November 22, 2020 • 25 mins
Matthew McConaughey is one of our greatest ever storytellers, and he wants to share them with the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm lucky enough to have conversations with so many interesting
people from all over the world, and my favorite ones
are when they share something about themselves that's real, honest
and revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I think that the objects of our lives.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Have so much meaning when you stop and think about them,
and that's what the show is about. I've asked some
of the world's funniest and most interesting people to choose
three of their most treasured objects and share the stories
behind them, stories you've never heard before.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We love a good yarn and a good story and
get passed down. You know. I grew up in a
family that that's what we did at dinner, and all
of us were pretty good storytellers. So you had to
work your butt off to get in there, and once
you were in you better pull it off well, because
if you started to fumble the ball in the story,
somebody took it over from you, you know what I mean.
So it was hard to get a word in Edgeway,
(00:50):
so you had to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends,
and today what a treat for us.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Matthew McConaughey, I am Matthew David McKay born in nineteen
sixty nine, November fourth, I got just the very end
of a really really vitil decade.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, Matthew doesn't really need on introduction, but let's just
remind ourselves. Hugely successful, very versatile actor, made his start
making a lot of romantic comedies, then suddenly becomes a
very serious Oscar winning dramatic actor. He's a philanthropist, a
very devoted dad, and even a college professor, and he's
written an amazing book called green Lights, where he's really
(01:32):
doing the thing he does best.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I am a storyteller, that is what I am. I
tell stories from behind the camera, in front of the camera,
and doing my best to tell a great story in
the big show cold life.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And that's exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
When you listen to Matthew speak, the stories he tells,
they really draw you in. And the book is full
of these incredible, wild experiences. But he writes them like
he's been doing it forever. Maybe that's because he has
as his first item shows all.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Right, so look this is an easy one. But it
would be that treasure chest of diaries that I've been
keeping for thirty six years that led me to writing
this book. That has always been one of the things
where I said, look, you know, besides the dog, besides
the pets, the house burns down. Get that treasure chest
(02:22):
full of diaries. I've had them all They're in ziplock
bags in case I was somewhere where it flooded or
what have you. And I've always taken them with me
and had them next to my desk, you know, just
because I knew those were of the most import of me.
There were so many things in there that I would forget.
They were in my first handwriting, and I'm you know,
(02:42):
I've always shouted those things down. Nowadays, when I write
things down, I'm doing it on my phone, and I
have to tell people all the time at a dinner party
or something, I said, I'm not being rude. I'm not
talking to anyone else here. I'm actually writing something down
that we just said. As soon as I'm done here,
I'm gonna hand it to you and ask you if
you said that, if you can sign it. So I
write to myself still to this day, seventy percent of
(03:03):
the time I'm using my phone, but those diaries, because
you know, I noticed, I've been curious about the same
things today at fifty that I was curious about at fourteen.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's not amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I was so surprised because I thought, I mean, I
was much more awkward about how I went about trying
to figure out things back then, and I was really
asking the existential questions of who, what, where, when, why?
About everything? And I've answered a lot of those questions.
I don't have any less questions. But to see how
I've been the same things that kept me up or
(03:37):
what woke me up at two in the morning to
write down or something that in life that happened that
was peculiar to me. To see how those were very
similar than to what they are now was very surprising
to me. So the diaries would be the items that
trust chest.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You don't get the quality of our questions determines a
lot of the quality of our life. Life we should
see is one continuous conversation that we're having with us, sounds,
and nature in the universe about what is going on?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Who are we? What is this?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Man?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I mean, what better mystery? Yeah to investigate then what
the heck are we doing here? And who are we
in it? You know, I think that's forever entertaining. It's
not always easy. I talked about that a lot in
the book. I actually enjoy solitude, but not only not
because I'm always having a great time in it. I've
had a lot of solitude moments where I cannot stand
the company me and I've just tried to learn, Hey,
(04:29):
don't pull the parachute yet. If you're not enjoying your
company right now, there's a good reason you will get
to where you do enjoy the company. But stay here.
Don't go to the easy things of entertainment or call
a friend. These outs that you can get to get
your mind off of it. Don't go grab the bottle,
you know what I mean. Sit in the discomfort. You'll
come out the other side and you'll be like, ah, Okay,
(04:51):
I finally shook hands with the one person I can't
get rid of.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Me.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Glad we're getting along. Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That's so true. Math, You're right.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Sometimes it's so hard for us to become a friend
to ourselves, to actually sit opposite ourselves and like what
we see all parts of it, the shadowy parts to
barts we don't like to admit or share with the world. Yay,
most of us avoid that, don't we with our phones
or pornography, booze whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Sometimes it is too much and you just don't want
to You want to escape it, you don't want to
face it. But what I've noticed is that those ugly
sides of ourselves they're gonna bubble up somewhere down the line,
and usually in a very awkward way that you really
end up regretting and going, oh, geez, I really wish
I had handle that. I really wish I would have
(05:33):
handled that. And when I was on my own, when
I had the walls padded and had a helmet on
and a mouth.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, bad wolves come out that night.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Come on, they're coming out, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And why did you start, first of all a very
young age to do what Roman leaders did, where they
would make journals to try and make sense of it
or get it all on paper.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I think there was one epistis or somebody said.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That all war belongs on page, the act of getting
it from here onto a page.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But at a very young age you started to do that.
Why do you think that was?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Well? I think early on I was going to my journals.
The main reason most people go to a diary or
a journal, the times of confusion, times of sadness. Oh
you know, Gretchen broke up with me. My heart hurts,
I'm crying. What happened? Why do I got pimples on
my face? What's going on now? Bye bye bye, bye
bye bye. Then in my early twenties, I remember when
going through the diaries, all of a sudden, I started
(06:25):
writing a lot of things down when things were going well,
when I actually was catching green lights in life, when
my relationships were well, I was making grades at school,
I had a job at to money in my pocket.
