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Name: Greenlights
Rating: 4.3 (231 reviews)
Author: Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey

A tour into the life and mind of award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey

4.3 (231 ratings)

40 mins

Topics

Memoirs Inspiration Meaningful Living

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Greenlights
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What’s in it for me? Discover the surprising stories in the eccentric life of Matthew McConaughey.

What is a greenlight? In the movie business, greenlight is the term used when a studio gives you the go-ahead for the project you’ve been developing. It means you can keep going, move forward, proceed.

For Matthew McConaughey, greenlights can be found everywhere in life. It can be a surprise gift, a reassuring pat on the back, or a chance for a fresh start.

Throughout his life, Matthew has found that with the right approach and the right outlook, you can start to generate your own greenlights. It starts with what he calls “getting relative with the inevitable.” Some things in life are inevitable. Not every plan is going to work out perfectly. But how you deal with setbacks is relative – it’s up to you.

With the right attitude, you can always learn and grow – no matter what you’re facing.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how a night of vodka tonics led to Matthew’s first big break;
how a wet dream led to life-changing journeys around the world; and
how Matthew ended up in a wrestling match in Africa.

Tough Love

The McConaughey clan has had its fair share of outlaws in the past. Cattle thieves, gamblers, even a bodyguard for the infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone. The family can be traced backward from New Orleans, to West Virginia, to Liverpool in England, all the way back to their home country of Ireland.

Matthew McConaughey’s father, Jim, was born in Louisiana, but the family settled in Texas, where he hustled to make it rich as a pipe salesman in the oil business. His mom, Katy, was from Altoona, Pennsylvania, but told everyone she was from Trenton, New Jersey. Why not just tell the truth? Well, as she put it, “who’d wanna be from a place called Altoona?”

Both parents had some unorthodox ideas that they passed down to their children, and their relationship with each other was combative, to say the least. But in the end, there was always love.

Matthew recalls a particularly eventful clash between his parents in 1974, when he was five years old. Jim had just gotten home from a long day at work. Everyone else had already eaten, so Katy brought out a plate of food that had been kept warm in the oven.

When Jim asked for more potatoes, Katy replied, “Sure you want more potatoes, fat man?” At first, Jim didn’t take the bait. But Katy continued to bark at him, calling him “fat man,” and throwing heaping spoonfuls of mashed potatoes onto his plate, until Jim stood up and threw the table into the air.

As he approached her, he said, “You can’t leave well enough alone, can ya, Katy?” But when he got close, Katy picked up the phone, swung it into his face, and broke his nose. Then she grabbed a knife, threatening to cut him “wide open.” Jim, blood gushing down his face and onto his shirt, grabbed a ketchup bottle and held it as if it were a sword and he was a matador. As he waved it around, streaks of ketchup came out and splashed against Katy. “Touché!” Jim said as he danced around the kitchen.

They stalked each other around the room until ketchup-covered Katy finally dropped the knife, blood-soaked Jim dropped the ketchup, and the two passionately embraced each other. The next moment, they were on the floor making love.

In the end, Matthew’s mom and dad got two divorces. But they married each other three times. His dad broke his mom’s middle finger on four separate occasions, after she’d stuck it in his face. This was how they got through to one another. This was how they loved one another.

Matthew got a few whuppings of his own growing up, for things like telling one of his two brothers that he hated him, or saying the two words “I can’t.” These were important lessons and values learned. This was how he was taught to never hate, and never to say you can’t.

Outlaw Logic

In seventh grade, Matthew wanted to enter a poetry competition. But rather than submit his own writing, his mom suggested he submit a poem by the writer Ann Ashford. First, though, he had to understand and like the poem. By her logic, once someone enjoyed and understood a poem, it became theirs. And so what if they found out he didn’t write it? The worse they could do was take away the award, and that’s no big deal. As it turned out, by using the Ashford poem, Matthew did win the competition.

This kind of logic may sound strange, but Katy McConaughey had a tough upbringing. She had to endure many situations that didn’t seem fair, so she had to create her own brand of values – outlaw logic, as Matthew calls it. In a way, her alternative reality was preparing Matthew for the creative storytelling he’d be doing as an actor.

Embracing Loneliness

In 1988, Matthew was on a roll. He’d been voted Most Handsome in his class and was dating the prettiest girl in his school, as well as the prettiest girl in the school on the other side of town. As a high-school senior, things were looking good.

Every morning, he’d roll his pickup truck into the parking lot and entertain his classmates. The truck had a megaphone installed in the front grille, so he could slouch down in his seat and say things like, “Look at the jeans Cathy Cook’s got on today; looking good!”

Career Shifts

Back from Australia, Matthew had his sights set on Dallas. In particular, he was looking at Southern Methodist University as the next big step in his life. But his dad kept asking him: “Are you sure? What about being a Longhorn?” He was talking about the mascot for the University of Texas at Austin.

Matthew had applied to UT Austin, but at that time he was seriously considering a career as a lawyer, so he figured Dallas would provide more opportunities at more law firms. And yet his Dad kept asking about UT. Then his brother Pat called him up asking the same question. This time, though, Pat shed some light on the situation. UT was a state school, while Southern Methodist University was private, and his dad was hurting financially because the oil business was on the decline. As a state school, UT would be a whole lot easier on his pocketbook.

