Green Light with Chris Long - Matthew McConaughey on Greenlights, His Dream Project, and L-I-V-I-N.

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

(00:53) - Open and Welcome. (5:25) - Matthew McConaughey On His New Book Greenlights. (34:15) - Matthew McConaughey On Making Movies and His Dream Project. Sign up for your DraftKings account at https://www.draftkings.com/sportsbook and use promo code : Greenlight Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy? What's up, man? How are you? A whole lot, man. I hear you. You write a whole lot. Writing books and shit, man. Writing books and shit and touring with books and stuff. And I guess we'll save our conversation for who's reading who's mail here.

I know. For when we get on live. I don't know, man. Like, I'm so glad you wrote a whole book dedicated to our podcast. This is an odd. I've been a big video on. I hear you. I'm so glad your podcast is so dedicated to my book. It is Wednesday as you, the listener, consume this content.

I don't know whether to say happy Wednesday, good morning, because quite frankly, it might not be a good morning. It might not be a happy Wednesday. The world could have changed one way or another for the better, for the worse, or who knows how you're doing as you hear this the morning or the afternoon after Super Tuesday. I don't know. Hopefully it's something that gets your mind off all the bullshit. It's Tuesday night as I record this open. I had Matthew McConaughey on about a week ago. And this is one of those guests that you circle during the football season.

And it just stares you down. It just stares you down. It's like I hope I come correct when I talk to one of my favorite actors of all time. I hope it's, you know, he's one of the most interesting people in Hollywood. I hope I can keep the ball in the air with this guy. as I started watching interviews and kind of picking up, you know, the way he rolls, like, he just makes it easy. He makes it easy on the interviewer.

And that's what I felt as I went about asking him questions. And I got up from my chair after this, this pod. And I said, that pot was a 10 out of 10. And I had about nothing to do with that. So this dude's great. I mean, he really is as advertised, a lot of people that I talk to. from Scott Van Pelt, Stanford Steve, Rissillo, guys that have interviewed him before said and met him. And Nate Boyer, who was Texas Longhorn, Green Beret, my buddy that does Waterboy stuff with me,

Conquering Kelly, met him in some Texas circles. The guy's reputation precedes him. He was as advertised. So the reason he's here is he wrote a book. And the book is called Green Lights. currently the number one bestselling nonfiction book on the New York Times bestseller list. If I got that right, which is no surprise to me. It's a deep dude.

I read the book, even in football season doing three, four pods a week. I don't read a lot of books, but I read this one because I wanted to be prepared. And I was really interested in it from the minute I picked it up to the last page. And it's a quick read because I think he has a really good way of conveying deep, very personal subjects in a way that we can all digest them. So I thought taking a crack of being an author, he's doing a great job. And when you got a voice like Matthew McConaughey, you can say whatever the fuck you want. And I would think it was deep.

But there is depth to everything he's talking about. And he kind of opens the door to his life and everything that's made him who he is. So anytime somebody does that, it should be celebrated. But when you're one of the most well-known people in Hollywood, it's pretty cool. And it's not a cookie cutter Hollywood allegory. It's like, it's interesting. Texas, last place you'd think an actor would come from for some reason, just with the way he talked about his upbringing and that sort of thing in the different roads he almost took.

Without further ado, if you can this Wednesday, again, I don't know what's going on in real time as you're listening to this pod. Kick back, get your mind off the bullshit. And let's hear Matthew McConaughey. on his book Green Lights. The season's in full swing and the action is still unfolding, so head over to Draft King's Sportsbook, America's top-rated sportsbook app. With so many storylines in both professional and collegiate sports,

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bets up to $100. That's right. You bet and they cover up to $100 when you use promo code green light during sign up. For a limited time, only at Draft King's Sportsbook. Must be 21 or older in New Jersey, Indiana or Pennsylvania only bonus comprise the first deposit bonus and first bet match each up to $500 deposit bonus requires 25 times play-through. Restrictions apply see draftkangs.com slash sportsbook for details. Gambling problem call 1,800 gambler, or in Indiana, 1,8009 with it. Matthew McConaughey, who needs no introduction, although I did intro I'm coming in. The book was great. I don't read a lot of books, which is a flaw of mine.

