things your dad taught you to do and be and start becoming the man that he taught you to be.
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And that's been a process that I got kick-started in right then, very hardcore, but I've tried to maintain throughout my life.
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You weren't like the big star yet, although Days Confused was a hit.
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There's a very graceful thing in hindsight about his death.
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He was alive for the first five days of me shooting Days Confused.
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He didn't come to the set or anything, but he was alive for me to start.
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His final son to start something that wouldn't be just a fad, that wouldn't just be a hobby.
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But the call that I had with him two years prior to that, well, I was headed towards law school at University of Texas, and it was a Tuesday night.
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I said, I'm going to call him at Tuesday night at 7.30 p.m.
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It won't be Monday because there's too much stress about getting back to work.
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End of the day, he'll be on the couch having a beer with mom.
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It'll be a great time to tell him that I want to go to film school instead of law school.
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So I made that call, 7.36 p.m., and he answered.
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I said, hey, pop, got something I want to share with you.
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I said, I don't want to go to law school anymore.
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And there's a long pause, and I was like, oh, here it comes.
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He said, are you sure that's what you want to do?
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Did he have any reason at that point to believe in you?
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Had you been the big star on the high school stage?
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I think what he heard, though, is something I think we all want to hear from our kids,
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is a time when they're asking us or telling us, I wasn't really asking.
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And I think he heard that in my voice, the way I said, yes, sir.
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He heard the security in my voice that I'd gone through to make this decision.
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And hearing that from me was, I think, he was like, okay, my son's asking, but he's not really asking.
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And I think we all want to hear that from our children at some time after we give them guidelines.
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But if they're going to break out of those guidelines and go their own way, don't come a-bluffing.
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And that's where he came up with telling me, don't have acid.
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Because there are millions of kids out there right now who would love to be a Hollywood star.
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Well, so I started off, I wasn't courageous or confident to say I wanted to be in front of the camera yet.
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But I was at that time courageous enough to say I want to go into the storytelling business.
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So I went to film school, studied behind the camera.
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And I had been writing short stories at that time.
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And I had a buddy in film school who said, these are really good short stories.
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You might be able to want to turn these into moving pictures.
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It wasn't until a year later that I was in the right bar at the right time.
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I got cast in Days Confused and got in front of the camera.
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Will you please come back tomorrow and do it again?
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And I was like, hell yeah, I'll come back again.
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And look, Megan, I didn't go to Hollywood and have the long story of having to wait the
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And the first two auditions I went on actually got the job.
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It was Angels in the Outfield and Boys on the Side.
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So I had some dry spells later on in my career.
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But boy, when I first got out there, I knocked out the first two auditions.
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Well, I'm not surprised to hear that you were a writer.
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Because when I read Poems and Prayers, it was obvious.
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You know, and the thing that's special about the book is that it's a collection of poems
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and prayers from back when you were a teenager.
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And I wonder, like, I have been an avid journal keeper for most of my life.
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But when I occasionally pull out the ones from that period, it's awful.
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And you had the courage to put it down in paper and publish it.
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So how does that feel reading back on the earlier ones?
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So I went back and saw the earlier ones and looked, you know, even in writing Green Lights,
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part of that was going back and looking at 35 years of my journey.
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And I looked at some of that stuff and I was like, oh, good gosh.
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But then after a while, I started to chuckle at those things.
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And that's why I added this point, that poem in this book, which isn't a bad point, but it's a very self-serious poem of an 18-year-old boy asking some big existential questions when you would think he would just be having a great fun time summer in the end of the sunshine.
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I'm still working on trying to be a better man.
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I'm still questioning what's going on in the world.
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I'm still, you know, pointing out stuff that I think is mendacious and not fair in the world.
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So to see that I was doing that at 18, I'll mind you, you could tell I had a thesaurus near.
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I used some words in there that I'm like, you don't know what that meant.
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And I still don't know what that word meant, but I had a thesaurus near me, you know what I mean?
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But when I read the early writings, I think this is obviously an artist, like this is an artistic person.
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It's it should be no surprise that this person did not wind up in law school and instead wound up in the arts, really telling stories and bringing characters to life.
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So it's a fun it's kind of funny to me to think of you going to law school.
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But you talk in the book, you write in the book about your previous, maybe current commitment to logic and reason and how much that has appealed to you for your first 55 years.
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It's just not that common to see both the strong logic and reasoning thread coupled with the artistic and creative ability and Jones.
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So when I was in kindergarten, I was standing on the street corner outside of the school and the head principal came out and I was I was looking up at the sky at this cloud.
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And I said, Mr. Mayor, is that cloud as big as the world?
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So in my whatever kindergarten, how old I was, five year old mind, six year old mom was like, well, if I can see the edges of that cloud and it's as big as the world.
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And I know that that road trip we took from Texas to Pensacola took whatever, 15 hours.
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If I can see the edge of that cloud, that cloud must be so far up in the sky that it's not even worth dreaming about.
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I was like, you've got to deal with what's right in front of you because what's out there is too far away.
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So for 15 years, I just put my head down and dealt.
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You know, at 16 years old, I take my first flight, commercial flight.
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And in 10 seconds, I'm in the middle of that cloud.
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And I'm like, either this cloud goes a billion miles an hour or that cloud is not as big as the world is like Mr. Mayor told me it was.
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Well, so I then come to learn, oh, clouds aren't that big.
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And all of a sudden I was like, oh, well, so what's over the horizon is actually worth considering.
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What's out there that you don't see right in front of you is worth dreaming about.
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But still, the fact that I've always dealt and looked to logic, you know, us doers, I've always been a doer.
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But because we've got our head down, we don't always climb the right mountains.
