October 20, 2025 • 38 mins
Buckle up, today we're getting philosophical! Matthew McConaughey joins us for a vulnerable and reflective conversation that reaches far beyond the pages of his new book, Poems and Prayers. We unpack some of life’s most elusive questions—Why are we here? What does it mean to live well? McConaughey personally opens up about his evolving relationship with uncertainty, the power of reinvention, and how he learned to live in the in-between spaces—where identity shifts, purpose gets blurry, and the answers don’t come easy. This isn’t a conversation about having it all figured out. It’s about learning how to live fully, honestly, and in pursuit of something deeper.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today on the bright side, we're talking to the king
of reinvention. Matthew McConaughey is here spilling some truths you
haven't heard before, like what's hiding in his vault of
unreleased screenplays and what really happened in that Titanic audition.
Plus we'll dig into his new book and learn how
writing keeps him grounded.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I think part of the reason that I wanted to
write in the first place and put it into books was
that was really turned on by the challenge of Okay,
I can go perform script someone else wrote, someone else direct,
someone else lensed in the camera, someone else edited. What
if I can the words? Can I put words? Is
it possible put words on a page without my performance
(00:40):
that can paign a picture that someone goes, Oh, I
see myself in that character. I'm there, I know that
place similar in my own mind. That was the challenge
that I was testing myself on.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I'm simone voice, And this is the bright side from
Hello Sunshine. Matthew McConaughey has built a career on unforgettable performances,
but in our conversation today, I realize that some of
his truest work has actually happened on the page. Writing
has been part of his life since he was a kid,
and it's carried him through moments when he felt steady
(01:13):
and moments when he felt completely lost. From his decision
to walk away from romantic comedies to becoming a best
selling author, McConaughey has mastered writing his own story, and
what struck me most is the way that he weaves faith, integrity,
and risk into everything he does, and how willing he
is to embrace the uncertainty that comes with all of it.
(01:35):
His new book, Poems and Prayers offers an intimate glimpse
into the raw in between spaces between the big milestones
that have made him the father, husband, and superstar that
he is today. So let's get into it. Matthew McConaughey,
Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Good to see you some mom.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
There are so many things I would love to talk
to you about because you have such a fascinating career
in life, but I think I want to really arrow
in on how writing has influenced your life, because even
though you've built this celebrated career as an actor and
a producer, it seems like writing has kind of been
at the center of who you are from the beginning.
Like I read that you started writing when you were twelve.
(02:15):
How did writing expand your world at that point?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I think from you know that early on, up until
I was about twenty, writing was a place for me
to go with my confusions, with my questions when I
was lost, wobbly looking, as every child is, you know,
they're finding themselves. I was always intrigued with whether I
(02:41):
called it a riddle or whether it just needed a
place to put words down, to get them out of
my head and heart, which felt like, oh, if I
can put them on the page and read them, I
don't feel like the world's compressing down me. I've gotten
it out of my system. And then I went on
later in life to you know, continue in you to write,
to deal with what's the meaning of life? The big
(03:04):
why questions? Yeah, and then you learn some things and
it gets to be fun to go, oh, now I
can answer how, when, and where. That's a little more relaxing.
But then I also, you know, when we're in those
troubled times, I think we all feel like we're the
center of the universe and we're the only ones that
feel this way, and the world the galaxies, the universes
are all circling around us. Which is it true? Right?
(03:27):
So I was given a gift with a benedicting monk
friend of mine when I went to him in my
early twenties wrestling with a bunch of demons, and I
had a four hour monologue as we walked through the desert.
Then we stopped back at the chap after four hours
and he hadn't said a word. And finally I'm there
and I'm crying and I'm cleaning. It's not up my nose.
(03:49):
Man ready for him to go, Oh, you must pay
your penance, you know, And he didn't say that at all.
He sat there in silence and find I looked up
at him, and he looked him in the eyes with
his beautiful my own he goes me too, and I'm like, oh, oh,
thank you. And that's when I was like, oh, you
(04:09):
know what, this thing, we're all going through it in
different ways. It's all personal to each of us. But
that's just called life, and we're all trying to figure
stuff out and have less pain and more pleasure at
the same time hold ourselves accountable. And that's the cycle
of life. And to know that everyone was a part
of it at that time. Is something I think that
is a bit of amnesty for each one of us.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know absolutely. In your new book Poems and Prayers,
you have a poem from when you were eighteen, early
twenties living in Australia, actually strongly considering becoming a monk.
Like you said, what were those core beliefs you had
at eighteen that you were wrestling with on the page?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, at that time I was very lost, wildly and looking.
Had just come out of high school, and in my mind,
family at eighteen, you had freedom, which means hey, I
had made my grades. Mom and Dad were happy. My
car was paid for, I had a job, I had
cash in my pocket. I had a girlfriend and I
had golf clubs. I had a four handicap, I had
no curfew. I was rolling. You were cool, du it
(05:14):
was happening. Let's go Yeah, And I go to Australia
only exchange program. And I was supposed to be living
with this family on the outskirts of Sydney. It was
not the outskirts of Sydney. It was three hours away
in this little town of Warnerville, population three zero five.
And my rolling life came to a screaching halt. I
didn't have my car, I didn't have a girlfriend, I
(05:36):
didn't have a golf club, and I did have a curfew.
And this family I was with, I felt like I
was being a bit coveted. It felt like a bit
of an ornament. And I didn't have my friends, and
I didn't have my family, and I didn't have anyone
to bounce anything off of. So I began having the
soocratic dialogue with myself. I would write fourteen page letters
(05:59):
to myself and then return them a fifteen pager to
answer to myself. I mean, I don't wish it on anyone,
but it was also, in hindsight, a very healthy thing
because I was forced to be introspective. I'd left home
for the first time, and you know, when you leave home,
you get an objective view back at your life and
you see things that you didn't see when you were
(06:19):
the subject of it. I was calling bullshit on things,
calling bullshit on myself, on the world, the way people
treated each other, what was expected, what we were rewarded for.
And so I wrote that poem, and you know, when
I reread it, I could see I was very self
serious and I was very concerned with the ways of
the world and myself in it. But I also see
(06:43):
that I was like, you gave it. Damn you weren't
just coasting.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So I read your book Green Lights, and I've also
read this one. I want to know if you think
that this assessment is accurate. Green Lights seems like the stories,
the core memories that really defined you, and then this
book feels like the poems, the the songs, the little
scribbles in your journal that happened in between those moments.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yes, a lot of what's in this point in Prayers
are what sort of realigned me as I approached and
took chances and risk and made choices that I made
that I share in Greenlights. Perspectives of the man I
wanted to be was coming up short, being some guilts
and shames that turned into forgiving and grace and a
(07:28):
laugh sometimes where I let myself off the hook because
I needed to just go hey, man, you're human. Sometimes
where I was like, no, man, buck stops here. I'm
tired of you being a repeat offender and making excuses
for the same damn thing you keep missing your aim on.
I'm not putting it up with it anymore. Times where
I relied too much on fate, took my hands off
(07:48):
the wheel. Times where I was agnostic and just tab
my hands on the wheel and go. It's all about
self reliance. That's all life's about. It has nothing to
do with fate. We're all fully responsible for who we are. Well,
what I'm understanding where I think the truth is, is
that they're not contradictory my agnostic years where I went
off and did not believe in God and do not
(08:09):
rely on fate at all. My feeling was when I
came back two years later to my faith that God
was going, thank you for trying, Thank you for having
the belief that you could handle it all. Need more
like that. And I'm just finding that I think that
they're not contradictory, you know, seraph alliance and faith that
if you're a believer as I am, that God wants
(08:30):
our hands on the wheel.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Seems to me the magic of life is in the trying.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I think. So, I mean, just at least, bottom line,
you give a damn Yeah. Yeah, And I don't think
that's asking too much. I don't think that's too earnest.
My children told me something the other day, is there
is there something going on right now in a generation
that is against anything earnest or.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, what I'm hearing is that gen
Z and younger have this perpetual fear of being cringe.