This thing flew by. I think one reason this flew by, man, is because you don't try to be too, you don't try to overthink anything. You speak it in a way that people can understand it. Do you consciously do that in the book? I mean, it's profound, but it's simple as well. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, I've done a lot of thinking to get it down to where it's simple. You know, early drafts, like an early thought, I can look at it. That's how I kind of do all my creative work.

The first version is long and way overwritten. And then I just try to nestle that down and go, okay, let's get rid of all the wasted shit that you don't need in here. And what's the nut of the conversation? and what is it? How can I express it in a way that's true to me, but also relatable to you or whoever else can read it? Yeah, and everything's relative. Like some of these stories are, you know, only stories that somebody with your life experiences or access might be able to gain. But people have to go apply it to their lives in their own ways, right? Yeah. I mean, no one's going to have, you know, a particular, the exact same kind of year I had where I was, say, an exchange student abroad in Australia for a year right out of high school. It was a hellaceous insane year.

No one will have that exact experience, but everybody's had a time where they're all feeling lost going, what the hell's going on. I got to find my footing. I got to get back on track and how the hell do I do it. I got no one else to rely on but me. So everyone's got that time in their life. And everyone's probably found a greenlight asset from that time after it happened, even though they were going through hell.

Everyone was probably going, oh, there actually was a lesson I learned when I look back at that. And so, you know, in that way, hopefully my stories are relatable. Yeah, they are relatable. I was going back through, and we'll get to a few of the moments that resonated with me. The Australia trip was one. Holy shit. Talk about being trapped. I mean, in that age, like, you know, like, it's not the iPhone age either, where you can FaceTime people and whatnot. It was the shining age. Yell as loud as you want and nobody can hear. I just got done reading a book. Actually, the last book I read was about Austin. Australia and just how desolate it can be.

And that story, I was like, oh, shit, he's not going to Sydney. I get where this is going. He's going to the Outback, basically. I think one of the coolest things about the book is that it's called Greenlight and that it is about our podcast, which is really cool. It's all about your podcast. We also have another thing in common. Our dad's played in the NFL.

The size sounds like it checks out, 6-4-265. My old man, 6-5, 270. One of the things that resonated with me is your dad, you loved him, you respect him, but you feared him. Your dad was scary, but when you came to him, I'm changing career pass. Yeah. You know, here. It reminded me of my pops because what he said to you was, don't half ass it, whatever you do. It wasn't, I want you to do this thing. Yeah. It was do whatever you're doing 100 miles an hour, and that's what my dad told me. Well, that's, our dads are obviously similar in that way. I mean, that's, that's what, and you said your version, a hundred,

do it 100 miles an hour. My dad's version was, don't half ascent. If I was, if I wasn't, convicted about going, hey, no, I really want to do this, dad. And my dad heard that in my voice when I said, I don't want to go to law school, want to go to film school. I think, and that's the first time he had ever heard me say anything other than going to law school. But the way I said that to him, he could tell that I was nervous to call him and ask him about it, but he could tell I'd made it my mind. I've been doing thinking about it. And I believed it. In 10 seconds on that phone call, he, one, is hearing his son say he wants to take a career path in the arts and not be a lawyer, which he was always expected to be.

But he hears his son, me say it in a way that he's like, oh, my son's going his own way. He's making a rebel move. He's breaking out of the mold. He's coming up. He's choosing his own path. And ultimately, I think that's what any great parent loves for their kids. If we're going to bring it up, if we're going to break out of the mold, our parents, when he hears, you better mean it. Yeah.