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Us dreamers, you know, look up and are always kind of measuring in the landscape, which doesn't make us very good climbers, but we pick the right mountains.
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So doers can help dreamers, you know, climb more mountains and dreamers can help doers climb the right ones.
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But I didn't start dreaming until I moved to Longview until I was about 16 years old.
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So something, you've made some good choices with that combination because I look at you and you seem to me very much like an outlier.
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You, we talked about, you know, the writing ability, which not everybody in Hollywood has.
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A lot of people just want to be a star in my industry too.
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Poems and Prayers is the name of the book for those listening.
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You move out to California, you get cast in the first two things that you apply for, you try out for, audition.
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And then unlike virtually everybody who follows that path with success, you leave Hollywood.
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Like your marriage works, which is rare in your industry.
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By the way, you're not the first McConaughey I've interviewed.
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Your lovely wife came on my show when I was at NBC.
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And so all of these things suggest you're of a different mold and model than the average person out there.
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And I think that's embodied in your book because what I see in here is you love America.
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But like most of us who are people of faith, you struggle with it.
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How humble, you know, how can I humble myself in order for it to really mean something to me?
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You prioritize them over your job and realize they're both important, but one is clearly the winner.
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So I wonder whether that's all the job of the parents and Texas and whether you think all of this would have happened for you if you hadn't pulled up out of Hollywood and gone back home.
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So the main reason I came back, one of the main reasons I came back home is I did go out there to Hollywood long enough I wanted to get myself established.
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You know, enough credentials to say, oh, you can't just rock my boat and I'm gone, you know, and also enough credentials where, you know, if they want me, they know where to find me.
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And if they want me, I will plan my routes out to Hollywood and line up meetings for two weeks and just go knock them all out.
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You know, along along the way, it was also my mom's here.
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As soon as Camilla and I decided to have children, I wanted them to be raised here near my home and around their family.
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Um, I wanted them to be raised with the, uh, maybe what you could say is a little more common sense values that I feel is around here where a mile feels like a mile and 60 minutes feels like an hour.
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It was also at that time I was doing romantic comedies and I was the rom-com guy and I love doing them.
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Wedding planner with J-Lo, how to lose a guy in 10 days with Kate Hudson.
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At the same time, I was so successful at them that any dramas I wanted to do, Hollywood was not offering me.
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Even if I took a huge pay cut, they're like, no, no, no, McConaughey, stay in your lane.
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Like, okay, well, if I can't do what I want to do, I'm going to quit doing what I'm doing.
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And I knew it was going to be a bit of a desert I was walking into because I was like, I might've just wrote my one-way ticket out of Hollywood.
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And Camilla and I prayed on it, pried on it, and said, I'm going to do it.
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And she goes, you know, this might last a long time.
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You might have just written yourself a ticket out of Hollywood.
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He goes, Matthew, I haven't even heard your name.
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You know, luckily at this time, Camilla's pregnant.
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And I, and we've got our first child coming on, which really anchored me to have a little significance, you know, in a time when I was feeling very wobbly without anything, any work to do.
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So, 18 months go by, and I remember this, the script comes in, this romantic comedy, $8 million offer.
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It was the same words as the $8 million offer, but it was better.
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But ultimately, I said, no, and I think that sent a little bit of an invisible message to Hollywood.
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He's actually playing offense and affirmatively where he is.
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And cut to four months later, all of a sudden, I get the calls for the dramas that I want to do, and I just attack them.
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So, that was a step out of Hollywood where I needed to rebrand and unbrand, really, before I rebranded.
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So, that's about four years, three years, I think, into that run after the two-year hiatus.
00:19:28.100
There ain't nothing out there can kill fucking Ron Woodruff in 30 days.
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Was that before and after for you, or, like, was that actually a game changer or no, because you'd already rejiggered and relaunched?
00:19:45.480
Well, look, it was a game changer in that, hey, there's my peers saying, we deem your performance the most excellent male lead performance of the year.
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It wasn't something that I've ever been out to prove or anything, but to get that from my peers in the craft, a lot of them who I respect, that felt really good.
00:20:10.460
Now, one of the things that's funny about winning an Academy Award is that things you say afterwards, especially immediately afterwards, the things that used to be in small print are now in bold print.
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Even if you're repeating something you said 10 years ago, all of a sudden, it's in bold print.
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But it did open up, it opened up a lot of opportunities for me that I've tried to, you know, take advantage of as responsive as I could.
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When Robert Downey Jr. won, I think it was Best Supporting Actor this past year ago, I think, if memory serves.
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I'm not as into it all, but I loved his opening line, which was, I'd like to thank my unhappy childhood.
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Which is like, yeah, so good and probably true for a lot of actors, right?
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Like that's where you get all the stuff that you can draw on, the stuff that you could put into a book like Poems and Prayers.
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And, you know, I had a time where right after I called my dad and said I was going to film school and he said, don't half-ass it.
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I wear jeans, impress my shirt, and they're tucked in.
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I got into film school on my GPA because I had a 3.82 GPA.
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So I get into film school and everyone's in there wearing black and they're gothic and no one's got a tan.
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I got a tan frat guy, jeans, you know, and I'm questioning, wait a minute.
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Do I need to be the sort of Hamletian, you know, problems in life to be an artist, you know?
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And I remember we have Mondays where you'd come back to the class.
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And I'd always come back and go, hey, man, I just saw Die Hard, you know?
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And they'd come back and go, I saw the Eisenstein thing at the Independent, you know?
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Anyway, every time I'd bring up the blockbuster, like I saw Die Hard, they'd all go, oh, that's shit.
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And I'm going, oh, man, I'm getting hammered here.
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One day I come in and I say the blockbuster it was.
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And actually the one I'd said this day was Die Hard.