And to me, cringe is the fear of being seen
as trying, being seen in the effort of doing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Something grave okay.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Like they find it embarrassing. And of course that's a
sweeping generalization, but I think the secret is really everything
you want is on the other side of cringe. You
got to put yourself out there.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I do see some of that. I think chasing ideals,
chasing your better self. Given a damn about how you
treat others, how they treat you, how much you can
believe in others, how much you can believe in yourself.
What are we doing here? Doesn't it all mean something?
I'm not ready to say it doesn't mean anything, And hell,
even if it doesn't, why not believe it does? Jeez,
the rewards are that much greater. I don't think that
(09:40):
is something that's ever going to go out of style
or should, and I don't know. I hear a lot
of young people looking for a compass, looking for a
north star to aspire to be to go. Life's not
just revolutions. I don't want to just go in circles,
I said, on the other side of cringe. I'll give
(10:02):
you a couple examples. You know where I think where
I started writing and how I started to find my
own sense of self. It was in times where and
I remember I was early college. I would be in
the theater watching the movie. I would laugh out loud
at something and no one else in the theater would laugh,
and then the whole theater would laugh, and I'd be like,
I don't think that's funny. I look at the mirror
(10:23):
and go, you weird McCaughey, and I was like, dude,
it doesn't harm anybody. Stick to it. Double down. Or
I'd go to a funeral and I wouldn't cry, but
the birth of a child or springtime, the beginning of something,
I would weep. People were going like, why are you
crying at birth and not death. I was like, I
don't know, is that weird? And I was like that, no,
(10:44):
stick to it, don't do that. I remember mustering up
the courage to go, don't shy away from that. Those
are cringe moments for me, and I was like, no, no,
go to the other side. And I think when we
have a cringe moment, if we go, if it doesn't
harm someone or harm ourselves, if we're not a hirant
or a nihilist with it, then believe in that more,
(11:04):
double down on that, triple down on it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
When you look back over your acting career, are there
cringe moves that you made that you can point to
that felt like they were outside of your comfort zone?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Sure? So early on I didn't feel like this is
a cringe move, but I had a lot of people
around me say you should be cringing. And it was
days confused. And then I did Texas Chainsaw Masker the
Deck's Next Generation, which was this great Carnye horror film
where I got a mechanical leg and d LA and
(11:39):
then all of a sudden, I do a Time to
Kill big studio movie Warner Brothers, Manna and Texas chain
so much hadn't come out yet, people like, hey, I
don't know if you want that movie coming out. That's
kind of low grade compared And I remember at that
time even being like, no, man, that's put that out.
That's fine. That was what I was doing. I mean,
(12:00):
I don't think we need to protect and so we did.
But I was kind of told maybe it should be
a cringe moment, and I remember going, I don't want
to be that overly conscious about my career to say, hey,
let's not show that one because it wasn't the best
production or maybe not your best performance. And I think
I could be accused of maybe being too open about that.
(12:22):
Through my career, I've been like, hey, man, I did it,
and I've seen things and I'm like, Okay, kind of
a bogey there, mcconne, but I'm like, all right, that's
where I was. It was part of how I got here,
which I think is something that I was consistent with
in Green Lights. I share a lot of cringe moments. Yeah,
that early on I did have heavy guilt and heavy
(12:43):
shame about But because I saw the cycle was cringe
moment success or cringe moment humility learned lesson success, I
was like, oh, right, you want to have the cringe moments.
Without the cringe moments, You're just staying in the safe
celle all the time, and we run from that idea
of failure when it should be I think more like, yeah, dude,
(13:04):
life's more like baseball. If you've got three point fifty.
You're in the Hall of fame. That means you didn't
get on base two out of three times. It's all right.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Without the cringe moments. How do you know who you
really are because you're not operating at the edges of
your abilities and your interests too? How would you know
that maybe that film was a detour from the artistic
persona you were presenting if you didn't actually go out
there and do it exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We don't have the most healthy relationship with what's considered failing.
I think it is it more American, I'm not sure,
maybe it's worldwide. I know I still work on it
because when things are successful or I'm doing well and
seem to be in a flow, I'm like, ah, so
this is how it's supposed to be and how it
will always be, and we know that's not true. But
(13:52):
I don't want to get in a safe place, which
can also happen when you've gotten successful, when you have
a family and you want to secure what you have
and you don't want to take you don't want to
put it at risk. And I agree, you don't want
to put certain things that you built at risk at
the same time, I don't want to get dusty and
be like, oh, everything's just safe, just in the safe zone,
(14:13):
like you said, don't test that edge oo. I mean,
because what's the big deal?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Ultimately, what's the big deal if you miss? Well?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I want to actually ask you about what seems like
a pivotal turning point in your career where you began
to take a lot more risks and you wrote a
poem about it in Poems and Prayers called Goodman, and
the note at the bottom of it says you wrote
this in the late nineties, just before you decided to
stop doing romantic comedies. When you think back to the
feelings behind that decision, what were you hoping people would
(14:43):
see in you that they weren't seeing already.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was a thing that I needed to share and
see with myself. It was a time in my life
when my life was extremely vital. I met the woman
I fell in love with, Camilla. She was now pregnant
with our first child. My ceiling in the basement of
my emotions, how much I loved, how much I hated,
how much I cried, how much I would have full
(15:08):
of joy. The ceiling and the basement were very high
and very deep and very wide. In the rom comms,
there's a very much compressed form of emotion. You can't
love too much and you can't get too angry because
you'll sink the ship. You got to bounce from cloud
to cloud. So while my life was extremely vital, I
(15:29):
felt like my work was sort of like, Okay, I'm
good with it, but I'm not able to express and
as much as I'm feeling. And because Hollywood was like,
stay in your lane, McConaughey, you can't. I want to
do dramas, Like you can't do these dramas. I don't
care how much a pay cut you're offering, just keep
doing the rom comms. I was like, Okay, if I
can't do what I want to do, I'm quit doing
what I've been doing. So came back down here to Texas.
(15:51):
Camilla was pregnant, which helped me have sort of a
rudder in the water of something to look forward to,
because all of a sudden I was not getting work,
getting offers or anything, and I didn't know how long
I was going to be in that desert of no work.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Was that scary for you at all?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Very scary, very scary? I remember, Okay, I'm gonna need
Where am I going to go for significance? Where I'm
I going to go for accomplishment? What am I doing?
And why is that bottle of my favorite spirit going
to start looking better and better earlier and earlier each day.
You know? So I had Camilla, I had my own spirit.
(16:27):
I had to looking forward to a newborn son, which
kept me in line, and I just said, I'm going
to endure it. But it did get to a point
where I was like, I remember talking to my agent,
Jim Toff, and I'm saying, like, I haven't heard your
name McConaughey in five months. And I was like, I
might have just wrote myself one way ticket out of Hollywood.
I got to think about other careers. So I'm starting
(16:47):
to go, maybe I need to go back to law school.
Oh I like to be Maybe I'll be a teacher.
I really started to thinking of other vocations. I wasn't
in the theaters in a rom com. I wasn't in
your living room in a little rom com. I wasn't
in People magazine shirtless on a beach. It's like, where
is he? What's he doing? And then abound that time,
I remember, and I think this really helped. I got
(17:08):
an offer for a rom com comedy role and it
was an eight million dollar offer, and I said, no,
thank you. They came back at ten million. I said no,
thank you. They came back at twelve million. I said no,
thank you. They came back at fourteen point five million,
and I said, let me read that script again. And
I went back and read it. It was the same
(17:29):
pages and same words as in the original offer, but
it was a better script. It was funnier. At that price.
I could see myself in it. Well, maybe it's work. Ultimately,
I said no thanks, I really feel like turning that down.
That there are some people in Hollywood that go, what's
McConaughey up.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
To, man, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not blushing.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He's up to something, you know what I mean. So
it wasn't all of a sudden McConaughey's just stepped out receding. Now,
McConaughey just turned down fourteen five milk for the script.