You know, because we've all, I've done it before where I didn't mean it, you know, oh, I really want to do this. Come on. I want to be a skateboarder. Can I just kidding? You buy me the elbow pads and knee pads? Are you sure you want to do this? Yeah, Dad, I really want to do it.

I want to take it seriously. Bullshit. I didn't. You know, it was one summer and it was gone. It was a fad. But I think he heard in my voice there going on like, okay, if this is not a fad, you're talking about. This is something you're going to really grab a hold of and go balls for the walls with,

don't half ass it. How do you spot the difference in your own life between an idea and a conviction? Because, you know, as an ADD long suffer, here. I get ideas all the time and I've had various costumes I wanted to try on throughout my life. You know, like, and that's not that you're not, you don't know who you are, but as you grow up, you try different things and you, and you see something like that. That looks cool. I want to go do that. How do you spot the things that you're convicted about in relation to the things that are just cool ideas? Yeah. And look, I got, I still go through the same thing all the time. Now I can get

ate up with ideas. Right. And, you know, I got a line in the book, a man ate up with ideas. needs to be putting some starvation. A man ate up with truths. It needs to be fed. Right. Yeah. You know, but we got a, you know, there's a testing time, man. And I talk about this in the process of elimination.

It's hard as hell to figure out who we are and what we want to do. Right. But it's easier to start that journey by saying, wait a minute, who the hell am I not? Yeah. What is it that I'm not? Where do I not want to go? By process of elimination, let me let me put over here, the people, the places, is the time I spend that really don't feed me.

They're a green light, but they're plugged into a battery. You know what I mean? They're not hooked up to the AC or solar power. They're not long-lasting green lights. Right. I know for me, you know, as I got older, I started to realize time is my life where I was like, oh, I'm loving it. know, or the time, you know, start dating a woman after, after, for me, after 28 years old. I wasn't going to date anyone if I didn't believe that they might have potential for us to get together

and become a long-term relationship and maybe have children. Right. You know, so. That's a red light. Well, at that point, you're like, you're just, no, at that point, you're probably just doing circles in a yellow light. You know what I mean? You just got the steering wheel crank to the left and you're just going to circles. And that's okay for a while.

It's a fun circle for a while. It's a fun circle, you know, but it comes to time we're like, let's have some ascension here. Let's get down the road and see if I, if, you know, the person has the potential is the right person for us. So, you know, look, and sometimes I try to measure now from my life now, do I love it? Do, is it something that, you know, I project 10 years ahead? And I go, I try to look back and have an interview with myself 10 years from now and go, this thing you want to do right now. What would you, what, what's you going to think about it in 10 years? Yeah.

Is it going to be something that you're going to be honored with? Is it something that's maybe going to live on for the rest of your life that you're going to hand off to your kids? Yeah. That's, that's the real green lights there, the ones that will outlive us. But look, man, I divel in Dally. And then sometimes I have gotten into things that I only liked and I learned to love them. And was damn glad that I took the chance because it was just an idea, but it turned into a conviction. But yeah, you got to watch it. I mean, look, I hear you.

You get so many dim ideas you look up and you go, I need more than 24 hours in the day. And the last time I checked, they ain't given more than 24. Dude, my brain never stops. And I'm not saying that like I'm bragging. It's actually a fucking problem. The book's called Green Lights. And this is Green Light Singular guys. So for the listeners out there, don't get confused.

