Actor, producer, and all-around easy going good guy Matthew McConaughey's memoir Greenlights comes out on October 20th. In it, he talks about his tumultuous childhood in Texas, as well as his career. And he throws in a funny story or two, like the time he was arrested butt-naked playing the bongos. No, we are not kidding.
1993's Dazed and Confused is considered his breakout role. He played a high school jerk by the name of Wooderson. And in it, he uttered his most iconic line: "All right. All right. All right" The Richard Linklater film is set in 1976 on the last day of school. Wooderson, it has to be said, spent most of the film chasing girls.
But what did Texan Matthew McConaughey get up to before he found fame, fortune, an Oscar for his performance in The Dallas Buyers Club, and love with wife Camila Alves?
Let's have a look and see who big-hearted Matthew McConaughey was before his breakout role in Dazed and Confused. It's an interesting ride, trust us.
In The Beginning
Matthew David McConaughey came into this world on November 4th, 1969 in Uvalde, Texas. His mother "Kay" was a former teacher from New Jersey. His dad "Jim" loomed very large in Matthew's childhood. Jim was larger than life guy who had played college and professional football. Back in Texas, he became an oil pipe salesman. Jim was married to Kay three times. In between divorces, the marriage was a vicious battleground.
According to The New York Times: "The [memoir's] first chapter dramatizes a scene from 1974 where McConaughey watched the couple fight ferociously — his mother having broken his father’s nose with a telephone while he brandished a ketchup bottle — before his parents had sex on the kitchen floor." That was pretty normal for the McConaugheys.
Matthew was the youngest of 3 sons. And Jim was a "spare the rod and spoil the child" type. . But says Matthew: “I wouldn’t give back one ass-whupping I got for the values that are ingrained in me.”
After high school, Matthew headed straight for UTA (the University of Texas at Austin). By 1993 frat boy McConaughey had his degree in Radio, Television, and Film.
He had already started his career. By 1991, he was appearing in commercials for Austin TV stations.
1992: Unsolved Mysteries
Believe it or not, Matthew McConaughey's first "acting" job was in Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries. The series highlighted unsolved cases in hopes of solving the mystery. Matthew played Larry, a Texan who was shot and killed by a serial killer while he was mowing his mother's grass.
Matthew is particularly happy with the results because it turns out that somebody who saw it knew who the killer was.
McConaughey brags: "I was the guy who got shot while mowing my mother’s grass. Somebody had seen the episode I was in and made a call, and they caught [the murderer] eleven days later.” Not a bad start, we'd say.
Matthew's totally ripped body was the highlight of the whole episode. And it was the dawn of his acting career.
1992: "Walkaway Joe"
"Walkaway Joe" is a 1992 Trisha Yearwood country song. And guess who played Walkaway Joe in the music video? Yep. It's none other than Matthew McConaughey. He plays a louse of a guy who seduces a local girl and then walks away.
There are skinny dipping scenes, Matthew topless in bed with the girl, and lots of kissing. At the end of the video, Joe leaves the girl asleep in bed and hits the road. She wakes up alone and returns home to mama a sadder but a wiser young woman.
Yearwood and McConaughey didn't actually meet, because his story was filmed in Austin, Texas, while Trisha and Don Henley recorded their performances in Nashville.
Says Trisha: "He was cast from local talent in Austin, Texas., where the footage was shot. The performance with Don Henley was shot in Nashville, so I never met Matthew."
And to this day, Matthew maintains a home and a presence in Austin.
Charming His Was Into "Dazed And Confused"
So, then the next year Matthew was cast in his breakout role as the sleazeball Wooderson in Dazed and Confused. It was no accident. Matthew heard the film's casting director, Don Phillips was in town. He tracked him down to an Austin bar and quite literally charmed his way into an audition. A bit of that audition survives to this day.
McConaughey is hamming it up like crazy. And it worked. He got the part.
A few years later, the relatively unknown actor "mounted a successful campaign" to persuade director Joel Schumacher to let him play a leading role in the iconic A Time to Kill. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Let's finish with the time he was arrested for naked bongo playing: That was, in fact, in 1999. It was a warm October night and there was Matthew minding his own business playing the bongos in his Austin apartment. Well, it was 3 a.m. and he was stoned and stark naked. The neighbors complained about the noise. And he was busted by the Austin cops for disturbing the peace, marijuana possession, and resisting arrest. He did not go quietly. Fans will be happy to know Matthew says his bongo playing days are over.
These days he and wife Camila Alves are more likely to hitch their Airstream trailer to Matthew's truck and hit the road with their kids in tow.