First Break

As soon as Matthew began film school at UT Austin, he knew it was different. Grades weren’t going to matter when it came to finding work. He needed to do something or make something that would get people’s attention.

So, while he wasn’t exactly the best student when it came to showing up to all of his classes, he was ambitious and driven from the start. He signed with a local talent agency and landed a couple of small-time gigs. But it was a chance encounter that landed him his big break.

Fame

While Dazed and Confused helped get Matthew to Hollywood, it was another film that made him a star. This was A Time to Kill, an adaption of a John Grisham book, and directed by Joel Schumacher.

Schumacher initially liked Matthew for the part of a Ku Klux Klan leader. But Matthew was eager for the lead role of the lawyer Jake Brigance. Matthew came prepared, having even read the book the movie was based on. But while Schumacher admired Matthew’s confidence and liked the idea, he knew that the studio wouldn’t agree.

Hitting the Road

The week before A Time to Kill opened, 99 percent of the scripts Matthew liked were out of reach. Afterward, the choice was his. It may sound like a dream come true, but when fame hits that suddenly, it can do a number on your sense of reality. If you want to stay grounded, you may have to take certain measures to ensure you don’t fly off into the ether.

For Matthew, this meant paying a visit to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, a sacred place in an isolated area of New Mexico. It was described to him as a place where you could go to “readjust your perspective” – which is precisely what he wanted.

Slaying Dragons

In the early 2000s, Matthew dipped his toe in the romantic comedy waters by costarring, with Jennifer Lopez, in The Wedding Planner. The movie was a hit and broke a streak of underperforming films, including EdTV and Contact.

Matthew moved into the Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Boulevard, a legendary location that had been home to countless rock stars, actors, and artists over the years. He kept a $120,000 tab running, and started driving a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle. After a series of decadent flings, affairs, and “transactions,” Matthew was once again left wondering: What’s it all about? You might call it an existential crisis, but Matthew prefers existential challenge. And it was a challenge that he was more than up for.

Chasing the Dream

In his life, Matthew McConaughey has had three nonsexual wet dreams. Each one arrived when his life needed sorting out, and each prompted a soul-searching journey.

The first occurred in 1994, just after the sudden stardom of A Time to Kill. In the dream, Matthew was floating in the Amazon River, with anacondas and pythons coiled around his body. Crocodiles, sharks, and piranhas circled nearby. Along the edge of the river stood a never-ending row of indigenous Africans.

Accepting the Challenge

Matthew’s second wet dream came five years after the first, in 1999. He was in Ireland, having just wrapped up shooting on Reign of Fire, when the exact same thing occurred. Floating in the Amazon, snakes, crocodiles, a never-ending line of indigenous Africans. Eleven seconds. Done.

This time, he was certain that he needed to go to Africa. He knew little about the enormous continent, but as he was again searching his atlas and looking for clues, he happened to be listening to the music of Ali Farka Touré, the African bluesman. He put down the atlas, grabbed the CD case, and looked at the liner notes. Niafunké, Mali. That’s where he needed to go.

Changing Roles

Another five years passed before Matthew had his third nonsexual wet dream. By 2005, he’d starred in a string of successful romantic comedies. He’d never had anything against this type of entertainment, but he’d be lying if he said that they were creatively fulfilling. At this point, it was time to turn another page in his life.

And so, almost like clockwork, the third wet dream arrived, only this time it was different. This time, Matthew was 88 years old. He was sitting on a porch, and in front of him was a large horseshoe driveway. Twenty-two women arrived, with 88 children. All the children were his and they gathered around to have their picture taken with their father. When the camera snapped the picture, he came, and woke up.

Wild and Essential

Dallas Buyers Club was different from other movies. Matthew had read the script in 2007 and become attached to playing the lead role of Ron Woodroof, a real-life character who during his life had come up with his own program for distributing HIV medication. But it wasn’t until January 2012 that production finally began moving forward, when Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée came on board.

Vallée had some concerns about how appropriate Matthew was for the role. After all, he was well known for being in good shape. How was he supposed to be right for playing a man with Stage 4 HIV? But Matthew reassured him that he’d take care of it.

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What is Greenlights about?

Greenlights (2020) is a guided tour into the life and mind of award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey. These blinks tell his story as only he could tell it, full of “outlaw logic” that has informed a wildly original personal philosophy for how to live life to its utmost.

Best quote from Greenlights

When we know what we want to do, knowing when to do it is the hard part.

—Matthew McConaughey

Who should read Greenlights?

Fans of the McConaissance
Anyone eager to generate their own greenlights
People interested in the inner workings of a creative mind

About the Author

Matthew McConaughey is an Oscar-winning actor whose career stretches back to 1993’s Dazed and Confused and includes such hits as A Time to Kill, The Lincoln Lawyer, Interstellar, and True Detective. He’s also a professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin and co-creator of Wild Turkey Longbranch bourbon.

Categories with Greenlights

Biography & Memoir

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