That's good and he's up to something. After about twenty months,
I guess I had been out of everyone's eyesight for
long enough that I got became a new good idea
(18:13):
for the dramas that I wanted to do, and those
offers came in and then I just jumped on ferociously.
But it was a scary time.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
More from Matthew McConaughey after this quick break. Okay, so
here is my question for you, McConaughey, because I know
you're a writer, and it seems like you're a writer. First,
before performing, I went through your IMDb credits and I
was shocked to find you only have one writing credit
for a screenplay. This is a short film called Rebel
(18:45):
from nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Why have you not written us as screenplay? Do you
have any secret screenplays that are just collecting dust on
a shelf over there? I do, what's going on with them?
Tell me about them?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well? One is about that year in Australia, which is
a black comedy. Another one is a children's fairy tale
about the greatest fisherman the world has never known, called
Curtis My Love, beautiful story. I sit down to try
and put some of these stories into script form, and
I don't know. I get to about page twelve and
(19:22):
the format just doesn't feed me. And maybe that's to
come because I think part of the reason that I
wanted to write in the first place and put it
into books was that was really turned on by the
challenge of Okay, I can go perform script that someone
else wrote, someone else directed, someone else lensed in the camera,
someone else edited. But what if I can put words?
Can I put words? Is it possible to put words
(19:44):
on a page without my performance? That can paint a
picture that someone goes, Oh, I see myself in that character.
I'm there, I know that place that's similar in my
own life. That was the challenge that I was testing
myself on. So maybe I'm wanting to secure that, you know,
with more just books before I go okay, cool, to
(20:08):
some extent pulled that off. Now, what if we write
something that I can also go perform? Now away lean
into performing these is when I do the audio books
I am performing, or like this book tour, I'm going
to go on with musicians and read poems and prayers.
So there's a bit of a performance, right, And maybe
that's me leaning out to go, Okay, let's take these
into forms of entertainment where I can be performative.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Do you maybe have a bit of an inner critic
that's keeping those screenplays from getting on the screen.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah. Probably, it's probably another confidence barrier that I've yet
to get over. For me, there's sometimes where I'm writing
it's like I don't know is it coming to me?
Or am I coming up.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
With it right?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I know that it's not as far from acting as
I thought it was, because I'm inherently playing every single
character that I'm writing for and their voice because I
know them, their voice is coming out of my hand.
It's all about if I get the first opening line,
I can just get that that's it, then the rest
of it will write itself. But sometimes if I wake
(21:12):
up at six am to write, I don't get that
first line. I don't get out of bed until two
thirty till I get that first line. And soon as
I got that first line, the rest of it go
and write itself.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But why not? Okay, so now we're debating writing tactics.
But why not move past the opening line and come
back to it because sometimes the opening is in the
middle or the end.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Well, sometimes I have done that. But if I know
I'm a turn of phrase or a word or an
order of alphabet word away and I'm on it. Oh,
I'm just on it. But that's not it. That's not
the word, that's not it, that's not And as soon
as I can hit it like there it is, there's
the meter. That's the music. And so I write very
musically like that. A lot of the poems are like
(21:54):
I woke up at two thirty in the morning with
a meter in my head. If you've done at a
time and time and if that sounded so, and then
I just kind of walked slowly to my laptop in
that meter, don't interrupt me with any other stimulus. And
then I did that to start writing, and all of
a sudden, I'll go three hours day, I'll look up
(22:16):
and there'll be twenty pages. I'll be like, oh, let's
have a look, and then go back and look and
hopefully some of it's salvageable, you know, and edit that back.
And a lot of times it'll come with a musical meter.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I think all of our brains have, you know, our
own distinct rhythm, and we gotta listen to it and
we gotta follow it. Okay, I'm making a deal with you, Matthew.
The next time we talk, whether it's Out of Red
Carpet or another podcast, or something I want to hear
about these screenplays the world meets Okay, screen Matthew McConaughey
screenplay Okay, yeah, okay. But pivoting now to talk about performing.
(22:48):
I mean, you have gone on to reinvent yourself time
and time again, and it has been such a joy
for us to watch. I mean, some fan favorite characters
come to mine, mud Ron Woodrowe and Dallas, Buyer's Club,
Joseph Cooper, An Interstellar, Russ Cole and True Detective. When
is the last time you felt truly seen as a performer?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Thankfully the last film I did Lost Bus, that comes
out in September and then October on ALP Plus streaming.
I'm happy to say this, and this is not me
dodging an answer. I'm happy to say this because this
is not always this way, but it has been for
the last twenty years. My favorite role the last twenty
(23:30):
years has always been the last one I did.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Ah. Why is that?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Because hopefully I get to that point and again, thankful
I have in the last twenty years. Each film I'm doing,
I'm like, even if this is the only one I
ever do or the last one I ever do, And
to get that feeling that every performer wants to get.
And again, I get it sometimes early, sometimes you're in production,
sometimes late. It's nice when I get it early. But
(23:55):
to get that feeling of I'm the only one that
could play this part, it's a beautiful sense of ownership.
You know, whether it's true or not. If it's true
to the performer, then it's true. But to get to
that point and believe in somebody and believe in yourself
enough to inhabit that character and live it from the
(24:15):
inside out and know them how they listen and see
and hear and feel from the bottom of their feet
to the top of their hairline is a beautiful feeling.
It's almost like a vacation, you know, to have a
singular understanding about how someone moves much more than what
their personal politics are, but how they move, how they listen.
(24:37):
But what are they saying in between the lines? What's
the subtext? What they mean? Even if it's never said,
and it doesn't always happen, but I'll take extensive notes
on scenes and character and what I'm hoping to get
out of a scene, what I want, what I need,
what the obstacle is, and maybe not one of those
words is said in the actual scene. But if a
director or an audience who comes up afterwards and says, oh,
(24:59):
this is what I got that, I'm like, oh, check
out my notes, this is what I wrote four years ago.
That's exactly what that is. Like, oh it translated. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, I've heard you talk about launchpad lines, like if
you can identify this one line of dialogue that holds
a character's DNA, then you can just run with it.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I think that's like that when I was saying that earlier.
If I can come up with that first line, that's
the launch pad.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What do you think is the launchpad line of your
own life story?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Oh wow, oh oh man, that's that's a big fun question.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I know that.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And I can give the simple one of just keep
living because like what else we're going to do, and
that group makes me in a spot of that life
is a verb, and just stay on the chase. You
never get there. There's no tada moment. There's no summit
that you get to the top of mentally, spiritually, or
otherwise that you go I did it. You may say that,
but you find out usally quickly you didn't.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
We've got to take a short break, but we'll be
right back with Matthew mccon And we're back with Matthew McConaughey.
I want to ask you about a Matthew McConaughey character
that almost came to be but didn't. This is a
fact check. This is something i've read online to run
by you because I want to go straight to the source.
I read that you turned down the role of Jack
(26:18):
in Titanic because you opted not to change your southern
accent rumor or true.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That's rumor. There was never any any discussion about an
accent or anything. I just didn't get the job. I
did think I had the job. I had a great
read with Kate Winslet and the producers and I think
it was Jim Cameron that's somewhere along the way, and
some pressure said something like yeah, McConaughey had the job,
but whatever didn't take it. I went to him. I
(26:45):
was like, let me know, Jim, I don't remember that
ever happening. I thought I had a job, but I
never got offered that job. Did you say that? And
we got that cleared up, and then I was also like,
because if I did, I need to call my agent
because they owed me a lot. Did they turn it
down for me? Because no, I never got offered that
to turn it down?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Now, was that hard to not get that job? Was
that something that you wanted really badly?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I mean I wanted it, but I mean there's plenty
of jobs out there that I wanted to get that
I didn't get. Plenty. I remember, I thought it was
a good audition, they say to think it was too
good enough that when I left there, I felt pretty
confident that maybe I'd landed it, but I didn't. So
now I think I turned that page pretty quickly. I
don't think I've had much regret over jobs that I
(27:30):
wanted that I didn't get. They all pinch, Yeah, it
sucks at the time.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We're all human.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Well, you mentioned when I asked you, what's the role
as a performer that made you feel the most scene recently?