I was kind of rolling. And I remember thinking at
that time, and I even wrote my diary about it.
I was like, make sure you're dissecting the times when
you feel like you're succeeding, Matthew, because we're so often
(06:48):
taught to dissect failure, Well, why not dissect the success.
And I'm remember writing, maybe you'll be able to look
back at these when you're failing again later in life,
or you're in a rut you hadn't found your frequency,
and maybe they can help you. And sure if they did.
I mean at times when I look back, when I
would get in a rut, which we all eventually will
and do again and again and again. And I was
able to look back at times when I was having
(07:10):
more joy and satisfaction in my life, and I was
able to see, Oh, here's some habits you were falling.
Here's who you were hanging out with, here's where you
were going, here's what you were drinking, here's what i'm
sleepy were getting, here's what you were doing to start
your day. And I noticed, Oh, some of those habits
you don't You've gotten complacent with those, you don't follow
those anymore. Maybe if I start practicing those, I can
recalibrate and get back on my frequency. And they helped
(07:31):
become a roadmap to get back on my frequency at
times when I was off it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Because success leaves clues, doesn't.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It sure does, just as failure does. And I think
we're just you know, taught to usually go into introspection
right in our journal or diary when we're lost, when
we're not found, when we're off our frequency, when we're clumsy,
when we can't figure shit out, And that's a good
reason to go. But also go there when you when
(08:00):
you're like, man, I'm on it right now, things are
working me and the world are in a great dance
right now, and I'm giving it out and I'm receiving
it every line I'm walking in the supermarket. It looked
like the longest woe, but it was the fastest line
in the checkout. You know what I mean, I'm catching them,
you know. So what are those things when your timing's
on with the world where you're getting a recipricious response
(08:21):
that you're giving out from the world. Go write those
things down as well, because we tell ourselves what I
at least know I do many times. Oh, things are
going great, this is the mean, this is obviously I'll
never forget this because this is who I am. This
is the ultimate me, and I'll never forget this. I
don't need to write this down. Well, bullshit, Yes you do,
(08:43):
because you will forget and you will and then you know,
times are going good, you think they're gonna last forever.
No they don't. You do get a run again, and
you're like where to go?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And if you write it down and got a few
things down, you can have some things that can help
nudge you back on the right track.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And tell me about the journals. What are they are?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
They just cheap notebooks, or do you always get the
same type and just fill them up and then fill
up another one.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
They're all different kind of notebooks. The ones that I
like the most, I like a good paper stock. They
don't have to be very big because I write very small.
But they're usually leatherbound. It doesn't really matter which kind
of leather bound. I just want one that, for instance,
I don't like one. You know, you open some of
those books that they're bound here where they won't stay
open and it's hard to get to write and hit
(09:28):
this part. You want something that's gonna but you can
lay flat and going to give you full access to
the entire page. It's not going to pinch up like that.
So that's very important.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
No, I gaes, I'm the same because you want to
feel like, well, this is how Hemingway and Picasso they
would have had this kind of note but they weren't
getting all folded up in the midway through some important
point or essay or picture, were they?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I hope not not the way I see. I'm with
you on that.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
I started off for journals. It was, you know, twenty percent,
twenty five percent of my journals was bags and bags
full of beer coasters, napkins, a picture I took of
something I wrote on my arm when I was out
and didn't have my journal on me, a match box,
anything I could write on, or i'd write on a
You go out to eat and I would write on
(10:13):
the table and then snap a picture of what I
had written on the table, and then take a picture
that printed out, put it in my stack of diaries.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends
today with Matthew McConaughey. So we've seen how this love
of storytelling began. Let's find out his next most treasured item.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Next item the book The Greatest Salesman in the World.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh wow, tell us about what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Well, this is a book that found me. I've never
been a big reader. And I was at the end
of my sophomore year in college and I was headed
towards law school. And for about four months leading up
to this moment, I was not sleeping so well with
the idea of law school, the idea that oh I graduate,
then I go to three or four more years of
(11:05):
law school, I get out. I'm actually don't have a
job or putting my mark in the world until I'm
in my thirties. I really don't want to spend my
twenties learning only learning. And I had been writing a
lot and writing some short stories and shared some short
stories with the friend of mine. Was writer was like,
these are good, so well, I want to go to
film school. But I didn't have the courage to even
(11:25):
believe it myself, much less calm my dad and asked
to do so. I went to I was going to
my final exams that year. In my sophomore year. I'm
at a buddy's house and I've got three hours before
my class, and I was a study bug. I had
three point eight two GPA out of four. I made
a's and I would use all the time I could
(11:46):
study and wouldn't spare a minute for whatever reason. This day,
after I open up my books to study, I'm like,
you got this, mcconnaey, don't study anymore. You got it.
Never done that before remote control. I turned on the TV,
turn on the ESPN. I'll watch any sports in the world.
I mean, I'll watch the Strongest Man competition. I watch
freaking ping pong championships. I love sports. I am a
(12:07):
cricket fan. By the way I'm going through, there's a
great game on. It's even one of my teams was
playing baseball. Whatever reason I'm bors can be, I turned
the thing off. I'm like, hum, I look over at
this stack next to me of magazines, sports, illustrated Playboys,
another thing. I like. I pick up Playboys. Now I
(12:29):
found what I want to do. How I'm going to
pass the time I'm flipping through. I get bored of
that for a minute. Now, I'm like, wait a minute,
keep digging down through the magazines, and seven deep in
the magazine stack was this white paperback book with Red
Curser writing that said the Greatest Salesman in the World.
And I remember saying to myself as I reached in
grab and I said, who is that? I pick it
(12:50):
up and I start reading. I spent the next two
hours reading all the way up to the very first scroll,
and it had told me, basically, the greatest salesman the
world is whoever's in this book. And this book's gonna
teach you how to be the greatest salesman the world.