00:22:29.840
I mean, we're just saying, you know, it's like, oh, bullshit.
00:22:33.200
No, you can't just say because it was populous, it came from a big studio and it played in a blockbuster that it's crap.
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And that's when I went, I'm going to keep my shirt tucked in.
00:22:46.620
If I want to go spend the weekend watching Sharknado, why should they be allowed to stop me?
00:22:52.280
It takes all different kinds of tastes to keep the movie industry going.
00:22:57.500
Trusting the government or some random insurance agent to give good Medicare support.
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I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to say all the things that we say all the
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We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you.
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We're going coast to coast and do something really important, which is to say what's true
00:24:38.880
I really now more than ever would love to see you all face-to-face.
00:24:49.640
I am doing this tour and I would love for you to join me.
00:25:00.740
Because there's been, I'll say, I just gave my own complaint on it.
00:25:03.960
And you saw the New York Times movie critic resigned two years ago saying, I can't, I can't,
00:25:08.760
I can't with just like the nonstop action hero movies.
00:25:15.660
I miss like real crescendos and decrescendos and plots that expose human frailty.
00:25:22.840
And you and I grew up at exactly the same time.
00:25:25.040
I know you know what he's talking about and what I'm talking about.
00:25:29.060
I've heard Matt Damon do a riff on this, suggesting the way the studio system's set up now.
00:25:37.260
As we're going into streaming, like I've got this, I've got a film coming out the Lost bus.
00:25:41.320
Is there anybody that can go and pick these kids up?
00:25:55.160
It is a film built for the big theater, for the big screen.
00:25:59.200
We have a two week run, limited screens in LA, New York and London before we stream straight to Apple+.
00:26:07.920
And I feel like the streamers want to go, let's forget even the two week theatrical release.
00:26:14.020
Now, the problem with that is that you've seen it.
00:26:17.640
You go on one of these streamers and you see this catalog of films.
00:26:21.460
I don't know about you, but I'm like, when did they make that?
00:26:27.840
So everything's kind of dropped down to a low common denominator in a library.
00:26:31.780
So there's no exclusivity that you get of a precious, oh, it's come out in the theater.
00:26:36.780
Oh, if we want to see that actor or actress or director of film, we have to go out on Friday night when it opens and see it.
00:26:48.120
What's also happening is in this abbreviated attention span capacity that we talk about that people have, what studios are first cutting is the first acts of films.
00:27:01.680
Now, the first act is where you set up the world for the viewer that tells you, you may know where this story goes, but you've never been there with me.
00:27:12.500
But the conflict that starts in act two, which is usually on page 38, now is on page 11.
00:27:19.320
It's like, start it, meet you, hi, know what you do, bam, conflict, let's get on with it.
00:27:23.780
No one wants to wait around or the studios don't believe they want to wait around for an interesting first act.
00:27:29.040
It's what was so pleasurable about doing True Detective.
00:27:34.060
Why don't you do your own fucking legwork, you rat fuck?
00:27:50.620
For three and a half hours, I get a first act, which is an actor's dream because that's where I get to go, here's how you could go on this journey with me that you've never been in or this relationship that I have with Marty Hart.
00:28:01.600
And I hope we don't keep abbreviating getting to know characters and relationships that are specific and original because if we do, everything's just going to feel like somewhat the same movie.
00:28:13.120
I can relate to this, believe it or not, just going from cable news to podcasting.
00:28:17.800
It's much the same in that only like the reverse, right?
00:28:21.020
Because the cable news, you've got to get up and down on it quickly and move on.
00:28:23.820
There's no chance to establish the character's background or fall in love with them or what have you.
00:28:28.720
You've just got to get, you know, what's the news?
00:28:30.860
Whereas in podcasting, you can build the story.
00:28:33.800
You can help the audience get to know this character before you zero in on really why they're here.
00:28:42.740
I mean, and I didn't learn this for 10 years from doing press for a film or a book.
00:28:49.660
I remember the first time I went on, like, Leno, you know, you get four minutes up there.
00:28:54.220
And I want to go, well, you know, the thing, you're already, uh-uh, zap.
00:29:01.640
So you learn, you pick your spots about what's my message, what's my window, how do I hit it?
00:29:06.460
But for people that are interested in stories, I want to, I don't ever want to lose the longer format.
00:29:13.080
And will there be a rebellion back to people going, I don't want a short snippet.
00:29:23.540
They can drive it and listen to it or watch it.
00:29:25.540
Yes, they're consuming information differently, which I think will lead to a desire for more meaningful conversations.
00:29:32.560
I just think it's, that's why these other models are, they have limited shelf lives.
00:29:36.600
And no offense to these superhero action movies because there's definitely an audience for those.
00:29:41.440
But longer form storytelling is still an art form that many of us thirst for and would absolutely consume with, you know, a lot of dollars.
00:29:49.040
Now in The Lost Bus, you have an interesting situation because you have your son, your son, Levi, is starring in it, 17 years old.
00:29:58.900
And I've actually, so I'm kind of drafting behind you on the childhood front because my kids are almost your kids' ages.
00:30:08.040
And now that they're getting to be like real humans, you know, like we're, they're on the cusp of adulthood.
00:30:14.760
I've asked myself this question about nepotism, the nepo baby.
00:30:19.100
And, you know, when you're the mother of a kid who's, you know, through no fault of their own is born to you and you might be a public figure, it's hard to call it that.
00:30:27.920
You know, as opposed to like, well, if my kid wanted my help getting into my industry, I'd probably give him an open door and then let him take it.
00:30:38.300
Yeah, and that nepotism question is a really good one because I don't want my kids to ever feel entitled.
00:30:46.560
At the same time, do I believe with people in my own life, outside of my family, that if you want to know where the arrow is going, look at where it was shot from.