And you brought up the Lost Bus And this one
is special because it also stars your mom Kay and
your son LEVI How surreal was that moment on set
realizing there were three generations of McConaughey's in the frame.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I think I'm still realizing it, and it hit me
again in a new way because we just went to
Toronto to the Toronto film Thessals the premier it, and
we brought my son, and we flew my mom with us,
and my mom ninety three and getting her dress and
going to the red carpet and seeing my mom and
my son and the three of us together and whether
(28:21):
it's taking pictures together kind of. I was thrown back
to that memory by going, this is a really special,
cool thing. At the time, I knew it was the
ideal and original situation that doesn't happen all the time.
But I think I'm still realizing how cool that is,
and I think I'll continue to as that movie goes
on to outlive me.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And then, were you nervous for your son at all?
As parents, we take on a lot of the emotions
of our kids.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, when he asked and yeah, I made a mask.
He came to me four times ask if he could
read for that part, and it wasn't util after the
fourth time. Then I went, all right, you really want to?
And then I said, here we go. Let's sit down
and talk about what this whole acting gig is and
here's his character, what's you want, where's he coming from?
What's a relationship. It's nothing like our relationship that I
have with my son in real life. But do you
(29:11):
know people like this, you ever felt this way? Well,
we had all this, guys, and then I put him
on camera, and when I saw him on camera, I
was like kids holding the frame and he's being honest,
and he's got an ability, he's got some instincts for this.
And then I sent the according to the casting director
I know, and I said, check this out. I think
it's not bad. I think it may be good enough
for a callback. And she said, actually, I think it's
(29:32):
good enough to send to the director. I said, well,
before you send it the director, can you pull the
last name off of it? So McConaughey names I'm leading right,
Oh interesting, And she did and called back and said
Paul saw it and said that's the kid, And she said,
I told him, do you know that's Matthew's son. He goes, no,
I didn't even better, and boom he was in. So
(29:53):
with my son. I said, look, once we get there
to the set and all this talk that we're having
and all this stuff, I'm hopefully trying to teach you, well,
once it's time to get there, you have to take ownership.
You don't need to be looking to me, it's not
the time you take ownership. You have to Every actor
has to do that on the day when it's time.
And I remember going to work that morning together. He
(30:15):
had a whole different vibe about him, kind of had
his shoulder closed to me a little bit and didn't
look at me. Got on the set, full conversations with
the director, not me, what any Hey dad, what do
you think? None of that nothing. And I sat back
as a proud dad watched and I was like, that's
speaginning of exactly what you need to do right there.
It was a problem moment to see that, see him
(30:37):
take that ownership.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's so cool. I'm so happy for you and your
family that you got to experience that. That's beautiful. I
want to wrap up by talking about faith with you.
So I am really fascinated by data on faith in America, Matthew.
It's something that I covered a lot as a journalist.
I would dig into trends surrounding religion and America, and
(31:01):
so I looked it up just before this interview, and
there are more religiously unaffiliated gen Zers than previous generations.
And yet research also shows that spirituality in America is growing.
So it seems like people are reaching for something they
want meaning and they believe in something that's bigger than them,
but maybe doesn't look as traditional or structured. Is perhaps
(31:24):
I grew up with it. Did you ever go through
periods of doubting your own faith?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I've had my agnostic years, too long spills when I
say long spills, like for a year or two even.
Part of the reason they've written this book is for
my own personal spiritual therapy. When I said, I caught
myself being little cynical, so caught myself living in a
little more doubt than I was comfortable with with my
own belief in God. And so writing this book, sharing
(31:53):
this book, touring with it. As much as I'm hoping
to connect with others or have them help them connect
with themselves, I'm up there to connect with me as well,
because I've been dealing with doubt. Everyone does. And to
shake hands with hey, that's part of the process. Again,
keep trying, don't do a fool's errand but keep trying.
(32:15):
You know one of the things about you know this
spirituality and religion and what the difference is in those two.
As a prescriptionist, I love the origin of words, and
I don't think we should, as they change over time,
just dismiss them. But religion. The word religion comes from
the Latin root of re and legare re lgare religion.
(32:40):
Legare means to bind together, re means again, to bind
together again. It's a beautiful definition and one I hope
we don't dismiss and throw out just when we say, oh,
I'm not religious. I don't believe in organized religion. I
(33:01):
think we need to be clear people kind. We did
our version of bastardizing the definition of religion. I think
religion is still pure and something to pursue. I think
everything I think life's religious, okay, And I think a
lot of people that say they're spiritual are actually religious,
just don't want to call it that. That's okay, it's
(33:21):
a bridge to get in there. Let's just not throw
the baby out with the bath water and understand that
we're the ones that made it so exclusive in ways
and made it somewhat of a business in ways. And
I don't think that's what religion was necessarily began about,
from Muhammad to Jesus. I don't believe that's what it
(33:41):
was meant to be. We did that. So I'm saying,
let's take it back to its original traditional meaning. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So acknowledging that you've gone through periods of doubt. Everyone
goes through periods of doubt. Not everyone comes back to
their faith after the doubt. What keeps you coming back?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I mean, I've had everything from being alone in a
desert in the middle of summer without a cloud in
the sky, screaming that I don't believe in you, God,
to all of a sudden a micro storm, lightning bolt
twenty feet away from me going holy knocking me on
my ass. I've had natural wonders that shook my floor.
(34:25):
I've had three newborn You look at a newborn, what's religion? Wow.
I've had silent whispers that I tried to suppress to
keep me from doing things that I actually knew I
shouldn't do, or helping me do things that I knew
I should do. It didn't have the courage too, that
(34:47):
I just suppressed, and once I allowed to hear that
truth come in. You know, when the truth settles in,
it's like a butterfly landing and a lightning bolt at
the same time. And I've I've had quite a few
times where is in complete solitude without any other stimulus
from the outside world, where clarity came to me and
(35:08):
I just was very clear, don't ever forget this truth,
even when you go back into the masses of the
busy world you're in, don't ever forget this truth. Now.
Do I know God exists? No? What it's called faith?
Is it a projection of a belief? Yes? Do I
also know this? Heaven or not? Does a belief in
(35:34):
a God does a pursuit to live more divinely individually
in each of us? Does that help out our situation here? Yes,
it does, Heaven or not? It does so on the
mystical and spiritual, religious and the purely practical. That's why
I've come back to belief when I've gone through doubt.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Well, I have absolutely loved talking with you. This has
been the existential conversation of my dreams. Thank you. I
was hoping that you might be able to read us
a short poem from poems and prayers to take us out.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Okay, yeah, backswing. This is a little spiritual platform, okay,
And it's a little bit what we were just talking
about in between destruction and existence, paths of persistence and
least resistance, below the climb and above the bow, where
what it is answers how when running sits still between
(36:35):
fate and free will, on the other side of a
mortal limit, past the gravity of any inhibit where the
truth Pirouet's unstable feet behind, reaching out ahead of retreat.
Where our sovereign soul is safe at home, unanimous yet
(36:56):
still alone, Where the definition of evolution is served as
such in the solution, when the context of each and
every choice only hears the sound of our own voice,
salacious and yet still satisfied, Where desires heed but never hide.
(37:17):
In the kingdom of suspense and the incomplete, we're not
yet and already finally meet between our getting and our
give here in the backswing, where we're dying to live.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yay, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Welcome. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, so much food for thought today. Matthew McConaughey, thank
you so much for coming on the bright side.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
You're welcome. I thoroughly enjoys moment.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Matthew McConaughey is an Oscar winning actor and best selling author.
His latest book, Poems and Prayers, is on sale now.
The bright Side is a production of Hello Sunshine and
iHeart and is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and me
Simone Boyce. Production is by a Cast Creative Studios. Our
(38:07):
producers are Taylor Williamson, Adrian Bain, Abby Delk, and Darby Masters.