And you're going to read these ten scrolls, scroll one
three times a day for thirty days before you moved
to scroll two, scroll two three times day thirty days
till you move to scroll three. So it takes ten
(13:12):
months to read well. All of a sudden, I just
felt this energy, like this book found me for a reason.
I looked up ten minutes before my exam. I said,
can I can I borrow this book? My buddy woke
up and goes, man, you can have that book. My
dad gave it to me. It's a great book. I
took the book, went into my exam, ripped through it.
I think I failed it just because I went through
it so fast, because I was so sure. No, I'm
going to go to film school. I'm gonna have the
(13:34):
courage to call my dad and ask him if I
can go to film school. And that night I went
home because I had that book and found me. Whatever
it did, it was something special. I felt it was
a sign. Called my dad to ask him if I
go to film school, thinking he might say you want
to do what sone And instead he told me three
of the greatest words he's ever told me. He said, well,
if that's what you want to do, I said, yes, sir.
(13:54):
He goes, don't have asset and I was like, oh, yes,
so here I am.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What a great thing, just those three words. And in
that moment, you calling your dad, You're stepping up to life,
aren't you standing up in yourself? In those moments, That's
when you become a man, isn't it? You work out
this is actually who I am now, not your expectation
of me.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Dad.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You know, I've noticed that as a consistency for children
in general with their parents and in the world that
we live in. Our parents give us a formation, The
government gives us a formation. Laws and regulations give us
a formation. Hey, stay in the lines here, follow these rules,
and there's an initiation to get out of it. But
if you get out of it and you really mean it,
(14:36):
and you're like, I'm not asking permission. This is what
I'm doing, all of a sudden, the world or your
parent goes there.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We go.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
That's what I was hoping you do.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I was waiting my dad in that phone call, telling
him I want to go to film school, when I
thought he was not going to like the idea at all.
Without saying it, I know he was happy on the
other end, going my son just said he's going his
own way.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, that's it, job done.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
He was even proud of me being a rebel at
that point.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Do you ever go back to the book if you
still got copying out? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I owned many copies of that book. Yeah. My original
copies are taped up because I carried them everywhere. They've
been rained on, they've been stomped on, they've been eaten
by dogs and everything else. My original copy isn't about
four zip locks held at home in the safe. And
then I have subsequent copies that I've gotten that are
pretty weathered but still kind of readable.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I love that it means stole that much to you.
It's in the safe well.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And like I said, I'm not a big reader. There's
something about it. You know. It's different if somebody would
have given it to me you should read this book,
or different if the teacher says, hey, go do your homework.
This was something that after I said I don't want
to study, I don't want to watch sports or look
at naked ladies. It was down there hiding And why
(15:53):
did that grab my attention at that moment? And I'm
not even a big reader at all, And I go,
greatest salesman in the world, who's and then read enough
to go, Oh, it's the reader. Let's see what this is.
This sounds like an adventure. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And then what's your next object.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There's a ring my dad gave me that he wore.
He didn't give it to me, he wore it until
he moved on from this life. And there's a gold
ring and it's got a big M engraved in it
from McConaughey. And it was a meltdown of my mom
and dad's clash rings from the University of Kentucky and
gold from my mom's teeth. Wow, that surprised possession one
(16:36):
that he wore it to what it's made of?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And where'd you keep it?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
That's in the safe as well.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That's a lot in that safe. I mean, I hope
it's guarded.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
There's actually not much more in that safe. I got
cash in that safe and a gun. But other than that,
there's that ring. And there's a few, you know, silver
dollars some friends gave me. But other than that, not
a lot of jewelry. Just really that ring in that
original paperback, great salesman.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So the ring.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Did you don't give you that before he passed away?
Or will you give them that afterwards because obviously your
two older brothers.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I was given that afterwards, and did Mom give it
to you or Mom gave it to me? Yeah, And
we all sat around with all the dad stuff and
the family agreed that that should be mine.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
In the book, I still get the feeling that you
have a very strong relationship with your dad even though
he's not here on this physical claim, but he still
has a big presence in your life, doesn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I hope. So I think I could do better at
maintaining that relationship. I tried to. It's where just keep
living the model just keep living came from and that
came to me, you know, five days after he moved on,
where I realized, oh, physically he's not here, but you
can keep his spirit alive. You can keep the values
that he initiated in you that he wanted you to learn,
(17:47):
even in those times when you find out the message
was different than the messenger, you know what I mean,
which we all find out, and even things that was like,
oh hey, maybe didn't follow through on those, but he
taught him to me for a reason, and keep those
alive and integrate them into my life and be active
with those even though he's no longer here, And actually
I need to do it more so now because he's
(18:08):
gone and I can't rely on him to have my
back to get me back in line. He'd have loved
this job, this career I have. He would have loved
reading a script. He would have loved talking to me
about a character. He'd have loved breaking down movies. You know,
I didn't know we had any artistic bones in our
body as a family. But then after my father passed away,
(18:29):
we go in the attic, can find all this beautiful
pottery and these an easel and these paintings and drawings
like what are these? My mom says, Oh, that's your dad's.
He used to do that in the garage after y'all
go to bed. Really, I did not know that, never
knew it, never knew it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That's incredible. So much of him was hidden away. And
have you told you kids, have you got the ring
out from your dad? If you told your kids about
that what it means to you.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yes, I have shown the kids, and you know, obviously
the part that they being as young as they are,
the part they got the biggest kickout I was that
that's gold from their grandmother's teeth.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's kids, right, Yeah. I'm like, yeah, listen, Matthew. I
love the movie Dazed and Confused. And then when I'm
reading your book, I always wondered, how did you get
into this movie? On you?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It was your first role.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And then I read the book and I found out
that before that, the work you were getting was a
hand model and it looked like you were going to
have a g and they are beautiful hands.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I mean, look at them, those are those are the
greatest hands I've ever seen. Can I just say that?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And then please just tell us one last story about
how you got the role and came up with the
three words that changed your life.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Really yeah, So here we go. I go take my
girlfriend at the time out to this bar at the
top of the high at in aastin Texas. The reason
I go to this bar is because the bartender was
in film class with me and he would give me
free drinks. So I go on there order a drink
and he comes guy, Hey, there's a guy at the
end of the bar in town. He's producing a movie.
