Who is the man behind the phrase “Alright, alright, alright”?
What was his journey to Hollywood stardom like?
Find out as we look at the Truth About Matthew McConaughey.
#11 Family Business Long before he dominated the silver screen,
Matthew McConaughey was just a Texan kid looking for adventure.
He grew up with two older brothers, Michael and Patrick, and the three of them endured
a tumultuous relationship between their parents, who were divorced twice and married three
times!
McConaughey’s father Jim owned an oil pipe supply business and was drafted by the Green
Bay Packers in 1953, so it seemed as if Matthew would have a clear path to follow after high
school.
But his wanderlust would prove too strong, and he would go on to carve a path of his
own.
#10 Handsome History No matter who you are, it’s difficult to
deny the hunkiness of Matthew McConaughey.
His suave presence goes along way in wooing his legions of fans, but that behavior is
simply a compliment to his natural good looks.
This sentiment was reinforced in 2005 when he was named the Sexiest Man Alive by People
magazine.
But McConaughey didn’t always have such a dazzling visage.
In high school, the future superstar battled an intense case of acne.
At the time, his mother worked in door-to-door sales, offering an alternative skin care product
called mink oil.
Naturally, McConaughey tried to utilize the salve, but found it to have the opposite of
its intended effects.
The oil instead clogged his pores, causing his acne to worsen.
After visiting a dermatologist for assistance with his worsening skin condition, McConaughey
and his parents were told that two more weeks of mink oil use would have led to acne so
bad that the resulting scars would need surgery to remove.
Horrified, his father attempted to sue the alternative skin care company for causing
“emotional distress”.
During the time of the lawsuit, though, McConaughey’s acne cleared up thanks to treatment with the
medicine Accutane.
As a result, he was named the Most Handsome Student at school!
This proved to be a bittersweet title, though, as it led to the presiding judge throwing
out the lawsuit.
#9 Law Aspirations As the son of well-off parents, McConaughey
was college-bound after high school.
He attended the University of Texas and graduated in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television-Film.
After this first bout of schooling was finished, McConaughey set his sights on Southern Methodist
University.
Though before he could follow through, he learned from one of his brothers that the
cost of that schooling would put a hefty financial burden on his parents.
His strategy had been to go to law school afterwards as well, but he threw these plans
out the window.
Instead, he found a new calling in television commercials, making his face well-known locally
before breaking out into bigger and better projects.
These opportunities would bring him back to the rule of law though as he would go on to
be cast as a lawyer in two critically acclaimed movies, once in 1996 then again in 2011.
One of his most recently popular roles even put McConaughey behind a badge as Detective
Rust Cohle on HBO’s True Detective.
At the end of the day though, the actor never actually earned the qualifications to be a
lawyer or officer.
He just plays them on TV.
#8 Texas Born & Bred The love McConaughey feels towards his home
state is represented throughout his catalog of works.
From Dazed and Confused and Dallas Buyer’s Club to 1994’s sequel to the Texas Chainsaw
Massacre and Killer Joe, from Lone Star and The Newton Boys to a cameo spot in Mike Judge’s
King of The Hill, the actor’s work is riddled with tributes to Texas.
This makes sense as few actors can claim to be more Texan than him.
Born in Uvalde, Texas, McConaughey also went to school in Longview and later in Austin.
Growing up, he worked at a country club where he would perform groundskeeping duties, and
shoot pesky armadillos invading the estate.
His Texas roots go back even deeper though thanks to an interesting lineage.
Aside from his successful family members, McConaughey has one distant relative with
a famed history in the region.
He and his family are related to a Confederate brigadier general named Dandridge McRae, a
leader who proved instrumental in many important battles of the 1860s.
But unlike the rest of his Texan roots, McConaughey doesn’t seem to hold this Confederate connection
too close to heart.
His performance in 2016’s Free State of Jones proved as much as he played a deserter
of the Confederacy and militia leader that led a rebellion against the corrupt Confederate
government.
#7 Rom-Com King After spreading his wings throughout the nineties,
McConaughey exhibited a wide range to audiences thanks to the sheer difference in tone between
movies like Contact, Amistad, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and EDtv.
But as the millennium drew to a close, McConaughey would find a comfortable niche being typecast
as an affable yet flawed love interest in a series of romantic comedies.
Movies like The Wedding Planner, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool’s
Gold, and Ghosts of Girlfriends past pit him alongside starlets like Jennifer Lopez, Kate
Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Jennifer Garner.
This cemented his place in the hearts and minds of women everywhere, but at the same
time grew to be one of his trademarks.
By the time 2010 came around, McConaughey was 41 and had no Oscars to show for his body
of work.
He realized it was time for a change if he didn’t want to be stuck being typecast forever.
#6 Rebrand & Resurgence McConaughey’s shirtless, bongo-filled romps,
when paired with his romantic comedy reputation, weren’t getting him any closer to the dramatic,
challenging roles he knew he wanted.
So when he returned to silver screens after somewhat of a break in 2010, he did so with
a purpose.
Roles in films like The Lincoln Lawyer, Mud, and Magic Mike were a strange turn from the
clean-cut, safe characters he had gotten used to from 2001 to 2009.
But it was 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club that would change everything.
In the role of Ron Woodruff, McConaughey embodied the AIDS-diagnosed survivor with such passion
and gusto that he won his first and only Oscar to date for Best Performance by an Actor in
a Leading Role.