Our production assistant is Joya putnoy Acasts executive producers are
Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen Polo and Reese Witherspoon
are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine. Ali Perry and
Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for iHeart podcasts. Our
(38:30):
theme song is by Anna Stump and Hamilton Lighthouser.
Today on the bright side, we're talking to the king
of reinvention. Matthew McConaughey is here spilling some truths you
haven't heard before, like what's hiding in his vault of
unreleased screenplays and what really happened in that Titanic audition.
Plus we'll dig into his new book and learn how
writing keeps him grounded.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I think part of the reason that I wanted to
write in the first place and put it into books was
that was really turned on by the challenge of Okay,
I can go perform script someone else wrote, someone else direct,
someone else lensed in the camera, someone else edited. What
if I can the words? Can I put words? Is
it possible put words on a page without my performance
(00:40):
that can paign a picture that someone goes, Oh, I
see myself in that character. I'm there, I know that
place similar in my own mind. That was the challenge
that I was testing myself on.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
I'm simone voice, And this is the bright side from
Hello Sunshine. Matthew McConaughey has built a career on unforgettable performances,
but in our conversation today, I realize that some of
his truest work has actually happened on the page. Writing
has been part of his life since he was a kid,
and it's carried him through moments when he felt steady
(01:13):
and moments when he felt completely lost. From his decision
to walk away from romantic comedies to becoming a best
selling author, McConaughey has mastered writing his own story, and
what struck me most is the way that he weaves faith, integrity,
and risk into everything he does, and how willing he
is to embrace the uncertainty that comes with all of it.
(01:35):
His new book, Poems and Prayers offers an intimate glimpse
into the raw in between spaces between the big milestones
that have made him the father, husband, and superstar that
he is today. So let's get into it. Matthew McConaughey,
Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Good to see you some mom.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
There are so many things I would love to talk
to you about because you have such a fascinating career
in life, but I think I want to really arrow
in on how writing has influenced your life, because even
though you've built this celebrated career as an actor and
a producer, it seems like writing has kind of been
at the center of who you are from the beginning.
Like I read that you started writing when you were twelve.
(02:15):
How did writing expand your world at that point?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I think from you know that early on, up until
I was about twenty, writing was a place for me
to go with my confusions, with my questions when I
was lost, wobbly looking, as every child is, you know,
they're finding themselves. I was always intrigued with whether I
(02:41):
called it a riddle or whether it just needed a
place to put words down, to get them out of
my head and heart, which felt like, oh, if I
can put them on the page and read them, I
don't feel like the world's compressing down me. I've gotten
it out of my system. And then I went on
later in life to you know, continue in you to write,
to deal with what's the meaning of life? The big
(03:04):
why questions? Yeah, and then you learn some things and
it gets to be fun to go, oh, now I
can answer how, when, and where. That's a little more relaxing.
But then I also, you know, when we're in those
troubled times, I think we all feel like we're the
center of the universe and we're the only ones that
feel this way, and the world the galaxies, the universes
are all circling around us. Which is it true? Right?
(03:27):
So I was given a gift with a benedicting monk
friend of mine when I went to him in my
early twenties wrestling with a bunch of demons, and I
had a four hour monologue as we walked through the desert.
Then we stopped back at the chap after four hours
and he hadn't said a word. And finally I'm there
and I'm crying and I'm cleaning. It's not up my nose.
(03:49):
Man ready for him to go, Oh, you must pay
your penance, you know, And he didn't say that at all.
He sat there in silence and find I looked up
at him, and he looked him in the eyes with
his beautiful my own he goes me too, and I'm like, oh, oh,
thank you. And that's when I was like, oh, you
(04:09):
know what, this thing, we're all going through it in
different ways. It's all personal to each of us. But
that's just called life, and we're all trying to figure
stuff out and have less pain and more pleasure at
the same time hold ourselves accountable. And that's the cycle
of life. And to know that everyone was a part
of it at that time. Is something I think that
is a bit of amnesty for each one of us.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know absolutely. In your new book Poems and Prayers,
you have a poem from when you were eighteen, early
twenties living in Australia, actually strongly considering becoming a monk.
Like you said, what were those core beliefs you had
at eighteen that you were wrestling with on the page?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, at that time I was very lost, wildly and looking.
Had just come out of high school, and in my mind,
family at eighteen, you had freedom, which means hey, I
had made my grades. Mom and Dad were happy. My
car was paid for, I had a job, I had
cash in my pocket. I had a girlfriend and I
had golf clubs. I had a four handicap, I had
no curfew. I was rolling. You were cool, du it
(05:14):
was happening. Let's go Yeah, And I go to Australia
only exchange program. And I was supposed to be living
with this family on the outskirts of Sydney. It was
not the outskirts of Sydney. It was three hours away
in this little town of Warnerville, population three zero five.
And my rolling life came to a screaching halt. I
didn't have my car, I didn't have a girlfriend, I
(05:36):
didn't have a golf club, and I did have a curfew.
And this family I was with, I felt like I
was being a bit coveted. It felt like a bit
of an ornament. And I didn't have my friends, and
I didn't have my family, and I didn't have anyone
to bounce anything off of. So I began having the
soocratic dialogue with myself. I would write fourteen page letters
(05:59):
to myself and then return them a fifteen pager to
answer to myself. I mean, I don't wish it on anyone,
but it was also, in hindsight, a very healthy thing
because I was forced to be introspective. I'd left home
for the first time, and you know, when you leave home,
you get an objective view back at your life and
you see things that you didn't see when you were
(06:19):
the subject of it. I was calling bullshit on things,
calling bullshit on myself, on the world, the way people
treated each other, what was expected, what we were rewarded for.
And so I wrote that poem, and you know, when
I reread it, I could see I was very self
serious and I was very concerned with the ways of
the world and myself in it. But I also see
(06:43):
that I was like, you gave it. Damn you weren't
just coasting.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So I read your book Green Lights, and I've also
read this one. I want to know if you think
that this assessment is accurate. Green Lights seems like the stories,
the core memories that really defined you, and then this
book feels like the poems, the the songs, the little
scribbles in your journal that happened in between those moments.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yes, a lot of what's in this point in Prayers
are what sort of realigned me as I approached and
took chances and risk and made choices that I made
that I share in Greenlights. Perspectives of the man I
wanted to be was coming up short, being some guilts
and shames that turned into forgiving and grace and a
(07:28):
laugh sometimes where I let myself off the hook because
I needed to just go hey, man, you're human. Sometimes
where I was like, no, man, buck stops here. I'm
tired of you being a repeat offender and making excuses
for the same damn thing you keep missing your aim on.
I'm not putting it up with it anymore. Times where
I relied too much on fate, took my hands off
(07:48):
the wheel. Times where I was agnostic and just tab
my hands on the wheel and go. It's all about
self reliance. That's all life's about. It has nothing to
do with fate. We're all fully responsible for who we are. Well,
what I'm understanding where I think the truth is, is
that they're not contradictory my agnostic years where I went
off and did not believe in God and do not
(08:09):
rely on fate at all. My feeling was when I
came back two years later to my faith that God
was going, thank you for trying, Thank you for having
the belief that you could handle it all. Need more
like that. And I'm just finding that I think that
they're not contradictory, you know, seraph alliance and faith that
if you're a believer as I am, that God wants
(08:30):
our hands on the wheel.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Seems to me the magic of life is in the trying.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I think. So, I mean, just at least, bottom line,
you give a damn Yeah. Yeah, And I don't think
that's asking too much. I don't think that's too earnest.
My children told me something the other day, is there
is there something going on right now in a generation
that is against anything earnest or.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, what I'm hearing is that gen
Z and younger have this perpetual fear of being cringe.
And to me, cringe is the fear of being seen
as trying, being seen in the effort of doing.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Something grave okay.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Like they find it embarrassing. And of course that's a
sweeping generalization, but I think the secret is really everything
you want is on the other side of cringe. You
got to put yourself out there.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I do see some of that. I think chasing ideals,
chasing your better self. Given a damn about how you
treat others, how they treat you, how much you can
believe in others, how much you can believe in yourself.