This is coincidence. You know, I'm looking back through my life and I'm looking at my football career. You know, I played 11 years. A lot of people would kill for that career, you know, two Super Bowl, whatever. All the things that you would think for. fulfilled you, right? But I sometimes didn't feel fulfilled. And even at the end, you really walk away from the game with as many insecurities as you do. Victories, right? And what's worse is in the last two years since I called it quits, I've grown exponentially as a human being. And so the thing that everybody looks as a success in like your life's work, which is why I think a lot of guys struggle with it existentially when they leave the game. They're no longer that person. But you've been the same fucking person all along.

that that 11 year career obscured my view it didn't allow me to grow personally there are things I've learned about myself like I hate that about you Chris or this is more of this please or dude I just don't like that person I never was able to do that self inventory because I was under the gun or because it obscured my my view so is that career a green light is it a yellow light is it a red light? well should it's obviously I mean it's obviously old ultimately it's obviously a green light whether you notice that tomorrow or on your deathbed or you're you know the next generation uh notices it um I mean that's that's you know until my guess is that until you've latched onto something here which you seem like you're latching onto things in the last two years of going oh this is I'm growing into more more of myself now in the next these last two years since you retired you last you last latch on to something, you're going to, I think, probably have a new look at that 11 years. You're going to be able to see, ah, you're going to probably be able to go, you damn right. I was on the big stage.

Maybe I did. Maybe I felt like I was now. Maybe now I'm saying I didn't grow as much as I did. But, oh, come on. Meaning, a lot of things I know that in my past, and I found this going back to the book that I said, I'm going to be ashamed about. I'm going to be embarrassed about. I ended up laughing at and forgive myself for.

and going, you know, obviously you're a thinker. I'm a thinker. We got to watch so we don't get that old paralysis of analysis, man, because we can overthink something and just go, what the fuck, man, it's a Saturday. I'm just going to enjoy this. I'm not quit thinking about it. I got to play on the field.

I got to be a gladiator on the field. And that's what I was for 11 years. And I came out of it and I'm still walking around. And that's what I did. I was on the playground. I mean, we get a little less, I think, sentimental about it over, over time. But it probably takes finding out what it is, what's our line now? What's our frequency? Our new frequency. When that was your only frequency,

but you're going, hey, that ain't the station that really I ultimately want to be tuned into. But I listened to that station for 11 years. And I was good on that station. I was part of the band on that station. And all right. So I think we give ourselves, I mean, I know for me, I've had to learn. Nobody forgive. I forgive myself later than anybody else forgives me. I'm the last to forgive myself. Sounds about right. Yeah. That sounds about right. You go away, you know, you spend time with yourself, you got to figure out, okay, what shit am I going to forgive myself for? And what am I going to say the buck stops here? I'm not putting up with it anymore. And we've got to shake hands with ourselves because we're the only seven of bitches we can't get rid of.

I've tried. I've tried. It doesn't work, right? It doesn't work, right? I guess one of the most interesting things to me was, again, getting back to your dad, because I thought that was one of the most interesting characters in the book. Maybe the central character outside yourself. Not just his support. He comes out of the gate so hot. Like he's this scary fucking guy.

You guys are getting in fights. You know, corporal punishment. We could save that for another pod. You're doing all right. Yeah. I got hurt. I wasn't injured. Yeah.

One of the coolest thing was he kind of softened and showed his sentimental side and his supportive side at different points. And then, you know, learning that he passed away five days into your first big movie, I wonder if you look back at it and you had him here. today which movie he'd be most proud of or that you could show if you could show him one flick yeah well let me tell you about that you know to go back to that don't half ass it there was some serendipity in the fact that he he he died five days into my first movie days confused right which turned out to be a career right that i had not half-hassy so all those other fads i could talk about earlier skateboard and all

that stuff he was alive for me to start what became more than a hobby that has always made me feel like yes, all right, we had a crossover there. At least he was alive for that. Now, the movie I think that I see him coming up to me as a 12-year-old and going, hey, buddy, you seen this movie, Mud? It's a good one.

Let's go watch it. That's the one where he'd have been like, it's a good one. That was his deal. Oh, it's a good one. Oh, yeah. Let's check it out. I think it was Mud. Mud would be the one, I think. That's the one I see.