(20:04):
And I said, oh cool, I look down there. I
go down and introduce myself. Name is Don Phillips, Don
Phillips and I and get to having vounking Donalds and
Don's telling stories and he's a golfer and I'm a golfer,
and he you ever played this course? Yeah? I played
this guy? What'd you hit on your second shout? I
hit a seven? You hit at seven and you did
not know why? You're not that long? Yeah? Man, I
am wow. Anyway, we get round, he get kicked out
(20:26):
of the bar man because he's being so loud, and
we have no interest in being kicked out of the
bar because I was getting allied with him and having
a great time. Got to four hours later, We're now
kicked out of the bar and I'm in a cab.
He's riding the cab with me all the way home.
He's gonna drop me off and then catch a cab
back to his hotel. All the way he's like, you
ever done any acting? And I said, Joe, I mean
(20:47):
a little bit. I was in a middle of lighte
commercial for button that long, and you know it was
a hand model. He goes, huh, well, you might be
right for this part. It's this older guy is still
hanging around high school. He likes the high school chicks.
But he's like, twenty one to twenty two, come to
this address tomorrow morning, pick up the script. I show
up the next morning, which was about five hours later,
nine thirty. There's the script waiting for me, handwritten note
from Don Phillips. Three scenes marked, three scenes, three lines.
(21:10):
I go work on those three scenes and three lines
for two weeks. I come back, I read, I get
the audition. Now I got the part. Wow, this is
gonna be fun. Before you go to work on a film,
you have to do it's called a makeup of a
hair and a wardrobe test. Mean, you go to the set,
they do your hair, makeup, wardrobe. The director comes over
and looks at you and sees if he approves. I
was not supposed to work this night. I was only
(21:31):
on set to get that makeup, hair and wardrobe test.
In the break, the director, Richard Lincolner comes up to
me and he looks at me. He's like, ah, Jack, great,
this is Waterson. This is great. Like the hair man
the peach pants. This is cool. I'm like, cool, cool, cool.
As I'm about to say see you later, because I
think my first day of work was the next week,
he goes, hey, wait a minute, he goes, You know,
Waterson's a kind of guy. He's probably been with all
(21:52):
the typical hot chicks. It's cool. Do you think he'd
have any interest in the redheaded intellectual I'm like, oh, yeah, man,
what are some likes all kinds of girls. He's like, well,
Marissa Rabisi is this redhead intellectual brother that's playing Cynthi
in the movie. And she's over here in the car
at the top knots drive through with her three nerdy
friends in the back seat. And I don't know, maybe Wooterson,
you want to pull up and, you know, try and
(22:13):
pick her up. I'm like, yeah, he goes, great, I
go give me thirty minutes. So I take a walk
with myself. Okay, who's my man? Who's Woodson? All these things? Right?
Next thing I know, I'm in a car. I've got
a lava mic cook up to me, about to shoot
my very first scene in the movie. No lines are written.
Thirty minutes ago. The director said, hop in the scene
and go pick her up. And I'm going over in
my head, who's my man? Who's Woodson? Right? I'm getting
(22:36):
a little nervous. I tell myself, all right, Woodson's about
his car. I'm like, well, I'm in my seventies Chevelle.
There's one, I said, Waterson's about getting high. I said, oh, well,
Slater's riding shotgun. He's always got to do. We rolled up.
There's two, I said, Waterson's about rock and roll. I said, well,
I got ted Nus and stranglehold in the eight track.
Right now, there's three. And that's when I heard action.
(23:00):
And I look up across the drive through and there's
Cynthia the redhead intellectual. And to myself, I say, and
Waterson's about picking up chicks. I got three out of four.
Put it in drive. All right, all right, all right,
you'll get the fourth.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's such a great story, well told, and it changed
your life. Those three woods.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I ended up working three weeks. Those words still precede me.
People ask me if I get tired of it. I'm like,
hell no, I don't get tired of it. This the
first three words I ever said in the job that
I didn't know. I thought it might be a one
off hobby in the summer of ninety two, and I
might never do it again. It turned into a career
twenty eight years later. So when people say those words.
(23:46):
That's a callback. My father passed away five days after that,
so it's a callback to I had just finally started
something in my life that became a career while my
dad was alive, the first thing ever started that became
a chrystal. He was alive, you know, he was there
in person. He was alive for the time when I
found what would become my career.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, Elisa, Matthew, thank you so much for writing this book,
and I look forward to reading part two in fifty
years time.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
All right, I think I'll be up for it. Appreciate it, Hughes.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Thank you to today's legend, Matthew McConaughey. His new book,
then green Lights, really does reflect the way he looks
at the world and how he lives this creative storyteller life.
The stories are wild, I mean, the stuff about his
mum and dad is just nuts. But the insights to
life to us are also just as incredible. I've actually
(24:41):
brought several copies to give away to people. It really
is that book. Can't recommend it enough. It's called green Lights.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Give it a go.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Available now at any good bookshop or online from Hatchet
dot com dot AU. That's it for our first season
of Staff of Legends. If you've missed any episode, take
a listen to the many incredible chats we've already.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Had, and stay up to date when we return.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Follow the show for free on iHeartRadio or whatever podcast
app you're listening on, and if you want to get
in touch, check out Stuff of Legends podcast dot com.
I'm Christian O'Connell and until the next time, this is
the Stuff of Legends.