What are we doing here? Doesn't it all mean something?
I'm not ready to say it doesn't mean anything, And hell,
even if it doesn't, why not believe it does? Jeez,
the rewards are that much greater. I don't think that
(09:40):
is something that's ever going to go out of style
or should, and I don't know. I hear a lot
of young people looking for a compass, looking for a
north star to aspire to be to go. Life's not
just revolutions. I don't want to just go in circles,
I said, on the other side of cringe. I'll give
(10:02):
you a couple examples. You know where I think where
I started writing and how I started to find my
own sense of self. It was in times where and
I remember I was early college. I would be in
the theater watching the movie. I would laugh out loud
at something and no one else in the theater would laugh,
and then the whole theater would laugh, and I'd be like,
I don't think that's funny. I look at the mirror
(10:23):
and go, you weird McCaughey, and I was like, dude,
it doesn't harm anybody. Stick to it. Double down. Or
I'd go to a funeral and I wouldn't cry, but
the birth of a child or springtime, the beginning of something,
I would weep. People were going like, why are you
crying at birth and not death. I was like, I
don't know, is that weird? And I was like that, no,
(10:44):
stick to it, don't do that. I remember mustering up
the courage to go, don't shy away from that. Those
are cringe moments for me, and I was like, no, no,
go to the other side. And I think when we
have a cringe moment, if we go, if it doesn't
harm someone or harm ourselves, if we're not a hirant
or a nihilist with it, then believe in that more,
(11:04):
double down on that, triple down on it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
When you look back over your acting career, are there
cringe moves that you made that you can point to
that felt like they were outside of your comfort zone?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Sure? So early on I didn't feel like this is
a cringe move, but I had a lot of people
around me say you should be cringing. And it was
days confused. And then I did Texas Chainsaw Masker the
Deck's Next Generation, which was this great Carnye horror film
where I got a mechanical leg and d LA and
(11:39):
then all of a sudden, I do a Time to
Kill big studio movie Warner Brothers, Manna and Texas chain
so much hadn't come out yet, people like, hey, I
don't know if you want that movie coming out. That's
kind of low grade compared And I remember at that
time even being like, no, man, that's put that out.
That's fine. That was what I was doing. I mean,
(12:00):
I don't think we need to protect and so we did.
But I was kind of told maybe it should be
a cringe moment, and I remember going, I don't want
to be that overly conscious about my career to say, hey,
let's not show that one because it wasn't the best
production or maybe not your best performance. And I think
I could be accused of maybe being too open about that.
(12:22):
Through my career, I've been like, hey, man, I did it,
and I've seen things and I'm like, Okay, kind of
a bogey there, mcconne, but I'm like, all right, that's
where I was. It was part of how I got here,
which I think is something that I was consistent with
in Green Lights. I share a lot of cringe moments. Yeah,
that early on I did have heavy guilt and heavy
(12:43):
shame about But because I saw the cycle was cringe
moment success or cringe moment humility learned lesson success, I
was like, oh, right, you want to have the cringe moments.
Without the cringe moments, You're just staying in the safe
celle all the time, and we run from that idea
of failure when it should be I think more like, yeah, dude,
(13:04):
life's more like baseball. If you've got three point fifty.
You're in the Hall of fame. That means you didn't
get on base two out of three times. It's all right.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Without the cringe moments. How do you know who you
really are because you're not operating at the edges of
your abilities and your interests too? How would you know
that maybe that film was a detour from the artistic
persona you were presenting if you didn't actually go out
there and do it exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
We don't have the most healthy relationship with what's considered failing.
I think it is it more American, I'm not sure,
maybe it's worldwide. I know I still work on it
because when things are successful or I'm doing well and
seem to be in a flow, I'm like, ah, so
this is how it's supposed to be and how it
will always be, and we know that's not true. But
(13:52):
I don't want to get in a safe place, which
can also happen when you've gotten successful, when you have
a family and you want to secure what you have
and you don't want to take you don't want to
put it at risk. And I agree, you don't want
to put certain things that you built at risk at
the same time, I don't want to get dusty and
be like, oh, everything's just safe, just in the safe zone,
(14:13):
like you said, don't test that edge oo. I mean,
because what's the big deal?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Ultimately, what's the big deal if you miss? Well?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I want to actually ask you about what seems like
a pivotal turning point in your career where you began
to take a lot more risks and you wrote a
poem about it in Poems and Prayers called Goodman, and
the note at the bottom of it says you wrote
this in the late nineties, just before you decided to
stop doing romantic comedies. When you think back to the
feelings behind that decision, what were you hoping people would
(14:43):
see in you that they weren't seeing already.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It was a thing that I needed to share and
see with myself. It was a time in my life
when my life was extremely vital. I met the woman
I fell in love with, Camilla. She was now pregnant
with our first child. My ceiling in the basement of
my emotions, how much I loved, how much I hated,
how much I cried, how much I would have full
(15:08):
of joy. The ceiling and the basement were very high
and very deep and very wide. In the rom comms,
there's a very much compressed form of emotion. You can't
love too much and you can't get too angry because
you'll sink the ship. You got to bounce from cloud
to cloud. So while my life was extremely vital, I
(15:29):
felt like my work was sort of like, Okay, I'm
good with it, but I'm not able to express and
as much as I'm feeling. And because Hollywood was like,
stay in your lane, McConaughey, you can't. I want to
do dramas, Like you can't do these dramas. I don't
care how much a pay cut you're offering, just keep
doing the rom comms. I was like, Okay, if I
can't do what I want to do, I'm quit doing
what I've been doing. So came back down here to Texas.
(15:51):
Camilla was pregnant, which helped me have sort of a
rudder in the water of something to look forward to,
because all of a sudden I was not getting work,
getting offers or anything, and I didn't know how long
I was going to be in that desert of no work.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Was that scary for you at all?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Very scary, very scary? I remember, Okay, I'm gonna need
Where am I going to go for significance? Where I'm
I going to go for accomplishment? What am I doing?
And why is that bottle of my favorite spirit going
to start looking better and better earlier and earlier each day.
You know? So I had Camilla, I had my own spirit.
(16:27):
I had to looking forward to a newborn son, which
kept me in line, and I just said, I'm going
to endure it. But it did get to a point
where I was like, I remember talking to my agent,
Jim Toff, and I'm saying, like, I haven't heard your
name McConaughey in five months. And I was like, I
might have just wrote myself one way ticket out of Hollywood.
I got to think about other careers. So I'm starting
(16:47):
to go, maybe I need to go back to law school.
Oh I like to be Maybe I'll be a teacher.
I really started to thinking of other vocations. I wasn't
in the theaters in a rom com. I wasn't in
your living room in a little rom com. I wasn't
in People magazine shirtless on a beach. It's like, where
is he? What's he doing? And then abound that time,
I remember, and I think this really helped. I got
(17:08):
an offer for a rom com comedy role and it
was an eight million dollar offer, and I said, no,
thank you. They came back at ten million. I said no,
thank you. They came back at twelve million. I said no,
thank you. They came back at fourteen point five million,
and I said, let me read that script again. And
I went back and read it. It was the same
(17:29):
pages and same words as in the original offer, but
it was a better script. It was funnier. At that price.
I could see myself in it. Well, maybe it's work. Ultimately,
I said no thanks, I really feel like turning that down.
That there are some people in Hollywood that go, what's
McConaughey up.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
To, man, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not blushing.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He's up to something, you know what I mean. So
it wasn't all of a sudden McConaughey's just stepped out receding. Now,
McConaughey just turned down fourteen five milk for the script.
That's good and he's up to something. After about twenty months,
I guess I had been out of everyone's eyesight for
long enough that I got became a new good idea
(18:13):
for the dramas that I wanted to do, and those
offers came in and then I just jumped on ferociously.