He would have liked all of them. I miss, you know, sharing a script with him because he would have loved reading a script and having an opinion or asking him, hey, do you know anybody? And you're like, oh, yeah, this is like old Don McLaugh. And he's sort of like to hear his stories and hear him ham it up and say, he reminds me of this. And to hear a different point of view on characters and stories, I think about that a lot with him. And, you know, I got stories in there about my mom.

while I was on the proverbial famous stage, she wanted the limelight. Right. All right. Dad wouldn't have wanted the line. Dad would have been on the front row, but he wouldn't have wanted to be absolutely in the limelight. He had been there as sort of a real supporter on the front row. And I do miscreatively going over things with him and hearing his opinion on stuff.

You ever think about that oyster shack that, you know, I thought that was a really cool little tidbit there, you know, and does it say anything about like this dude working his ass off his whole life, he's got this kind of vision like, you know, Robbins and Shawshank or, you know, that beach, right? And you never get to that beach, but he lived a hell of a life. You know, does that say something about our deepest aspirations? You can still have a successful existence that's intrinsically awesome for everybody around you, but you just don't, you never get that extra credit thing. And you could still have hit the ball out of the park. But you chasing it. Yeah. You know, you're chasing it. I think as far, you know, I think we individually,

as people, are an aspiration. I think America is an aspiration, meaning we're always chasing yet. We never, if I'm going to arrive. Yeah. We never get there. America's not going to find perfect social justice. We're not going to find the utopia we chase, but that's not the point. The point is we keep chasing it. Right. And hopefully there's a little evolution and a little escalation. Our better selves, our truest selves, man, what better thing to chase? What better thing to be an investigator of, an interrogator of? A get up every day and being like, I'm going to chase it a little more today, you know? And then we never get there.

We don't have a ta-da-a moment. Ta-da-da, I made it. No, we don't have it. We never reached the shack. We never actually, you know, you get the shack. My dad's dream was the oyster shack on the beach. If he had the oyster shack on the beach, hell, I don't know. Maybe he would have been like, today I've retired.

but it would have opened up new things. I don't know. That's the question. Somebody asked me in a mailbag the other day. We do a stone mailbag. So I sit here and I hit my pen until I'm cross-eyed. And then I try to answer our listeners questions. And somebody asked me if I could have one superpower

or which superpower if I woke up with in the morning would have I pissed off about. I would be pissed off to be, and this was listed on Google. I don't know how this is a superpower. Omniscient. If I knew everything. Right. I mean, it's over. It's over.

That's how I feel about destinations. and one of the biggest things I had to get out of my head in my own life. And you know, you're somebody who's, it's a parent. You are an individual in the best sense of the word. You never cease exploring. You're curious. I was afraid of marriage. I was afraid of a family.

I was afraid of a destination. I've been afraid of destinations my whole life. When I was 18, I thought about being 40. Me too, man. Yeah, I mean, like, so how do you get over that thing? Because you're somebody who's like done all the crazy. shit and I've heard the interviews and I've read the book and like you're synonymous with some crazy shit that's like everybody would love to just go do that wild thing act on your wild hair you can't

you can't get up and do the you know the stuff that you did in running downhill that chapter yeah yeah you can't just wake up one day and be spontaneous how do you reckon with destinations yeah well I'm not like a desk what I you know that's why that's hence the title green lights what are you doing in the green light you're going you're on the way. That's why I don't really care for destinations. Because, you know, the verb is the holy word, man. The verb, which life is on the ways, what's fun. You know, I got a, I got a, my mentor who's an acting coach, I do so much preparation. I like, I love to come into scenes. And she was like, you love to come into scenes stable. There you go. Right. You're, you're solid. She goes,

okay, you've done the work. Now she goes, you want to have some real fun? I go, yeah, she goes, come into the scene on one leg and try and find your balance once you're in it. That's what's fun. It's not the, it's the overcoming of whatever, the finding, the seeking, the on the way that I find so fun. Then it's like a relationship.