I'm lucky enough to have conversations with so many interesting
people from all over the world, and my favorite ones
are when they share something about themselves that's real, honest
and revealing.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I think that the objects of our lives.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Have so much meaning when you stop and think about them,
and that's what the show is about. I've asked some
of the world's funniest and most interesting people to choose
three of their most treasured objects and share the stories
behind them, stories you've never heard before.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We love a good yarn and a good story and
get passed down. You know. I grew up in a
family that that's what we did at dinner, and all
of us were pretty good storytellers. So you had to
work your butt off to get in there, and once
you were in you better pull it off well, because
if you started to fumble the ball in the story,
somebody took it over from you, you know what I mean.
So it was hard to get a word in Edgeway,
(00:50):
so you had to be a good one.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends,
and today what a treat for us.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Matthew McConaughey, I am Matthew David McKay born in nineteen
sixty nine, November fourth, I got just the very end
of a really really vitil decade.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, Matthew doesn't really need on introduction, but let's just
remind ourselves. Hugely successful, very versatile actor, made his start
making a lot of romantic comedies, then suddenly becomes a
very serious Oscar winning dramatic actor. He's a philanthropist, a
very devoted dad, and even a college professor, and he's
written an amazing book called green Lights, where he's really
(01:32):
doing the thing he does best.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I am a storyteller, that is what I am. I
tell stories from behind the camera, in front of the camera,
and doing my best to tell a great story in
the big show cold life.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And that's exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
When you listen to Matthew speak, the stories he tells,
they really draw you in. And the book is full
of these incredible, wild experiences. But he writes them like
he's been doing it forever. Maybe that's because he has
as his first item shows all.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Right, so look this is an easy one. But it
would be that treasure chest of diaries that I've been
keeping for thirty six years that led me to writing
this book. That has always been one of the things
where I said, look, you know, besides the dog, besides
the pets, the house burns down. Get that treasure chest
(02:22):
full of diaries. I've had them all They're in ziplock
bags in case I was somewhere where it flooded or
what have you. And I've always taken them with me
and had them next to my desk, you know, just
because I knew those were of the most import of me.
There were so many things in there that I would forget.
They were in my first handwriting, and I'm you know,
(02:42):
I've always shouted those things down. Nowadays, when I write
things down, I'm doing it on my phone, and I
have to tell people all the time at a dinner party
or something, I said, I'm not being rude. I'm not
talking to anyone else here. I'm actually writing something down
that we just said. As soon as I'm done here,
I'm gonna hand it to you and ask you if
you said that, if you can sign it. So I
write to myself still to this day, seventy percent of
(03:03):
the time I'm using my phone, but those diaries, because
you know, I noticed, I've been curious about the same
things today at fifty that I was curious about at fourteen.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's not amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I was so surprised because I thought, I mean, I
was much more awkward about how I went about trying
to figure out things back then, and I was really
asking the existential questions of who, what, where, when, why?
About everything? And I've answered a lot of those questions.
I don't have any less questions. But to see how
I've been the same things that kept me up or
(03:37):
what woke me up at two in the morning to
write down or something that in life that happened that
was peculiar to me. To see how those were very
similar than to what they are now was very surprising
to me. So the diaries would be the items that
trust chest.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You don't get the quality of our questions determines a
lot of the quality of our life. Life we should
see is one continuous conversation that we're having with us, sounds,
and nature in the universe about what is going on?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Who are we? What is this?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Man?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I mean, what better mystery? Yeah to investigate then what
the heck are we doing here? And who are we
in it? You know, I think that's forever entertaining. It's
not always easy. I talked about that a lot in
the book. I actually enjoy solitude, but not only not
because I'm always having a great time in it. I've
had a lot of solitude moments where I cannot stand
the company me and I've just tried to learn, Hey,
(04:29):
don't pull the parachute yet. If you're not enjoying your
company right now, there's a good reason you will get
to where you do enjoy the company. But stay here.
Don't go to the easy things of entertainment or call
a friend. These outs that you can get to get
your mind off of it. Don't go grab the bottle,
you know what I mean. Sit in the discomfort. You'll
come out the other side and you'll be like, ah, Okay,
(04:51):
I finally shook hands with the one person I can't
get rid of.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Me.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Glad we're getting along. Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
That's so true. Math, You're right.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Sometimes it's so hard for us to become a friend
to ourselves, to actually sit opposite ourselves and like what
we see all parts of it, the shadowy parts to
barts we don't like to admit or share with the world. Yay,
most of us avoid that, don't we with our phones
or pornography, booze whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Sometimes it is too much and you just don't want
to You want to escape it, you don't want to
face it. But what I've noticed is that those ugly
sides of ourselves they're gonna bubble up somewhere down the line,
and usually in a very awkward way that you really
end up regretting and going, oh, geez, I really wish
I had handle that. I really wish I would have
(05:33):
handled that. And when I was on my own, when
I had the walls padded and had a helmet on
and a mouth.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, bad wolves come out that night.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Come on, they're coming out, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And why did you start, first of all a very
young age to do what Roman leaders did, where they
would make journals to try and make sense of it
or get it all on paper.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I think there was one epistis or somebody said.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That all war belongs on page, the act of getting
it from here onto a page.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But at a very young age you started to do that.
Why do you think that was?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Well? I think early on I was going to my journals.
The main reason most people go to a diary or
a journal, the times of confusion, times of sadness. Oh
you know, Gretchen broke up with me. My heart hurts,
I'm crying. What happened? Why do I got pimples on
my face? What's going on now? Bye bye bye, bye
bye bye. Then in my early twenties, I remember when
going through the diaries, all of a sudden, I started
(06:25):
writing a lot of things down when things were going well,
when I actually was catching green lights in life, when
my relationships were well, I was making grades at school,
I had a job at to money in my pocket.
