Matthew McConaughey recently sat down for an interview with Playboy. Here are some of the highlights:
When you were bulking up for [your new movie] Gold, did you experience any fat-shaming?
"Some people said I looked much healthier. My mom was very happy until I got close to 200 pounds, and then she was like, “All right, fat-ass, that’s enough already. You look like you got two pigs wrestling in your trousers.” But my brother Rooster said, “It’s Pop all over again.” He thought I was so loosey-goosey and fun, he didn’t want me to take off the weight. I got nice and swollen all right, but I told Rooster, “I’m going to lose a little bit of the weight, but I’m going to keep the spirit of Kenny Wells alive.”"
When did you feel the tide turning your way, the birth of what became labeled the McConaissance?
"After around a year and a half of my being off-screen, I got a call from William Friedkin, who wanted me for Killer Joe. I don’t think he would’ve come two years earlier. Steven Soderbergh called with Magic Mike. He’d done plenty of things he could’ve had me in, but he’d never called before. Jeff Nichols had written Mud and wanted me to do it. I did The Paperboy with Lee Daniels. It was like, Fuck the bucks, man, I’m going for the experience. Then we did True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club. The time away gave people a chance to remember work I’d done before, whether it was Dazed and Confused or whatever. I didn’t rebrand in those 18 months; I unbranded. I became some people’s good new idea. People bring up the romantic-comedy years as though I’m another person, another actor. It was the same car, same engine, same me. I just shifted to another gear."
Although many critics thought you were the best thing about Magic Mike, you dodged playing Dallas in the sequel.
"I wanted to be a part of that, but the idea of Dallas 2.0 was not the way I wanted to go. A lot of times you bring a character back and there’s an inherent apology about who they were. Dallas was too much of a lightning bolt to do that to. If I ever came back and did Wooderson from Dazed and Confused, there could be no apologies there either."
At what point after movies such as Ghosts of Girlfriends Past did you think, Enough with the rom-coms?
"I remember reading another rom-com script, laughing and going, “Fuck, I can do this tomorrow.” That’s a fastball and it’s here right now. Not to get all Hamlet about it, but I debated back and forth: You got something going. You like doing these movies. They pay good. Then it became, Well, what if instead of this fastball, I read something that scares me a little bit? I realized my life was more exciting than my work. I decided to try to get work that could at least compete with the vitality, excitement, joy, love, pain, hope, guilt and spirit I was feeling at that time. I had my epic in front of me: my new son Livingston. My wife and I got married that year, and that also gave me a sense of significance every day, something to work on, build and be there for the first time, with open eyes. I was back in Texas, not showing up on the screen and also no longer on Page Six with my shirt off on the beach. That stuff of “McConaughey’s a good-looking guy on the beach, surfing every day, and he’s got a hot girlfriend” got ladled in along with “He just does those light, fun rom-coms.” Now, some people thought all that was cool, and other people were like, “Fuck him.”"
According to your mother’s 2008 book, I Amaze Myself!, when your dad died in 1992—while having sex with your mother—she insisted that his body be carried out of the house naked because she was “just so proud to show off my big old Jim McConaughey—and his gift.” What specific memories of your father got fed into Gold?
"I really based my character on my father and a guy named Chicago John. I’m 19, 20 years old in Houston, it’s the day before Christmas, and my father says, “Come on, let’s go get some stocking stuffers.” We drive behind this strip mall in southwest Houston where it’s Dumpsters, power lines and a white van flashing its lights through the mist as we pull up. My dad says, “Stay in the car, buddy. That’s Chicago John,” and he gets out. Through the passenger window I see this guy get out of the van—about five-foot-five, black leather jacket, bald. He goes behind his van and opens the doors. There’s a washing machine, sinks, microwaves, knickknacks. This is exciting. Something’s up, and it’s shady. My dad’s and Chicago John’s backs fill up the open van door, and my dad’s shoulders are making this rolling, waving motion. I think, Whoa, what is it, a snake? All of a sudden I see my dad counting off money. He gets in the car, starts it, hands me this thing wrapped in paper and says, “Here, put that in the glove box.” We pull out, no good-bye to Chicago John, get back on Route 59, and not a word gets said until, “Hey, buddy, check the glove box to see if it’s still there.” I open the glove box. What the fuck is it? I unwrap the paper, and there’s this big silver watch. My dad goes, “Goddamn, man, that’s a $17,000 titanium Rolex, and I just got it for three grand. Put it away.” Beats going to Kmart for stocking stuffers, right? My dad loved a shady deal. It’s like he almost wanted to be a gangster but wasn’t. That’s my guy from Gold."
Did your mother contribute to your education in love and marriage?
"When my middle brother and I were growing up, she tried to find us girls. She’d say, “I think you’re really going to like this girl,” but it was more like, “No, Mom, you like that girl. We don’t want to marry someone like you.”"
How did you first learn about sex?
"I think I was 14 when Dad and I had our birds-and-bees talk. He goes, “Hey, buddy, drop your pants. Let’s see what you got. Okay, now these right here? They’re what really make a baby. And this little guy is where the semen comes out. I’m sure the old shower head’s hit it a few times when you were playing with yourself and it felt great.” It was a man-to-man, son-to-dad talk. It was really cool and kind of took taboos off things."
What kind of advice did he give you about women?
"I remember him saying, “There’s going to come a time when you’re with a girl and your hands are going to start up here and then they’re going to move down to the lower parts. Anywhere along that line you feel the smallest resistance, any tension, go no further, which is when the girl is probably going to want you to go a little further. Don’t. The next time you get together, if you still like each other, you’re both comfortable with it and don’t feel that resistance, it’s okay to go a little further.” My first time getting with a girl below the waist, it took me about an hour to get from up here to down there."
Because you got resistance?
"No, because all I’d ever seen was PLAYBOY photos of women standing up that I had hidden in the barn across the neighborhood. They never exposed labia and stuff, so I always thought the vagina faced east-west. I got there and I’m like, Where is it? The next four inches down took me longer than the first hour, because now I’m going, Uh-oh, have I skipped it? Three hours later, I learned that it faces north-south and she was like, “Come on, come on.” I was wonderfully, innocently misinformed."
Read the full interview at Playboy.
No comments:
Post a Comment