But it was a scary time.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
More from Matthew McConaughey after this quick break. Okay, so
here is my question for you, McConaughey, because I know
you're a writer, and it seems like you're a writer. First,
before performing, I went through your IMDb credits and I
was shocked to find you only have one writing credit
for a screenplay. This is a short film called Rebel
(18:45):
from nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Why have you not written us as screenplay? Do you
have any secret screenplays that are just collecting dust on
a shelf over there? I do, what's going on with them?
Tell me about them?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well? One is about that year in Australia, which is
a black comedy. Another one is a children's fairy tale
about the greatest fisherman the world has never known, called
Curtis My Love, beautiful story. I sit down to try
and put some of these stories into script form, and
I don't know. I get to about page twelve and
(19:22):
the format just doesn't feed me. And maybe that's to
come because I think part of the reason that I
wanted to write in the first place and put it
into books was that was really turned on by the
challenge of Okay, I can go perform script that someone
else wrote, someone else directed, someone else lensed in the camera,
someone else edited. But what if I can put words?
Can I put words? Is it possible to put words
(19:44):
on a page without my performance? That can paint a
picture that someone goes, Oh, I see myself in that character.
I'm there, I know that place that's similar in my
own life. That was the challenge that I was testing
myself on. So maybe I'm wanting to secure that, you know,
with more just books before I go okay, cool, to
(20:08):
some extent pulled that off. Now, what if we write
something that I can also go perform? Now away lean
into performing these is when I do the audio books
I am performing, or like this book tour, I'm going
to go on with musicians and read poems and prayers.
So there's a bit of a performance, right, And maybe
that's me leaning out to go, Okay, let's take these
into forms of entertainment where I can be performative.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Do you maybe have a bit of an inner critic
that's keeping those screenplays from getting on the screen.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah. Probably, it's probably another confidence barrier that I've yet
to get over. For me, there's sometimes where I'm writing
it's like I don't know is it coming to me?
Or am I coming up.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
With it right?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I know that it's not as far from acting as
I thought it was, because I'm inherently playing every single
character that I'm writing for and their voice because I
know them, their voice is coming out of my hand.
It's all about if I get the first opening line,
I can just get that that's it, then the rest
of it will write itself. But sometimes if I wake
(21:12):
up at six am to write, I don't get that
first line. I don't get out of bed until two
thirty till I get that first line. And soon as
I got that first line, the rest of it go
and write itself.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But why not? Okay, so now we're debating writing tactics.
But why not move past the opening line and come
back to it because sometimes the opening is in the
middle or the end.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Well, sometimes I have done that. But if I know
I'm a turn of phrase or a word or an
order of alphabet word away and I'm on it. Oh,
I'm just on it. But that's not it. That's not
the word, that's not it, that's not And as soon
as I can hit it like there it is, there's
the meter. That's the music. And so I write very
musically like that. A lot of the poems are like
(21:54):
I woke up at two thirty in the morning with
a meter in my head. If you've done at a
time and time and if that sounded so, and then
I just kind of walked slowly to my laptop in
that meter, don't interrupt me with any other stimulus. And
then I did that to start writing, and all of
a sudden, I'll go three hours day, I'll look up
(22:16):
and there'll be twenty pages. I'll be like, oh, let's
have a look, and then go back and look and
hopefully some of it's salvageable, you know, and edit that back.
And a lot of times it'll come with a musical meter.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I think all of our brains have, you know, our
own distinct rhythm, and we gotta listen to it and
we gotta follow it. Okay, I'm making a deal with you, Matthew.
The next time we talk, whether it's Out of Red
Carpet or another podcast, or something I want to hear
about these screenplays the world meets Okay, screen Matthew McConaughey
screenplay Okay, yeah, okay. But pivoting now to talk about performing.
(22:48):
I mean, you have gone on to reinvent yourself time
and time again, and it has been such a joy
for us to watch. I mean, some fan favorite characters
come to mine, mud Ron Woodrowe and Dallas, Buyer's Club,
Joseph Cooper, An Interstellar, Russ Cole and True Detective. When
is the last time you felt truly seen as a performer?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Thankfully the last film I did Lost Bus, that comes
out in September and then October on ALP Plus streaming.
I'm happy to say this, and this is not me
dodging an answer. I'm happy to say this because this
is not always this way, but it has been for
the last twenty years. My favorite role the last twenty
(23:30):
years has always been the last one I did.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Ah. Why is that?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Because hopefully I get to that point and again, thankful
I have in the last twenty years. Each film I'm doing,
I'm like, even if this is the only one I
ever do or the last one I ever do, And
to get that feeling that every performer wants to get.
And again, I get it sometimes early, sometimes you're in production,
sometimes late. It's nice when I get it early. But
(23:55):
to get that feeling of I'm the only one that
could play this part, it's a beautiful sense of ownership.
You know, whether it's true or not. If it's true
to the performer, then it's true. But to get to
that point and believe in somebody and believe in yourself
enough to inhabit that character and live it from the
(24:15):
inside out and know them how they listen and see
and hear and feel from the bottom of their feet
to the top of their hairline is a beautiful feeling.
It's almost like a vacation, you know, to have a
singular understanding about how someone moves much more than what
their personal politics are, but how they move, how they listen.
(24:37):
But what are they saying in between the lines? What's
the subtext? What they mean? Even if it's never said,
and it doesn't always happen, but I'll take extensive notes
on scenes and character and what I'm hoping to get
out of a scene, what I want, what I need,
what the obstacle is, and maybe not one of those
words is said in the actual scene. But if a
director or an audience who comes up afterwards and says, oh,
(24:59):
this is what I got that, I'm like, oh, check
out my notes, this is what I wrote four years ago.
That's exactly what that is. Like, oh it translated. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, I've heard you talk about launchpad lines, like if
you can identify this one line of dialogue that holds
a character's DNA, then you can just run with it.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I think that's like that when I was saying that earlier.
If I can come up with that first line, that's
the launch pad.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What do you think is the launchpad line of your
own life story?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Oh wow, oh oh man, that's that's a big fun question.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I know that.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And I can give the simple one of just keep
living because like what else we're going to do, and
that group makes me in a spot of that life
is a verb, and just stay on the chase. You
never get there. There's no tada moment. There's no summit
that you get to the top of mentally, spiritually, or
otherwise that you go I did it. You may say that,
but you find out usally quickly you didn't.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
We've got to take a short break, but we'll be
right back with Matthew mccon And we're back with Matthew McConaughey.
I want to ask you about a Matthew McConaughey character
that almost came to be but didn't. This is a
fact check. This is something i've read online to run
by you because I want to go straight to the source.
I read that you turned down the role of Jack
(26:18):
in Titanic because you opted not to change your southern
accent rumor or true.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That's rumor. There was never any any discussion about an
accent or anything. I just didn't get the job. I
did think I had the job. I had a great
read with Kate Winslet and the producers and I think
it was Jim Cameron that's somewhere along the way, and
some pressure said something like yeah, McConaughey had the job,
but whatever didn't take it. I went to him. I
(26:45):
was like, let me know, Jim, I don't remember that
ever happening. I thought I had a job, but I
never got offered that job. Did you say that? And
we got that cleared up, and then I was also like,
because if I did, I need to call my agent
because they owed me a lot. Did they turn it
down for me? Because no, I never got offered that
to turn it down?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Now, was that hard to not get that job? Was
that something that you wanted really badly?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I mean I wanted it, but I mean there's plenty
of jobs out there that I wanted to get that
I didn't get. Plenty. I remember, I thought it was
a good audition, they say to think it was too
good enough that when I left there, I felt pretty
confident that maybe I'd landed it, but I didn't. So
now I think I turned that page pretty quickly. I
don't think I've had much regret over jobs that I
(27:30):
wanted that I didn't get. They all pinch, Yeah, it
sucks at the time.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
We're all human.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Well, you mentioned when I asked you, what's the role
as a performer that made you feel the most scene recently?