I was kind of rolling. And I remember thinking at
that time, and I even wrote my diary about it.
I was like, make sure you're dissecting the times when
you feel like you're succeeding, Matthew, because we're so often
(06:48):
taught to dissect failure, Well, why not dissect the success.
And I'm remember writing, maybe you'll be able to look
back at these when you're failing again later in life,
or you're in a rut you hadn't found your frequency,
and maybe they can help you. And sure if they did.
I mean at times when I look back, when I
would get in a rut, which we all eventually will
and do again and again and again. And I was
able to look back at times when I was having
(07:10):
more joy and satisfaction in my life, and I was
able to see, Oh, here's some habits you were falling.
Here's who you were hanging out with, here's where you
were going, here's what you were drinking, here's what i'm
sleepy were getting, here's what you were doing to start
your day. And I noticed, Oh, some of those habits
you don't You've gotten complacent with those, you don't follow
those anymore. Maybe if I start practicing those, I can
recalibrate and get back on my frequency. And they helped
(07:31):
become a roadmap to get back on my frequency at
times when I was off it.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Because success leaves clues, doesn't.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It sure does, just as failure does. And I think
we're just you know, taught to usually go into introspection
right in our journal or diary when we're lost, when
we're not found, when we're off our frequency, when we're clumsy,
when we can't figure shit out, And that's a good
reason to go. But also go there when you when
(08:00):
you're like, man, I'm on it right now, things are
working me and the world are in a great dance
right now, and I'm giving it out and I'm receiving
it every line I'm walking in the supermarket. It looked
like the longest woe, but it was the fastest line
in the checkout. You know what I mean, I'm catching them,
you know. So what are those things when your timing's
on with the world where you're getting a recipricious response
(08:21):
that you're giving out from the world. Go write those
things down as well, because we tell ourselves what I
at least know I do many times. Oh, things are
going great, this is the mean, this is obviously I'll
never forget this because this is who I am. This
is the ultimate me, and I'll never forget this. I
don't need to write this down. Well, bullshit, Yes you do,
(08:43):
because you will forget and you will and then you know,
times are going good, you think they're gonna last forever.
No they don't. You do get a run again, and
you're like where to go?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And if you write it down and got a few
things down, you can have some things that can help
nudge you back on the right track.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And tell me about the journals. What are they are?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
They just cheap notebooks, or do you always get the
same type and just fill them up and then fill
up another one.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
They're all different kind of notebooks. The ones that I
like the most, I like a good paper stock. They
don't have to be very big because I write very small.
But they're usually leatherbound. It doesn't really matter which kind
of leather bound. I just want one that, for instance,
I don't like one. You know, you open some of
those books that they're bound here where they won't stay
open and it's hard to get to write and hit
(09:28):
this part. You want something that's gonna but you can
lay flat and going to give you full access to
the entire page. It's not going to pinch up like that.
So that's very important.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
No, I gaes, I'm the same because you want to
feel like, well, this is how Hemingway and Picasso they
would have had this kind of note but they weren't
getting all folded up in the midway through some important
point or essay or picture, were they?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I hope not not the way I see. I'm with
you on that.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
I started off for journals. It was, you know, twenty percent,
twenty five percent of my journals was bags and bags
full of beer coasters, napkins, a picture I took of
something I wrote on my arm when I was out
and didn't have my journal on me, a match box,
anything I could write on, or i'd write on a
You go out to eat and I would write on
(10:13):
the table and then snap a picture of what I
had written on the table, and then take a picture
that printed out, put it in my stack of diaries.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends
today with Matthew McConaughey. So we've seen how this love
of storytelling began. Let's find out his next most treasured item.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Next item the book The Greatest Salesman in the World.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh wow, tell us about what that means to you.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Well, this is a book that found me. I've never
been a big reader. And I was at the end
of my sophomore year in college and I was headed
towards law school. And for about four months leading up
to this moment, I was not sleeping so well with
the idea of law school, the idea that oh I graduate,
then I go to three or four more years of
(11:05):
law school, I get out. I'm actually don't have a
job or putting my mark in the world until I'm
in my thirties. I really don't want to spend my
twenties learning only learning. And I had been writing a
lot and writing some short stories and shared some short
stories with the friend of mine. Was writer was like,
these are good, so well, I want to go to
film school. But I didn't have the courage to even
(11:25):
believe it myself, much less calm my dad and asked
to do so. I went to I was going to
my final exams that year. In my sophomore year. I'm
at a buddy's house and I've got three hours before
my class, and I was a study bug. I had
three point eight two GPA out of four. I made
a's and I would use all the time I could
(11:46):
study and wouldn't spare a minute for whatever reason. This day,
after I open up my books to study, I'm like,
you got this, mcconnaey, don't study anymore. You got it.
Never done that before remote control. I turned on the TV,
turn on the ESPN. I'll watch any sports in the world.
I mean, I'll watch the Strongest Man competition. I watch
freaking ping pong championships. I love sports. I am a
(12:07):
cricket fan. By the way I'm going through, there's a
great game on. It's even one of my teams was
playing baseball. Whatever reason I'm bors can be, I turned
the thing off. I'm like, hum, I look over at
this stack next to me of magazines, sports, illustrated Playboys,
another thing. I like. I pick up Playboys. Now I
(12:29):
found what I want to do. How I'm going to
pass the time I'm flipping through. I get bored of
that for a minute. Now, I'm like, wait a minute,
keep digging down through the magazines, and seven deep in
the magazine stack was this white paperback book with Red
Curser writing that said the Greatest Salesman in the World.
And I remember saying to myself as I reached in
grab and I said, who is that? I pick it
(12:50):
up and I start reading. I spent the next two
hours reading all the way up to the very first scroll,
and it had told me, basically, the greatest salesman the
world is whoever's in this book. And this book's gonna
teach you how to be the greatest salesman the world.