Families, I'm with you. I was scared of marriage. Family, geez, oh man, get married. Is the adventure over? It sounded like death for a while. Like, you know, as a younger dude, you know, my lovely wife, Meg, who, you know, she's maybe 50, 50,

listen to the pod. Meg, you know how happy I am to be married to you. I love you so much. I love the kids so much. But we've talked about this. There's a, there is a fear, you know, for some people, settling down. But once you settle down, you realize it's really no different. Life's possibilities are still endless. And then wild new adventures open, open back up, you know. But, and how do you keep it going, though, in a relationship as well with our wives? How do you keep, we want to keep chasing each other. We don't want to get in a relationship where we're like looking at each other going, okay, I know everything about you, you know everything about me, ho-hum, what do we do now? Yeah. You know, we want to stay on the adventure with our partner

and charge forward. Having kids is part of that adventure for sure. Yeah. But that's not all of it because we made them, and we got to remind them of that, that we're first. Mom and Dad are number one. You know what I mean? It's healthy to be, you know, not number one, but like 50-50. Hey, I'm still important here. Because if I don't feel fulfilled and I'm having some midlife crisis and I'm like losing my mind because I haven't traveled or I haven't gone to do this bucket list thing or that thing, then I'm not going to be as good of a dad either. Well, 100%. And the best thing, you know, the best thing, the best thing example we can give our kids is to show them how we love their mother. Yeah. You know, and that that's the best thing that the mothers can give the kids to show them

how they love their dad. But hey, we got to watch this thing too. I'm sure I don't know about you, but Camille and I got to watch, man. We got three kids. We got my mom here with this, who's 88. Damn, man, there's some nights where all of a sudden we look up and 10 o'clock at night. It's the first time we're going, hi, hey, how are you doing? I just finally got the kids to bed, handle everything. And we've got to go, hey, let's not have too many days a row like that.

We got to sneak off for a date or solo time somewhere and check in a little earlier. She's really good about reminding me of that. But that's part of keeping that adventure going. I mean, you know, you're now married. You got kids. It hadn't got less adventurous. No. We cannot, we cannot tomorrow.

We can't, you and I can't decide right now, let's go to Africa tomorrow with a backpack. We'll be back with a one-way ticket. We'll be back when we're ready to come back. That's irresponsible. We can't do that. Our friends understand that now. It takes him a while that, hey, Chris, you can't, wait a minute. We should just call you up and we can go.

I need 12 hours before I go down to Miller's in Charlottesville here and slam eight butt-bud-heavy. So I, yeah, no, but you know what's replaced is like when I do go to East Africa and it's funny, you mentioned that like, and I'm climbing killy or whatever. And all we have is a fucking sat phone. It's the most terrifying thing in the world. I feel tethered where, you know, at one point in my life, albeit very brief, I had the autonomy to make moves I needed to make. Yep. But without being tethered. Then, you know, we had kids and we and we started a family.

Now, I actually don't mind being tethered because it's a tradeoff. the kids were like a missing piece for me. You know, like the old Shell Silverstein thing. Like I searched for my identity far and wide. I knew who I was, but like, why am I living? Because to live for myself is insufficient. And at some point, and actually it came right on time because I was going through a tough time in my career

and it was questioned, you know, existential stuff, which is dangerous. And the kids came along. And I felt like, holy shit, this is why I'm alive. You know, so the tethering, there's a tradeoff. well, yeah, well, you go, you know, there's that, I've heard this quote about, you know, you can ask him about the meaning of life and someone can intellectuals. We can talk about it for everybody. You ask, ask you, someone ask you that right if you had your first newborn. You're like, this is it.

Yeah. You know, what are you talking about? It's as simple as that. You know, the older man tells the new father tells the young man, what are you talking about? This is it. Yeah. You know, life, a birth. I just helped create something that just got introduced into the world and it's a living, breathing thing.

Now I am immortal. We're not needed the first fucking six months, though. That's when you feel like this is scary. You're kind of a blob. Yeah, which is useless. But man, six months on, it was like I just fell in love with this new, a different kind of love that I've never felt. And, you know, actually, I was going to save this for a minute from now.