00:30:58.060
My son, as I pitch films that I'm in to my family all the time, my son comes to me and he, I knew that there was a role as a young boy to play my son.
00:31:08.580
I said, he actually, he's about 13, 14, which was Levi's age at the time.
00:31:13.000
And I was like, hmm, kind of just straight faced him and walked off.
00:31:18.960
If it was just a whim or what he comes up four more times over the next week.
00:31:26.660
Let me tell you what this acting thing's about.
00:31:28.300
This is not just a little, hey, hey, what if, hey, I'm going to teach you something about this.
00:31:32.800
You got to revere this craft and you got to work at it.
00:31:45.920
I sent it to the casting director and I said, Francine, I think it's maybe good enough for callback.
00:31:51.840
And she wrote back and said, I think it's good enough to send to the director.
00:31:59.720
Because I just don't want it preceding, you know, anyone's opinion to help or to help or anything.
00:32:09.880
Hey, you know, kind of, hey, it's playing my son.
00:32:12.400
If you do me a favor, I would not make that call.
00:32:17.160
But once you get in the door, son, daughter, you go handle.
00:32:21.480
I had access to get his read to the cast director.
00:32:24.020
Well, the director sees it and says, that's the kid.
00:32:25.880
She goes, well, that happens to be Matthew's son.
00:32:29.540
So he got the role, which makes, I'm very proud of.
00:32:33.260
And he did it on his own merit and his own talent.
00:32:35.040
Okay, but now let me ask you about part two, part two.
00:32:41.380
And now I think at this point in the process, I haven't yet gotten there.
00:32:45.620
None of my kids have said they want to go to media.
00:32:49.260
I think I'd be living in terror of bad reviews, of nasty internet trolls.
00:32:56.000
It's one thing when they come for us, who cares?
00:32:59.720
I mean, that's the kind of thing I might toss and turn over at night.
00:33:08.080
I said, your last name is going to get you praise in places maybe you didn't deserve it.
00:33:14.020
It's also going to get you slammed in places you don't deserve it.
00:33:19.320
If you want to get into this, I'm not saying you got to have thick skin,
00:33:25.100
Knives are going to come at you, whether you deserve them or not.
00:33:29.940
So if you love doing the craft enough and you're good at it, you stick your, put your
00:33:34.980
And the rest of that, you've got to have thick skin about because that's going to happen.
00:33:43.500
Listen, I, I, in, in the book you write in poems and prayers, you write, I wrote it down.
00:33:48.340
Your number one job is helping your kids become who they are, not who you want them to be.
00:34:01.460
And you've come to the same realization that Doug and I have, which is that DNA thing has
00:34:10.100
And we just kind of fool ourselves that we're the big maestros about where it's going.
00:34:15.260
But that was the biggest surprise to me about having children.
00:34:18.420
I thought it was 90, 10 environment culture to DNA.
00:34:22.080
And all of a sudden I was like, oh, it's closer to the opposite.
00:34:27.800
But that's, I mean, I would imagine, especially in Hollywood, that's not a lesson everybody
00:34:33.260
understands, you know, because it's a very hard charging, granted me to dump on Hollywood
00:34:37.920
nonstop, though, I'll be honest, my audience can't stand Hollywood.
00:34:41.240
But it's a very hard charging group of people that have made it in a very competitive industry,
00:34:50.560
But then you have a kid and everybody out there is probably facing a similar challenge,
00:34:56.940
which is how do I maintain my kid's competitive drive, notwithstanding the fact that they've
00:35:03.240
been born into a life of luxury and privilege, et cetera, right?
00:35:08.960
I think too many parents would default to, I'll make him a killer, as opposed to, I will sit
00:35:15.020
back and figure out, like, let him figure out whether he wants to be a killer.
00:35:22.840
I mean, it's, it's, there's a lot of parents, and you probably know them as well, that for
00:35:28.780
my money, I think become or want to be friends with their children when they need to be parents
00:35:35.400
And that friend to their children is sometimes a bit of that do over.
00:35:39.220
Or, hey, maybe you can pick up where I left off and become a better version of me, which
00:35:43.340
is, that's not what a child's asking for early on.
00:35:51.800
I think that kids want us to be a parent to them early.
00:36:00.620
I mean, I know you're married to a Brazilian woman, and I have a lot of Brazilian friends.
00:36:04.200
I know they tend to like a more traditional man, and you're from Texas, so I kind of feel
00:36:12.420
Well, look, I'm more, I go, I call it, and this is not a political term, but I call it
00:36:18.740
I want my kids to know how to block and tackle, know your manners and graces and arithmetic
00:36:23.300
and respect before we're going to go fly our freak flag and say, whatever.
00:36:31.320
I want them to learn who they are and who they are not in life before they're going
00:36:39.500
Now, you can create whoever it is you want to be, but let's have a foundation that we
00:36:44.680
understand about how we act and how we treat ourselves and each other before we go off
00:36:49.520
into, you know, la-la land of dreams and creation.
00:36:53.380
Again, how I grew up, learned to deal before I learned to dream.
00:37:01.620
I also believe that sometimes as I'm learning right now, I did not know, Megan, that I always
00:37:06.860
thought you went from father to later on a friend.
00:37:09.500
And I did not know that there's a bridge in the middle there called big brother as a
00:37:13.940
And I'm able to be a big brother, especially now that my kids are teens.
00:37:17.420
And I can kind of put my hand on their back and maybe not judge them as quickly and go,
00:37:22.420
Let me tell you this story about when I was in high school.
00:37:24.760
And the other great thing about teenage kids is I don't have to edit my good stories as
00:37:32.240
Now, which period of your life are the best stories from?
00:37:36.900
Oh, I mean, I've got some starting back from when I was eight.