And you're going to read these ten scrolls, scroll one
three times a day for thirty days before you moved
to scroll two, scroll two three times day thirty days
till you move to scroll three. So it takes ten
(13:12):
months to read well. All of a sudden, I just
felt this energy, like this book found me for a reason.
I looked up ten minutes before my exam. I said,
can I can I borrow this book? My buddy woke
up and goes, man, you can have that book. My
dad gave it to me. It's a great book. I
took the book, went into my exam, ripped through it.
I think I failed it just because I went through
it so fast, because I was so sure. No, I'm
going to go to film school. I'm gonna have the
(13:34):
courage to call my dad and ask him if I
can go to film school. And that night I went
home because I had that book and found me. Whatever
it did, it was something special. I felt it was
a sign. Called my dad to ask him if I
go to film school, thinking he might say you want
to do what sone And instead he told me three
of the greatest words he's ever told me. He said, well,
if that's what you want to do, I said, yes, sir.
(13:54):
He goes, don't have asset and I was like, oh, yes,
so here I am.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What a great thing, just those three words. And in
that moment, you calling your dad, You're stepping up to life,
aren't you standing up in yourself? In those moments, That's
when you become a man, isn't it? You work out
this is actually who I am now, not your expectation
of me.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Dad.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You know, I've noticed that as a consistency for children
in general with their parents and in the world that
we live in. Our parents give us a formation, The
government gives us a formation. Laws and regulations give us
a formation. Hey, stay in the lines here, follow these rules,
and there's an initiation to get out of it. But
if you get out of it and you really mean it,
(14:36):
and you're like, I'm not asking permission. This is what
I'm doing, all of a sudden, the world or your
parent goes there.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
We go.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
That's what I was hoping you do.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
I was waiting my dad in that phone call, telling
him I want to go to film school, when I
thought he was not going to like the idea at all.
Without saying it, I know he was happy on the
other end, going my son just said he's going his
own way.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yes, that's it, job done.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
He was even proud of me being a rebel at
that point.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Do you ever go back to the book if you
still got copying out? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I owned many copies of that book. Yeah. My original
copies are taped up because I carried them everywhere. They've
been rained on, they've been stomped on, they've been eaten
by dogs and everything else. My original copy isn't about
four zip locks held at home in the safe. And
then I have subsequent copies that I've gotten that are
pretty weathered but still kind of readable.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I love that it means stole that much to you.
It's in the safe well.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And like I said, I'm not a big reader. There's
something about it. You know. It's different if somebody would
have given it to me you should read this book,
or different if the teacher says, hey, go do your homework.
This was something that after I said I don't want
to study, I don't want to watch sports or look
at naked ladies. It was down there hiding And why
(15:53):
did that grab my attention at that moment? And I'm
not even a big reader at all, And I go,
greatest salesman in the world, who's and then read enough
to go, Oh, it's the reader. Let's see what this is.
This sounds like an adventure. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And then what's your next object.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
There's a ring my dad gave me that he wore.
He didn't give it to me, he wore it until
he moved on from this life. And there's a gold
ring and it's got a big M engraved in it
from McConaughey. And it was a meltdown of my mom
and dad's clash rings from the University of Kentucky and
gold from my mom's teeth. Wow, that surprised possession one
(16:36):
that he wore it to what it's made of?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And where'd you keep it?
Speaker 3 (16:40):
That's in the safe as well.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That's a lot in that safe. I mean, I hope
it's guarded.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
There's actually not much more in that safe. I got
cash in that safe and a gun. But other than that,
there's that ring. And there's a few, you know, silver
dollars some friends gave me. But other than that, not
a lot of jewelry. Just really that ring in that
original paperback, great salesman.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So the ring.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Did you don't give you that before he passed away?
Or will you give them that afterwards because obviously your
two older brothers.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I was given that afterwards, and did Mom give it
to you or Mom gave it to me? Yeah, And
we all sat around with all the dad stuff and
the family agreed that that should be mine.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
In the book, I still get the feeling that you
have a very strong relationship with your dad even though
he's not here on this physical claim, but he still
has a big presence in your life, doesn't he.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I hope. So I think I could do better at
maintaining that relationship. I tried to. It's where just keep
living the model just keep living came from and that
came to me, you know, five days after he moved on,
where I realized, oh, physically he's not here, but you
can keep his spirit alive. You can keep the values
that he initiated in you that he wanted you to learn,
(17:47):
even in those times when you find out the message
was different than the messenger, you know what I mean,
which we all find out, and even things that was like,
oh hey, maybe didn't follow through on those, but he
taught him to me for a reason, and keep those
alive and integrate them into my life and be active
with those even though he's no longer here, And actually
I need to do it more so now because he's
(18:08):
gone and I can't rely on him to have my
back to get me back in line. He'd have loved
this job, this career I have. He would have loved
reading a script. He would have loved talking to me
about a character. He'd have loved breaking down movies. You know,
I didn't know we had any artistic bones in our
body as a family. But then after my father passed away,
(18:29):
we go in the attic, can find all this beautiful
pottery and these an easel and these paintings and drawings
like what are these? My mom says, Oh, that's your dad's.
He used to do that in the garage after y'all
go to bed. Really, I did not know that, never
knew it, never knew it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That's incredible. So much of him was hidden away. And
have you told you kids, have you got the ring
out from your dad? If you told your kids about
that what it means to you.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yes, I have shown the kids, and you know, obviously
the part that they being as young as they are,
the part they got the biggest kickout I was that
that's gold from their grandmother's teeth.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's kids, right, Yeah. I'm like, yeah, listen, Matthew. I
love the movie Dazed and Confused. And then when I'm
reading your book, I always wondered, how did you get
into this movie? On you?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It was your first role.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
And then I read the book and I found out
that before that, the work you were getting was a
hand model and it looked like you were going to
have a g and they are beautiful hands.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I mean, look at them, those are those are the
greatest hands I've ever seen. Can I just say that?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And then please just tell us one last story about
how you got the role and came up with the
three words that changed your life.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Really yeah, So here we go. I go take my
girlfriend at the time out to this bar at the
top of the high at in aastin Texas. The reason
I go to this bar is because the bartender was
in film class with me and he would give me
free drinks. So I go on there order a drink
and he comes guy, Hey, there's a guy at the
end of the bar in town. He's producing a movie.
