50 Fun Facts About Matthew McConaughey

Which comedy about the last day of school in 1976 gave Matthew McConaughey his breakout role as Wooderson?

Dazed and Confused cast him only after he approached its casting director in a Texas hotel bar. Much of his part was improvised or written on the spot.

For which drama did Matthew McConaughey lose nearly 50 pounds and win the Academy Award for Best Actor?

Dallas Buyers Club cast him as Ron Woodroof, a Texas rodeo cowboy with AIDS who smuggled unapproved drugs to fellow patients in the 1980s.

In which space epic does Matthew McConaughey play Cooper, a widowed farmer who pilots a ship through a wormhole?

Interstellar sends his character to find humanity a new home. Physicist Kip Thorne served as its scientific consultant and executive producer.

In which romantic comedy does Matthew McConaughey's ad executive bet he can make a magazine writer fall in love?

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days pairs him with Kate Hudson, whose character is secretly writing an article on driving a man away in the same span.

Which actor played Matthew McConaughey's detective partner in the first season of True Detective on HBO?

Woody Harrelson shared top billing in the Louisiana crime drama. In 2023 McConaughey said the two longtime friends could even be half-brothers.

In which Martin Scorsese film does Matthew McConaughey play Mark Hanna, the first boss and mentor of Jordan Belfort?

The Wolf of Wall Street kept the real name of Mark Hanna, an L.F. Rothschild stockbroker who, like Belfort, was convicted of fraud and served time in prison.

In which Steven Soderbergh film does Matthew McConaughey play the owner of a Tampa male strip club?

Magic Mike drew on Channing Tatum's own time as a teenage dancer in Florida. McConaughey's closing dance number was not in the original script.

Which star falls for Matthew McConaughey's already-engaged doctor in the 2001 romantic comedy The Wedding Planner?

Jennifer Lopez saw her album J.Lo reach number one the same week the film opened at the top of the box office, over Super Bowl weekend.

In the animated Sing films, Matthew McConaughey voices theatre owner Buster Moon, who is which kind of animal?

Koala showman Buster Moon stages a singing competition to save his struggling theatre from foreclosure, with a prize far bigger than he can pay.

Which annual People magazine honor went to Matthew McConaughey in 2005, at the height of his romantic comedy fame?

Sexiest Man Alive came the year he promoted an adventure film by sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali.

Matthew McConaughey was born in which small Texas city, also home to the bank-robbing gang in The Newton Boys?

Uvalde was his home until the family moved to Longview in 1980. In 2022 he spoke at the White House about the school shooting in his birthplace.

In which John Grisham adaptation did Matthew McConaughey land his first big leading role as young lawyer Jake Brigance?

A Time to Kill gave him the part after Grisham, who held casting approval, overruled the director's first choice for the lead.

In which romantic comedy does Matthew McConaughey play Tripp, a 35-year-old man still living with his parents?

Failure to Launch pairs him with Sarah Jessica Parker as Paula, an expert whom parents hire to coax their grown sons into moving out.

Which Brazilian model and designer did Matthew McConaughey marry in a private Texas ceremony in 2012?

Camila Alves met him in 2006, having moved from Brazil to Los Angeles at 15. The couple got engaged on Christmas Day 2011.

Which 2020 memoir did Matthew McConaughey build from diaries and journals he had kept since he was fourteen?

Greenlights was written while he shut himself away in the desert without electricity for fifty-two days.

Matthew McConaughey is a co-owner and self-styled Minister of Culture of which Major League Soccer club?

Austin FC began play in 2021 as the first major professional league team in the Texas capital, two years after he bought his minority stake.

Which film of a Carl Sagan novel casts Matthew McConaughey as Christian philosopher Palmer Joss opposite Jodie Foster?

Contact appealed to him so much that he dropped out of the lead role in the thriller The Jackal to play the part.

Which Guy Ritchie crime comedy stars Matthew McConaughey as an American selling his British cannabis empire?

The Gentlemen makes his Mickey Pearson a trailer park-raised Rhodes Scholar who began dealing at Oxford and hid his labs on aristocrats' estates.

Which Texas office did Matthew McConaughey publicly consider seeking in the 2022 election before bowing out in a video?

Governor was the race he weighed for months in 2021 without ever naming a party. He withdrew about two weeks before the candidate filing deadline.

In which drama do two Arkansas boys help Matthew McConaughey's fugitive hiding on a Mississippi River island?

Mud names both the film and his character, who asks the boys to help him repair a boat stranded in a tree so he can rejoin his estranged lover.

Which adventure film stars Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, following a Niger River clue to a lost Civil War ironclad?

Sahara was meant to launch a franchise from Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels, but its poor box office stalled the sequel and Cussler sued the producer.

In which film do Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale lead rival bands of survivors hunting dragons in England?

Reign of Fire casts him as Denton Van Zan, an American dragon slayer who has learned that the beasts see poorly at twilight.

Which football drama casts Matthew McConaughey as coach Jack Lengyel, rebuilding a college team after a plane crash?

We Are Marshall retells the 1970 crash that killed 75 people, among them 37 Marshall University players, and the rebuilt season that followed.

Which Ben Stiller satire casts Matthew McConaughey as Rick Peck, an agent fighting to get his client a TiVo?

Tropic Thunder gave him the part after Owen Wilson withdrew, and Tom Cruise had been lined up to play the agent before either of them.

Which Kentucky bourbon brand hired Matthew McConaughey as its creative director and spokesman in 2016?