00:37:43.420
I think the best stories were probably, oh man, every decade had a great story.
00:37:47.700
I would say I could pick them out all over the place.
00:37:50.760
There's things I look back at that I did when I was younger that makes me happy to
00:37:57.880
But there's been some great stories, which I cataloged along the way and mostly in
00:38:05.180
I think there's been some pretty good stories along the way.
00:38:10.320
You've outlined it, leaving Hollywood and saying, I'm just going to do it differently.
00:38:14.740
But your life philosophy does not, as reflected in poems and prayers, does not seem to favor
00:38:19.900
It seems to favor, take the big risks and don't die in your bed saying, I never got
00:38:28.520
Well, that's a constant thing to measure, isn't it?
00:38:33.540
Because especially after getting successful, having a family, things that I've built that
00:38:38.360
I want to maintain that I'm not going to be foolish with.
00:38:42.420
At the same time, I don't want to get complacent and safe and go, okay, this is it.
00:38:47.980
Everyone just huddle up, put your, you know, keep everything else out.
00:38:53.140
And that's also, you know, something that I know women, I'm sure they do too, but men
00:38:58.060
go through in middle age, you're at the bottom of the horseshoe.
00:39:02.140
How do we still take a chance with the, take the right kind of risk?
00:39:05.860
And I still want to take the right kind of risk, but I don't want to be foolish with
00:39:08.860
what I've built because some of the stuff I've built is non-negotiably going to be on
00:39:12.100
my table and in my life until I leave this one.
00:39:15.680
You know, I have that passage in poems and prayers.
00:39:18.680
I'm curious, you know, if, if, if, if, if it's God happier, if we take eight major risk
00:39:24.880
in life and pull off seven of them, or is he happy when we take a hundred risk and pull
00:39:28.580
off eight, you know, it's like the little bit of that, you don't want you coming back
00:39:35.080
I think he's saying if you didn't take enough risk, if you did, maybe, maybe that's the
00:39:43.140
And if you didn't, it's, it's, it's, you know, the sin comes from an archery term to
00:39:51.460
That's what the word sin comes from, to miss the mark.
00:39:56.180
And I don't want to quit taking the chances to miss the mark.
00:39:59.320
I want to make, I want to hit the mark, but don't want to go out going, well, I never shot.
00:40:02.760
But it's even harder when you've reached your level of success, because now you do have
00:40:08.460
So, you know, to keep challenging yourself, to keep making yourself go out there and take
00:40:15.060
It's one thing when you're up and coming, it's like, what the hell?
00:40:17.400
Or even when you're on the middle of the ladder, but when you're at the top of the ladder with
00:40:20.740
all the things, a lot of people would say, I'm going to stay.
00:40:30.520
Look, I've been told by many people that are close to me that my biggest asset is that
00:40:36.840
I also think that that's what I need to take more of, that I don't take enough.
00:40:43.500
What could that look like for Matthew McConaughey at 55?
00:40:45.980
Um, putting my cards on the table of who I am in this big movie that I'm living, that
00:40:54.120
was, action was called The Day I Was Born and cut's called The Day I'm Leaving This Life.
00:40:57.620
The documentary that I'm living, that we're all living, putting it on and going, and it's
00:41:01.720
what I'm doing a bit up now and I still have a ways to go.
00:41:04.200
I'm creating characters that I believe in and want to play in my own life and saying, what
00:41:15.920
What do you, why do you have to go off to do someone else that something else, someone
00:41:19.040
that something else wrote and is directing and is cinematographer and then editing?
00:41:29.600
That's what I'm pressing myself on for the, mainly for the last six years more so, um,
00:41:36.440
And I hope I'll continue to press on myself to do that.
00:41:40.320
That leads me to one of my favorite pieces in the book, uh, which is on page 77, it's
00:41:49.900
There's a difference between a good man and a nice guy.
00:41:55.140
And when those beliefs are contested, a good man is not a nice guy.
00:42:02.520
Can you talk about how you came to that realization?
00:42:07.900
So, you know, I, I, part of it, I think the best example would be around that time I was
00:42:17.200
You know, those were, those are nice guy roles.
00:42:26.400
They're nice guy roles and nothing wrong with that.
00:42:32.860
I was ready to stand up for things that I believed in and stand against things I didn't
00:42:37.300
And I wanted to also find roles that I could do that in.
00:42:40.920
That's when I started becoming more of a good man.
00:42:44.280
And that does, that means you're going to run into conflicts.
00:42:46.760
That means you're going to have to go against the masses at certain times.
00:42:50.860
That means you're going to have to lead when you'd rather just sit back and watch sometimes.
00:42:54.480
Um, that means you're going to have to run towards crisis instead of away from it.
00:42:58.120
Sometimes that means you're not going to be proper.
00:43:00.160
That means you're going to receive the, the, the blades in the back and, and, and it's okay.
00:43:04.700
If you, it's easier to, I know for me, when my faith is stronger because I can slough those
00:43:10.400
things off because I'm going, no, no, no, I'm playing an immortal game here.
00:43:18.380
Um, so to have the courage to do that and what you stand for and don't stand for.
00:43:22.560
And I always like to say this to people that are, as we're finding ourselves, especially
00:43:26.460
young people, it's harder to say, oh, who am I and what do I want to do?
00:43:31.820
It's easier to go, well, let's define who I'm not and what I don't want to do and eliminate
00:43:36.600
those people, places, and things and habits that we have in our life that are not paying us
00:43:42.760
And by sheer mathematics, you'll have more things in front of us that do feed us.
00:43:46.640
And hey, we all got good wolves and bad wolves in us.
00:43:51.920
I'm trying to do my best to feed the good wolf, knowing that the bad wolf's still hungry.