To make it even more special, his co-star Jared Leto won an Oscar for Supporting Actor,
making it one of the few times in history that both of those awards go to actors in
the same film.
This win has kicked off what some writers have called a “McConaissance” for the
actor as his career is surging with new parts for him to sink his teeth into.
2014’s True Detective, for example, brought the actor to television in a role that earned
him an Emmy nomination.
He starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street and in Christopher Nolan’s
space epic Interstellar.
The future looks bright for McConaughey as he continues to churn out excellent performances.
#5 Model Wife Going on almost thirteen years together, McConaughey
is happily married to Brazilian fashion model Camila Alves.
The pair were engaged on Christmas of 2011, and were wed in their hometown of Austin,
Texas in a private Catholic ceremony.
But they met much earlier than that with a history going back to 2006.
They have three children together, with Alves birthing a son in 2008, a daughter in 2010,
and a second son in 2012.
Alves first came to the states when she was just 15 to visit her aunt and decided to stay
when she fell in love with the country.
Four years of working as a house-cleaner and waitress attuned her to American traditions
as she became fluent in English.
She then decided to move to New York and pursue her dreams of being a fashion model, while
also working with her mother in designing a line of handbags.
Her career has since taken off, with accomplishments such as hosting a season of the Bravo show
“Shear Genius” and being signed as the face for Macy’s “International Concepts”
clothing line.
She also runs her own web site, “Women of Today”, and is a co-owner of an organic
food company called “Yummy Spoonfuls”, which provides products for babies and toddlers
as well!
#4 Animal Hero Full of compassion, Matthew McConaughey has
been especially kind to animals in the public eye.
In 2005, amid the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the actor teamed with Oprah
to help with rescue efforts.
A camera crew accompanied McConaughey into the weather-torn city to give a first-hand
account of the natural disaster.
While there, the team found numerous pets stranded among the wreckage.
They came upon a doctor who had been trapped after the levees burst and the lot of them
were able to rescue over 50 animals and get them to safety.
McConaughey is equally as good to animals when the cameras aren’t rolling, too, as
was seen a year earlier while the actor was in Sherman Oaks, California.
Driving down the street, he came across a group of kids committing an act he couldn’t
believe.
The group of kids were dousing a cat in hairspray and attempting to set it on fire!
After letting loose a torrent of words at the irresponsibly devious individuals, he
snatched the hairspray and the feline from them and left, taking it immediately to an
animal shelter.
Some of his other harrowing encounters with animals involve him facing off with them,
just as he did when he tossed his child 15 feet in the air to his wife while distracting
a charging ram, or the time he chased off a coyote circling a mother and child.
Animal or person, McConaughey is quick to protect the innocent.
#3 Eccentric Behavior Given his cool, casual attitude, McConaughey
isn’t exactly known for showing restraint.
His notoriously carefree perspective has shown to be a blessing and a curse.
One example of his unconventional conduct actually resulted in his big break, as McConaughey
first met the casting director of the film “Dazed and Confused” in a bar...at 3:30
in the morning!
He brought drinks to the unsuspecting man and talked his way into a role as shooting
began just six hours later.
McConaughey’s radical etiquette didn’t end with pursuing work, as his dedication
to his performances has reached equivalent if not increasing extremities.
When cast as an electrician with Aids in the film Dallas Buyers Club, the actor voluntarily
lost 47 pounds, becoming a thin shadow of his normally svelte self.
To reach the desired weight, McConaughey crafted a controlled environment for himself, avoiding
all meetings at food-related locations and filling his time with researching the part
to keep his mind off of his hunger.
Another one of his abnormal calling cards is his refusal to wear deodorant or cologne,
opting to embrace his “natural scent”.
This doesn’t go over well with everyone, though, as Kate Hudson supposedly hounded
him to use a salt rock while on the set of Fool’s Gold.
A request he declined.
#2 Bongo Debauchery Without a doubt, the star of 2019’s Beach
Bum has a certain magnetism that endears him to audiences worldwide.
Behind that alluring smile, though, lies a troublemaker...as the world found out in 1999.
McConaughey had the police called on him one night after being seen playing the bongos
outside of his Texas home...in the nude!
As he played the drums, an unidentified man joined in with the music, clapping along to
the rhythm.
When police arrived, they immediately recognized the actor as he had been in the business for
nearly 6 years at this point.
While trying to book him, McConaughey allegedly refused to put on pants and went so far as
to shove an officer in his belligerence while entering the squad car.
This resulted in a resisting transportation charge, along with being booked on possession
of illegal substances and paraphernalia.
The first person he called in jail was his mother.
But McConaughey would only stay locked up for a total of nine hours before being granted
bail on a bond of one thousand dollars.
The substance and paraphernalia charges were dropped, and despite the harrowing predicament,
McConaughey has gone on record stating he has “no regrets about the way [he] got there.”
#1 Diary Collection McConaughey’s laid back demeanor, charming
southern drawl and blue-collared roles don’t exactly give the impression that the actor’s
an intellectual, but in truth, he’s a very deep thinker.
So deep, in fact, that he possesses a massive collection of diaries from throughout his
life, with each one recounting his experiences in different regions and on the sets of his
various films.
A peek inside might reveal such details as his mindstate while dropping nearly 50 pounds
for his part in Dallas Buyers Club, or tales of his pre-college journey in Australia.
When asked the purpose of keeping such diaries in an interview with GQ, McConaughey answered
slyly with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “A man should always have his diary on him.
That way he’s guaranteed to always have something incredible to read.”
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