(20:04):
And I said, oh cool, I look down there. I
go down and introduce myself. Name is Don Phillips, Don
Phillips and I and get to having vounking Donalds and
Don's telling stories and he's a golfer and I'm a golfer,
and he you ever played this course? Yeah? I played
this guy? What'd you hit on your second shout? I
hit a seven? You hit at seven and you did
not know why? You're not that long? Yeah? Man, I
am wow. Anyway, we get round, he get kicked out
(20:26):
of the bar man because he's being so loud, and
we have no interest in being kicked out of the
bar because I was getting allied with him and having
a great time. Got to four hours later, We're now
kicked out of the bar and I'm in a cab.
He's riding the cab with me all the way home.
He's gonna drop me off and then catch a cab
back to his hotel. All the way he's like, you
ever done any acting? And I said, Joe, I mean
(20:47):
a little bit. I was in a middle of lighte
commercial for button that long, and you know it was
a hand model. He goes, huh, well, you might be
right for this part. It's this older guy is still
hanging around high school. He likes the high school chicks.
But he's like, twenty one to twenty two, come to
this address tomorrow morning, pick up the script. I show
up the next morning, which was about five hours later,
nine thirty. There's the script waiting for me, handwritten note
from Don Phillips. Three scenes marked, three scenes, three lines.
(21:10):
I go work on those three scenes and three lines
for two weeks. I come back, I read, I get
the audition. Now I got the part. Wow, this is
gonna be fun. Before you go to work on a film,
you have to do it's called a makeup of a
hair and a wardrobe test. Mean, you go to the set,
they do your hair, makeup, wardrobe. The director comes over
and looks at you and sees if he approves. I
was not supposed to work this night. I was only
(21:31):
on set to get that makeup, hair and wardrobe test.
In the break, the director, Richard Lincolner comes up to
me and he looks at me. He's like, ah, Jack, great,
this is Waterson. This is great. Like the hair man
the peach pants. This is cool. I'm like, cool, cool, cool.
As I'm about to say see you later, because I
think my first day of work was the next week,
he goes, hey, wait a minute, he goes, You know,
Waterson's a kind of guy. He's probably been with all
(21:52):
the typical hot chicks. It's cool. Do you think he'd
have any interest in the redheaded intellectual I'm like, oh, yeah, man,
what are some likes all kinds of girls. He's like, well,
Marissa Rabisi is this redhead intellectual brother that's playing Cynthi
in the movie. And she's over here in the car
at the top knots drive through with her three nerdy
friends in the back seat. And I don't know, maybe Wooterson,
you want to pull up and, you know, try and
(22:13):
pick her up. I'm like, yeah, he goes, great, I
go give me thirty minutes. So I take a walk
with myself. Okay, who's my man? Who's Woodson? All these things? Right?
Next thing I know, I'm in a car. I've got
a lava mic cook up to me, about to shoot
my very first scene in the movie. No lines are written.
Thirty minutes ago. The director said, hop in the scene
and go pick her up. And I'm going over in
my head, who's my man? Who's Woodson? Right? I'm getting
(22:36):
a little nervous. I tell myself, all right, Woodson's about
his car. I'm like, well, I'm in my seventies Chevelle.
There's one, I said, Waterson's about getting high. I said, oh, well,
Slater's riding shotgun. He's always got to do. We rolled up.
There's two, I said, Waterson's about rock and roll. I said, well,
I got ted Nus and stranglehold in the eight track.
Right now, there's three. And that's when I heard action.
(23:00):
And I look up across the drive through and there's
Cynthia the redhead intellectual. And to myself, I say, and
Waterson's about picking up chicks. I got three out of four.
Put it in drive. All right, all right, all right,
you'll get the fourth.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's such a great story, well told, and it changed
your life. Those three woods.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I ended up working three weeks. Those words still precede me.
People ask me if I get tired of it. I'm like,
hell no, I don't get tired of it. This the
first three words I ever said in the job that
I didn't know. I thought it might be a one
off hobby in the summer of ninety two, and I
might never do it again. It turned into a career
twenty eight years later. So when people say those words.
(23:46):
That's a callback. My father passed away five days after that,
so it's a callback to I had just finally started
something in my life that became a career while my
dad was alive, the first thing ever started that became
a chrystal. He was alive, you know, he was there
in person. He was alive for the time when I
found what would become my career.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, Elisa, Matthew, thank you so much for writing this book,
and I look forward to reading part two in fifty
years time.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
All right, I think I'll be up for it. Appreciate it, Hughes.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Thank you to today's legend, Matthew McConaughey. His new book,
then green Lights, really does reflect the way he looks
at the world and how he lives this creative storyteller life.
The stories are wild, I mean, the stuff about his
mum and dad is just nuts. But the insights to
life to us are also just as incredible. I've actually
(24:41):
brought several copies to give away to people. It really
is that book. Can't recommend it enough. It's called green Lights.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Give it a go.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Available now at any good bookshop or online from Hatchet
dot com dot AU. That's it for our first season
of Staff of Legends. If you've missed any episode, take
a listen to the many incredible chats we've already.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Had, and stay up to date when we return.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Follow the show for free on iHeartRadio or whatever podcast
app you're listening on, and if you want to get
in touch, check out Stuff of Legends podcast dot com.
I'm Christian O'Connell and until the next time, this is
the Stuff of Legends.
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