00:43:57.040
Speaking of the wolves, the wolf of Wall Street, how fun was that role?
00:44:05.160
Mr. Hunter, what can I bring for you on this glorious afternoon?
00:44:09.900
You're going to bring us two absolute martinis.
00:44:14.680
And then precisely seven and one half minutes after that, you're going to bring us two more.
00:44:18.860
Then two more after that every five minutes until one of us passes the fuck out.
00:44:43.640
I always I still get nervous no matter what I'm doing.
00:44:47.920
I want I want to want I don't want to lose a butterfly yet.
00:44:53.120
And one of the things I do, not only on that show, but on all shows is before I'll do a scene.
00:44:58.220
You know, I'll start banging my chest and find some sort of tune and I'll hum it out and everything.
00:45:12.980
Well, I was doing that before the scene with Leonardo and Wolf of Wall Street.
00:45:17.720
But then as soon as we go action, I'd stop and we do the scene.
00:45:32.100
He goes, what's that thing you're doing before every take?
00:45:34.200
And I told him what I just told you to relax and get my voice down and everything.
00:45:41.260
And the next take is the one you see in the movie.
00:46:06.100
I mean, like it's not, it's not every guy who can do both the how to lose a guy in 10 days,
00:46:10.460
that scene in Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and True Detective, right?
00:46:15.620
And speaking of True Detective, I got to ask, who is your best friend in Hollywood?
00:46:24.080
Woody has been a great friend of mine for a long time.
00:46:30.880
Anybody who's spent time with Woody, he's one of the last wild men, a perpetual eight-year-old,
00:46:36.420
And I mean, he can frustrate the heck out of you.
00:46:41.420
He may show up barefoot three days late to your wedding, but you can't get mad at him
00:46:44.960
because if you showed up a week late for his wedding, he don't care.
00:46:48.140
So, so Woody always like to say, hey, even if you're going to the Oscars, it's probably
00:46:54.560
I can't imagine like the cast of characters that has been in and out of your life.
00:47:01.440
I wondered though, like thinking about, yes, who do you hang out with as friends?
00:47:05.940
Like, are you friends with the Hollywood people or no, you're friends with the Texas people?
00:47:10.180
I've got some, I've made some very good friends in Hollywood.
00:47:12.740
I mean, but also some friends that I'm still friends with people that I was friends with
00:47:19.660
I've made, I'm still friends with my buddy Cole Hauser was just in town.
00:47:25.900
He's having a great time now, career-wise with his role as Rip and in Yellowstone.
00:47:34.900
I still talk to Rory Cochran, who I met on Days Confused.
00:47:37.800
And these are all friends of mine who are actors that I met in 1992.
00:47:41.580
Cole Hauser was also in Good Will Hunting, which is like crazy that that was him.
00:47:47.920
Yeah, young Cole Kinney with his short red fro.
00:47:51.900
So I made friends along the way and met some wonderful people in Hollywood as well.
00:48:00.380
Is there anyone in Hollywood who you really admire, like whose values you admire?
00:48:04.940
I'm sure you admire the work of many people, but like, is there somebody who's living in
00:48:09.000
a way that you think, yeah, that's hashtag goals right there?
00:48:12.820
Well, I always looked up to the way Paul Newman led his life.
00:48:17.260
As a talented actor on screen, married to Joanne all that time, the only marriage throughout.
00:48:25.240
The way he was able to be completely in the spotlight, but also live his own life.
00:48:33.600
And like you, also then gave a bunch of time and money to charity.
00:48:39.360
Gave over $100 million to charity, thanks to Paul Newman and Rand.
00:48:44.120
And made that, that was a part of his life that was on his proverbial desk every Monday
00:48:53.400
You know, people always go, yeah, but you've succeeded.
00:48:56.120
I don't, I don't, I think that's an easy place to go.
00:49:00.040
If you've got the chance, you have the choice and the ability, but choices give us a lot
00:49:05.900
more ownership than saying, oh, it's his responsibility.
00:49:13.060
You know, I learned something though, from some people and I won't say their names.
00:49:21.100
And this is when we first had, Camilla and I first had children.
00:49:26.380
And I said to them, Hey, you know, you go on the road, you go to on set for three months,
00:49:33.260
Do you, do you, do you take your family and your kids with you?
00:49:35.280
And they said this version of this, look, it's either their friends or their dad.
00:49:40.700
And all of them that I talked to said they chose to let their kids stay back and they
00:49:46.180
have their lives in their schools and have, be with their friends and not come to work
00:49:52.040
And all of them said, if I could do it again, I'd have made them come with and choose to
00:50:01.220
And so when Camilla and I had kids before she pulled the goalie, she said, if we're going
00:50:10.900
And so it's been a real privilege for me as a father and a husband and the head of the
00:50:18.220
family that anytime I go to work, the family comes with.
00:50:23.880
And that's been a major sacrifice for Camilla, but one that she would openly say, it reaps
00:50:35.960
And you're seeing this with your kids getting older.
00:50:40.380
They have social sort of circles and rhythms and teams.
00:50:45.460
And I don't know what I'm going to do the next time.
00:50:48.100
You know, this last one, I just did what I could to get it to shoot in my hometown of
00:50:51.540
Austin because I didn't want to take them away.
00:50:54.840
More of the kids need to go into the next movie.
00:50:57.560
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And it's like the other thing is as they get more into the teenage years, the friends
00:54:23.420
And I was told by a very smart guy, do not, do not, Dr. Leonard Sachs, do not bring kids'
00:54:32.520
The family vacations, the family outings are for you, for you five, not for you five plus
00:54:38.620
If you bring the friend, your kid's going to be talking to the friend at dinner and at
00:54:45.320
But now as they get older and the friends, but I'm going to, I'm going to hold to it.