Wild Turkey, distilled in Lawrenceburg, wanted his campaign to bring in more women and more international customers.

Which Texas director gave Matthew McConaughey his 1993 breakthrough and later cast him in The Newton Boys?

Richard Linklater at first found him too handsome for the part, then enlarged the small role as another actor's screen time was cut.

Matthew McConaughey earned an Emmy nomination for playing which brooding Louisiana detective in True Detective?

Rust Cohle won him a Critics' Choice Television Award for best drama actor, but the Emmy went to Bryan Cranston.

Which country hosted Matthew McConaughey as a Rotary exchange student for a year before he started university?

Australia put him in Warnervale, New South Wales, where he also worked as a bank teller and as an assistant to an attorney.

Which Spielberg drama casts Matthew McConaughey as Roger Baldwin, a lawyer for Africans who seized a slave ship?

Amistad follows the 1839 revolt off Cuba and the court fight after it, with Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams arguing before the Supreme Court.

In which war film does Matthew McConaughey's naval officer help capture an Enigma machine from a German submarine?

U-571 angered British politicians because Royal Navy sailors made the first real Enigma captures, before America had entered the war. The film's end credits acknowledge them.

Which Civil War film stars Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight, a Confederate deserter who leads an armed revolt?

Free State of Jones takes its name from Jones County, Mississippi, where the real Knight led his revolt against the Confederacy.

Which Stephen King adaptation casts Matthew McConaughey as Walter Padick, nemesis of Idris Elba's gunslinger?

The Dark Tower calls his warlock the Man in Black, who abducts psychic children to bring down the structure at the centre of the universe.

Which comedy reunites Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as a divorced couple hunting sunken Spanish treasure?

Fool's Gold sends the exes after the Queen's Dowry, the cargo of a galleon lost at sea with the 1715 Treasure Fleet.

Matthew McConaughey voices which music legend as a secret government spy in a 2023 Netflix animated series?

Elvis Presley moonlights as a spy in Agent Elvis, a series co-created by the singer's former wife, Priscilla Presley.

Which co-star won a supporting Oscar the same night as Matthew McConaughey, for playing Rayon in their 2013 drama?

Jared Leto came back from five years away from film acting for the part. Their pair of wins was the first such double since Mystic River.

In which William Friedkin black comedy does Matthew McConaughey play a corrupt detective hired by a scheming family?

Killer Joe is based on the first play by Tracy Letts, and its title character is a police detective with a side career as a contract killer.

Which director cast Matthew McConaughey in EDtv as a man whose life becomes a round-the-clock reality show?

Ron Howard adapted the satire from a 1994 Quebec film. It grossed $35.2 million against a production budget of $80 million.

In which Harmony Korine comedy does Matthew McConaughey play Moondog, a poet drifting around the Florida Keys?

The Beach Bum surrounds his stoner poet with Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Buffett, who plays himself, while Moondog tries to finish his new novel.

In which Laika stop-motion film does Matthew McConaughey voice Beetle, a cursed samurai who joins a boy's quest?

Kubo and the Two Strings reveals Beetle to be Hanzo, the young hero's own father, transformed into a stag beetle hybrid by the Moon King.

Which romantic comedy casts Matthew McConaughey as womanizing photographer Connor Mead opposite Jennifer Garner?

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past reworks Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, swapping Christmas Eve for the day before a wedding.

Which drama pairs Matthew McConaughey's former college football star with Al Pacino in the world of sports gambling?

Two for the Money has his injured ex-player take a job handicapping football games for a mentor who turns out to be a recovering gambling addict.

Which horror film, Bill Paxton's directing debut, casts Matthew McConaughey as a man telling the FBI about his family?

Frailty centres on two young brothers and a father who believes God has commanded him to destroy demons disguised as people.

Matthew McConaughey played the male lead in the 1992 music video for Walkaway Joe by which country singer?

Trisha Yearwood took the ballad to number two on the country chart, with Don Henley of the Eagles singing background vocals.

Which religious calling did Matthew McConaughey seriously consider for a decade after his exchange year abroad?

Monk was a path he weighed until a friend who was one told him his real calling was to be a communicator and a storyteller.

Which Paul Greengrass film casts Matthew McConaughey as Kevin McKay, a real-life hero of California's 2018 Camp Fire?

The Lost Bus dramatises the real rescue led by driver Kevin McKay and teacher Mary Ludwig, adapted from Lizzie Johnson's book Paradise.

Which true-crime comedy casts Matthew McConaughey as district attorney Danny Buck Davidson opposite Jack Black?

Bernie is based on a 1998 Texas Monthly article about a beloved small-town assistant mortician and the wealthy widow he was convicted of killing.

Which baseball fantasy featured Matthew McConaughey, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Adrien Brody before they were famous?

Angels in the Outfield, a loose remake of a 1951 film of the same name, starred Danny Glover, Tony Danza and Christopher Lloyd.

Which academic post did Matthew McConaughey take in 2019 at the University of Texas, where he had studied film?

Professor of practice followed four years as a visiting instructor in the Radio-Television-Film department that awarded his own degree in 1993.

Which future Oscar winner starred with Matthew McConaughey in a 1990s Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel?

Renée Zellweger led the black comedy slasher, whose makers later alleged that the studio held it back as its two stars grew famous.

Which Detroit crime drama starring Matthew McConaughey tells the true story of the youngest FBI informant ever?

White Boy Rick is loosely based on Richard Wershe Jr., who began informing for the FBI in the 1980s at the age of 14.