And you brought up the Lost Bus And this one
is special because it also stars your mom Kay and
your son LEVI How surreal was that moment on set
realizing there were three generations of McConaughey's in the frame.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I think I'm still realizing it, and it hit me
again in a new way because we just went to
Toronto to the Toronto film Thessals the premier it, and
we brought my son, and we flew my mom with us,
and my mom ninety three and getting her dress and
going to the red carpet and seeing my mom and
my son and the three of us together and whether
(28:21):
it's taking pictures together kind of. I was thrown back
to that memory by going, this is a really special,
cool thing. At the time, I knew it was the
ideal and original situation that doesn't happen all the time.
But I think I'm still realizing how cool that is,
and I think I'll continue to as that movie goes
on to outlive me.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
And then, were you nervous for your son at all?
As parents, we take on a lot of the emotions
of our kids.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, when he asked and yeah, I made a mask.
He came to me four times ask if he could
read for that part, and it wasn't util after the
fourth time. Then I went, all right, you really want to?
And then I said, here we go. Let's sit down
and talk about what this whole acting gig is and
here's his character, what's you want, where's he coming from?
What's a relationship. It's nothing like our relationship that I
have with my son in real life. But do you
(29:11):
know people like this, you ever felt this way? Well,
we had all this, guys, and then I put him
on camera, and when I saw him on camera, I
was like kids holding the frame and he's being honest,
and he's got an ability, he's got some instincts for this.
And then I sent the according to the casting director
I know, and I said, check this out. I think
it's not bad. I think it may be good enough
for a callback. And she said, actually, I think it's
(29:32):
good enough to send to the director. I said, well,
before you send it the director, can you pull the
last name off of it? So McConaughey names I'm leading right,
Oh interesting, And she did and called back and said
Paul saw it and said that's the kid, And she said,
I told him, do you know that's Matthew's son. He goes, no,
I didn't even better, and boom he was in. So
(29:53):
with my son. I said, look, once we get there
to the set and all this talk that we're having
and all this stuff, I'm hopefully trying to teach you, well,
once it's time to get there, you have to take ownership.
You don't need to be looking to me, it's not
the time you take ownership. You have to Every actor
has to do that on the day when it's time.
And I remember going to work that morning together. He
(30:15):
had a whole different vibe about him, kind of had
his shoulder closed to me a little bit and didn't
look at me. Got on the set, full conversations with
the director, not me, what any Hey dad, what do
you think? None of that nothing. And I sat back
as a proud dad watched and I was like, that's
speaginning of exactly what you need to do right there.
It was a problem moment to see that, see him
(30:37):
take that ownership.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's so cool. I'm so happy for you and your
family that you got to experience that. That's beautiful. I
want to wrap up by talking about faith with you.
So I am really fascinated by data on faith in America, Matthew.
It's something that I covered a lot as a journalist.
I would dig into trends surrounding religion and America, and
(31:01):
so I looked it up just before this interview, and
there are more religiously unaffiliated gen Zers than previous generations.
And yet research also shows that spirituality in America is growing.
So it seems like people are reaching for something they
want meaning and they believe in something that's bigger than them,
but maybe doesn't look as traditional or structured. Is perhaps
(31:24):
I grew up with it. Did you ever go through
periods of doubting your own faith?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I've had my agnostic years, too long spills when I
say long spills, like for a year or two even.
Part of the reason they've written this book is for
my own personal spiritual therapy. When I said, I caught
myself being little cynical, so caught myself living in a
little more doubt than I was comfortable with with my
own belief in God. And so writing this book, sharing
(31:53):
this book, touring with it. As much as I'm hoping
to connect with others or have them help them connect
with themselves, I'm up there to connect with me as well,
because I've been dealing with doubt. Everyone does. And to
shake hands with hey, that's part of the process. Again,
keep trying, don't do a fool's errand but keep trying.
(32:15):
You know one of the things about you know this
spirituality and religion and what the difference is in those two.
As a prescriptionist, I love the origin of words, and
I don't think we should, as they change over time,
just dismiss them. But religion. The word religion comes from
the Latin root of re and legare re lgare religion.
(32:40):
Legare means to bind together, re means again, to bind
together again. It's a beautiful definition and one I hope
we don't dismiss and throw out just when we say, oh,
I'm not religious. I don't believe in organized religion. I
(33:01):
think we need to be clear people kind. We did
our version of bastardizing the definition of religion. I think
religion is still pure and something to pursue. I think
everything I think life's religious, okay, And I think a
lot of people that say they're spiritual are actually religious,
just don't want to call it that. That's okay, it's
(33:21):
a bridge to get in there. Let's just not throw
the baby out with the bath water and understand that
we're the ones that made it so exclusive in ways
and made it somewhat of a business in ways. And
I don't think that's what religion was necessarily began about,
from Muhammad to Jesus. I don't believe that's what it
(33:41):
was meant to be. We did that. So I'm saying,
let's take it back to its original traditional meaning. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So acknowledging that you've gone through periods of doubt. Everyone
goes through periods of doubt. Not everyone comes back to
their faith after the doubt. What keeps you coming back?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I mean, I've had everything from being alone in a
desert in the middle of summer without a cloud in
the sky, screaming that I don't believe in you, God,
to all of a sudden a micro storm, lightning bolt
twenty feet away from me going holy knocking me on
my ass. I've had natural wonders that shook my floor.
(34:25):
I've had three newborn You look at a newborn, what's religion? Wow.
I've had silent whispers that I tried to suppress to
keep me from doing things that I actually knew I
shouldn't do, or helping me do things that I knew
I should do. It didn't have the courage too, that
(34:47):
I just suppressed, and once I allowed to hear that
truth come in. You know, when the truth settles in,
it's like a butterfly landing and a lightning bolt at
the same time. And I've I've had quite a few
times where is in complete solitude without any other stimulus
from the outside world, where clarity came to me and
(35:08):
I just was very clear, don't ever forget this truth,
even when you go back into the masses of the
busy world you're in, don't ever forget this truth. Now.
Do I know God exists? No? What it's called faith?
Is it a projection of a belief? Yes? Do I
also know this? Heaven or not? Does a belief in
(35:34):
a God does a pursuit to live more divinely individually
in each of us? Does that help out our situation here? Yes,
it does, Heaven or not? It does so on the
mystical and spiritual, religious and the purely practical. That's why
I've come back to belief when I've gone through doubt.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Well, I have absolutely loved talking with you. This has
been the existential conversation of my dreams. Thank you. I
was hoping that you might be able to read us
a short poem from poems and prayers to take us out.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Okay, yeah, backswing. This is a little spiritual platform, okay,
And it's a little bit what we were just talking
about in between destruction and existence, paths of persistence and
least resistance, below the climb and above the bow, where
what it is answers how when running sits still between
(36:35):
fate and free will, on the other side of a
mortal limit, past the gravity of any inhibit where the
truth Pirouet's unstable feet behind, reaching out ahead of retreat.
Where our sovereign soul is safe at home, unanimous yet
(36:56):
still alone, Where the definition of evolution is served as
such in the solution, when the context of each and
every choice only hears the sound of our own voice,
salacious and yet still satisfied, Where desires heed but never hide.
(37:17):
In the kingdom of suspense and the incomplete, we're not
yet and already finally meet between our getting and our
give here in the backswing, where we're dying to live.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yay, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Welcome. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Yeah, so much food for thought today. Matthew McConaughey, thank
you so much for coming on the bright side.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
You're welcome. I thoroughly enjoys moment.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Matthew McConaughey is an Oscar winning actor and best selling author.
His latest book, Poems and Prayers, is on sale now.
The bright Side is a production of Hello Sunshine and
iHeart and is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and me
Simone Boyce. Production is by a Cast Creative Studios. Our
(38:07):
producers are Taylor Williamson, Adrian Bain, Abby Delk, and Darby Masters.
Our production assistant is Joya putnoy Acasts executive producers are
Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen Polo and Reese Witherspoon
are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine. Ali Perry and
Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for iHeart podcasts. Our
(38:30):
theme song is by Anna Stump and Hamilton Lighthouser.
Host
Simone Boyce
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