00:54:55.940
Look, it was first day of NFL football Sunday and Austin FC, our local soccer team, another
00:55:10.960
And soon as we turned it off, you can tell that it wasn't like anyone was missing out that
00:55:15.460
much, but all of a sudden we had an hour and a half where it was just us, the five of us.
00:55:21.880
And we caught up on everyone on the last week and everyone started swapping stories about
00:55:28.680
And it wouldn't happen unless we turned that tube off.
00:55:32.120
We had, we, we had a blackout on Saturday here where we live.
00:55:37.060
It was like a monsoon that just came and parked over our neighborhood.
00:55:39.700
And, um, it was great because, well, what happened was all the power went out and I
00:55:56.600
But I mean, like, it's like being an actor, like you're the understudy on a Broadway show
00:56:05.000
Anyway, we sat, we wound up playing a trivial pursuit with the kids.
00:56:11.480
You know, it's like, you don't, you don't do that, that, that often anymore.
00:56:17.260
Demi, if you heard this, I don't know what you do with your kids in social media.
00:56:20.740
Um, and we don't, we've allowed Levi when he turned 15 to dabble on the grams and such
00:56:26.020
and the other kids not yet, but all their friends have it.
00:56:31.860
The TikToks and Instagrams and everything, but I've talked to them and their friends and
00:56:37.200
I've said, so if you could choose, if socials were just not available to anyone or it is
00:56:49.820
Every kid, even the ones that have the TikTok was like, oh, if I have to be on it, but if
00:56:59.940
They'd all say, I mean, I have to, I feel like I have to be on it to stay socially current,
00:57:03.820
but if it was an option for it not to be available, oh, please.
00:57:09.700
Look, I mean, like, look how we were in the seventies and the eighties.
00:57:13.860
Like you ran around, your parents didn't know where you were.
00:57:17.560
You had to come home when the streetlight went on.
00:57:20.000
You didn't have to worry about, and bullying was like the old fashioned style.
00:57:24.300
If it didn't happen while you're in school, it wasn't going to happen.
00:57:27.040
They couldn't get you at all hours of the day, you know, like on the little device that's
00:57:31.160
It's very complicated for these kids, but I do think they get more sophisticated earlier
00:57:35.760
and they're going to need these skills at some point to navigate the future that's coming.
00:57:42.860
It's like, we're a bunch of dinosaurs, our generation.
00:57:45.320
I know I'm trying to navigate not being a dinosaur, but still holding on to the traditional
00:57:54.160
You're still thinking about like values, right?
00:57:56.260
You're writing about values and existential thoughts.
00:57:58.880
I don't think those are going to go out of style.
00:58:02.340
And I think we need to fight for them because I think they stand the test of time of any weather.
00:58:06.860
And then when I hear these AI sort of atheists say that, oh, AI doesn't need to be what's
00:58:12.800
It's just the next link in evolution and we'll create machines and a digital God that'll
00:58:19.020
I'm like, I'm not ready to go there yet either.
00:58:22.240
Well, I mean, it's got to be scary as an actor.
00:58:24.560
You know, Justine Bateman has come on the show talking about how dangerous it is to the
00:58:29.060
whole acting industry that these roles, I mean, and even your voice could be repeated
00:58:38.820
You know, I could be like, and Matthew McConaughey is the new voice of the Megyn Kelly show.
00:58:47.880
You know, I've been one of the earlier ones to trademark and patent my voice and likeness
00:58:56.260
And we'll see where that holds up if and when it needs to.
00:59:00.240
But it is something that is scary because we're not that far from someone being in India
00:59:09.720
tonight and saying, well, I want Megyn Kelly and Matthew McConaughey here.
00:59:19.720
And we're going to hologram them in right here.
00:59:25.700
There's some wonderful things that you can do with it.
00:59:27.920
With speaking, I'm doing it with the newsletter, speaking, trading it in different languages
00:59:34.940
It's my voice reading in Spanish and Portuguese and French.
00:59:40.180
So there's wonderful things to be done with it.
00:59:48.540
I think we might have, we'll probably transition over to the other world with our dads.
00:59:56.160
So like, we have to worry about it a little, but I think they're smart enough to handle it.
01:00:01.600
What do you think if you, your children, forgetting what they're in, what they like right now,
01:00:10.160
but if they were going to college, what degree do you think, in a university, do you think
01:00:15.900
would prepare them for what's going to be most necessary in the job market later?
01:00:23.160
I mean, really, frankly, they don't need to go to college.
01:00:26.300
It's an additional four years where you can mature a little and have a good time and home
01:00:32.340
But in my view, it's not about learning or preparing for life, unless you're going to
01:00:35.840
med school where you actually do have to learn a few things.
01:00:40.760
So I'd just say, get a classic, you know, liberal arts education, like all the sciences
01:00:49.060
Thanks to AI, um, like math and science are being quickly taken over by the computers.
01:00:55.060
So, yeah, so I almost feel like the dreamers are becoming more and more important.
01:01:03.100
Don't, don't overwhelm yourself with like too much dogma from anybody in particular and
01:01:10.320
That's what you're going to need on the back end of those four years.
01:01:12.340
But I think you can learn whatever you want to learn in college on the internet.
01:01:15.700
You can learn it from this conversation, from podcasts, whatever.
01:01:20.680
I think it's about like maintaining your integrity, learn how to be a good person.
01:01:27.400
Learn the skills that'll make you an actual leader who can make good decisions in tough
01:01:30.720
situations, no matter what they are, as opposed to like this formula or that.
01:01:40.060
And also who, who the hell knows where it's going to go.
01:01:42.660
So, so why waste too much time thinking about it?
01:01:46.020
This is you on page 44 of Palms and Prayers, the latest book by Matthew McConaughey, which
01:01:53.300
It's actually make a great present in particular.
01:01:55.580
I think this would be a very nice gift for somebody around Christmas time.
01:02:28.680
Covet nothing, but your superior self is exactly, I mean, you could read nothing other than
01:02:33.220
that line on page 44, and you would be a better person if you could just remind yourself of
01:02:39.960
I always say this, the, this is actually from Dr. Phil, but it's a great saying.
01:02:44.880
The only difference between you and someone you envy is you settled for less.
01:02:49.200
So when you covet, when you feel envy, when you look at somebody's life and you say, oh,
01:02:57.720
It's a tell to you to focus back on what is it about me I'm unhappy with and how can I
01:03:12.860
Well, so, so much of our consumerism and all those social feeds that our kids are inundated
01:03:25.900
with are all about comparison and not living up to and coveting something that someone else
01:03:32.620
has because they're telling you it's the right way or more popular or what.
01:03:39.140
So I think to teach that there's, it's all mark.
01:03:46.300
Just can you read through and ask yourself, what do I really want?
01:03:55.800
Again, I don't know if you can teach anyone out of it now, but can you have someone deal?
01:04:02.920
Have you, can you help children deal with the foundation of who they are so they're not
01:04:08.020
getting schooled so they can use that tool and these tools to do the schooling?
01:04:18.100
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't let that, that game become your business because then
01:04:22.720
you're just going to get dizzy and it changes so quickly and you look back and all your friends
01:04:26.280
you thought you had and everything you thought you could rely on is poof.
01:04:29.800
So if you can sit there and go, okay, cause I don't want to say, don't ever go on social
01:04:37.980
We got to educate ourselves here, but let's read through the BS here and see that the algorithm
01:04:44.760
At your, at your expense, know that it's a game.
01:04:48.460
Just know that to tell my, we try to tell our children that.
01:04:52.100
And so just to be aware that no, that's not real.
01:04:56.080
There's, there's an algorithm selling that and putting in front of you what it, what
01:05:00.420
it thinks you want because of your traffic and your history of where you've already been
01:05:10.780
So you have a good handle on these problems and societal ills.
01:05:16.140
And the, you of July of 2024 considered doing something about it in the form of possibly
01:05:25.860
Your team did not want me to get into politics, but I just wanted to finish with who exactly
01:05:29.640
did you vote for in the 2024 presidential election and what?
01:05:35.360
But is politics potentially still part of your future, your story?
01:05:44.560
It's something, look, I've, I've, to the last six years been studying different categories
01:05:48.440
of where I could be most useful, where I could, what, what leadership roles am I equipped
01:05:58.440
I'm more of a poet philosopher and I'm, I'm dealing with values here, which I believe
01:06:03.240
and belief, which I believe are true progress above the political sphere of left and right
01:06:13.380
I am aware that the issues matter, that politics and legislation all matters.
01:06:19.520
So I have not canceled it out, but I've given it and still will continue to give it some
01:06:28.860
That's a, that's the right place where I can be the most useful, but I'm not going to
01:06:36.820
I'm, I'm, I'm, I will get in deep enough where if I'm in it, I'll look up and I won't
01:06:41.840
It'll be, it'll, it'll just, I'll just be there.
01:06:45.940
But, you know, it's a very conscientious headspace to ask yourself.
01:06:50.260
And I think it's something important if we all to ask her, what if I was the leader of
01:06:57.940
So could you, you call yourself on some of your bullshit, go, what decision would I make?
01:07:01.360
What are my own beliefs and where do they transfer to what I would believe for the masses?
01:07:07.180
Now, we all know in politics, they're not all doing what they believe, but they're doing.
01:07:13.740
And I would not want to go, uh, be in anything where I would need to betray myself.
01:07:19.620
And there's a lot of betrayal that comes with inherently in politics.
01:07:22.520
And, um, I, I, I, I, I work hard enough to try and get a good night's sleep, trying to
01:07:28.580
win the fair games, um, and fair fights, which are already hard to win.
01:07:32.740
And so for right now, I got my three kids want to get them out of the house as healthy
01:07:37.420
And hopefully as much individuals as they are possible.
01:07:40.080
And then when that opens up after me being, uh, uh, on, on site father that I am and try
01:07:46.680
to be, I will be open to considering what my next avenues are.
01:07:51.960
I I've said about president Trump, you know, he's under a lot of pressure when it comes
01:07:57.140
to his foreign policy decisions in particular from different factions.
01:08:00.260
And I've said repeatedly on the air on something like that, whether you, whether you're going
01:08:04.620
to add to a war and the weaponry of it, whether you're going to start a war, whether you're
01:08:09.360
going to push to, you know, end one, start one, he has to come to his own decision like
01:08:16.480
And he knows that whoever the president is, they deserve a wide berth in coming to their
01:08:22.000
own decision about what to do, because it's easy for you or me or anybody else sitting
01:08:27.280
in their armchair to say, this is how it should be.
01:08:29.580
We're not actually going to be responsible for ending lives.
01:08:32.460
Like the president, those calls massively in those calls, correct me if I'm wrong.
01:08:37.200
Those are the president's soul calls, 4 a.m. by yourself in solitude calls, are they not?
01:08:51.400
And what may help you is this book, Poems and Prayers by Matthew McConaughey, which will
01:08:57.300
rejigger your headspace around your life, what matters in it, and what your daily approach
01:09:04.040
to it should be, as you say, playing this long game, starring in your own movie that
01:09:18.200
I wish you all the best with this, with The Lost Bus, the movie with your son, and with
01:09:39.100
We're very excited to see her, and we'll see all of you then, too.