You know, I got my little fucking workflow here. I'm interviewing Matthew. I'm going to be on top of it. It's all going to be in order. Fuck that shit. You reminded me at Interstellar, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. and I'm not going to lie. This is not a lie.

I cried today, okay? Because in 2014, it hit me hard. I'm not a person that watches movies over and over again. I don't know about you, but even my favorites, like that movie in particular, I've watched maybe two, three times. I watched, I got on YouTube today to jog my memory to ask you about the movie. And it's the scene where, you know, you are on the spaceship and you're talking to MIRF and company and your son.

Yeah. And, you know, it's a powerful scene, but I just started crying in my office at 11 in the morning. And for me, what that movie was at the time was confusing, but also exhilarating and, like, trying to make sense of all this. And then seeing this and digesting it again is like, I'm thinking about my kids. I'm thinking about, it illustrated the inevitable prospect

that you and your loved ones will know, longer be together but the the mind fuck in that movie to me was that you have the ability to consciously digest that as as coop right you know like you're living and breathing yeah and talk about tethered yeah i mean yeah so so i guess is that did you think about that when you made the movie like have you thought about that as a theme with that movie because i know there's a thousand for me it's like holy shit that's what scares me about death is It's not dying. We're all going to die.

You know, they're going to put me in a furnace at some point. But like, because I don't want to be buried. But like your kids, man, like not being able to know them and be with them anymore. And then that leads me to think, why are we even doing this podcast? Why do we do any of the stuff we do? Shouldn't we just be in their faces all day for the moment that we're on the other side, whether that's in a library in the fourth or fifth dimension or it's the afterlife? I think it's good.

We have our podcasts and life that are independent from our kids. You know what I mean? It's good for them to get bored on their own and figure out how to do stuff. No, the re-entry is fun. How You're doing it launches is also fun, but not 24-7. No, maybe just less time, though. There's so many things that I do when you talked about that. You know, with your wife and it's like 10 o'clock, you're like, I haven't seen you all

day. Yeah, yeah. I'm prepping for stuff or I'm running around and doing stuff and I, I just, it hit me this morning. It's like, there will be a point where we can't be together anymore. Sure. And that's what struck me about that movie. Yeah. Well, you talk to, you know, the, the wisest elders I've talked to do all very soberly say, enjoy this time with your family and your kids and your, and your wife. That's what's really important. And these are people that have, many of them have succeeded, you know, wealth and success career beyond. I often, I know I'm very selfish, man. I have, I love, I, I'm happy to love what I do. I'm happy that I keep chasing down stuff and creating. I need work for my own self-significance. Yeah. I'm going to, I think I like to

accomplish things. I love to make my list and mark them off. You know what I mean? What I've done that day. I need that structure to feel like myself is significant. if I was just with my kids. I'm good on a vacation with my kids for a couple of weeks, meaning I can handle being in nothing but the kids and me having a great time for about eight days. And then I've got to have a little something I've got to check in and build on my own, you know, on the side. And still continue the vacation, but not completely free just to be with nothing but my children having fun. yeah man i i've i've gotten worked into a pretty good relationship with with death i think um

and our our impermanence that we are and the impermanence of this life um but i and i think what turns me on about it in the in the kid part and i said this word earlier once we have kids we're actually immortal right so that's not the end right that we pull off the big magic trick having the children and making the children with with the with the with the with their mother. That's, that's our, that's our shadow. That's our light that we leave. That's the big green lights we're talking about that we leave in our lineage behind us. And hopefully they can have children. At the very base Darwinistic level, we've done that. We've survived. We've, we've helped procreate. We've stayed alive longer, past after we're gone. So that, that, that excites

me. And I don't, you know, I want my kids to be autonomous. I wanted to be self-reliant. I want to be confident. I want to be kind. I want to be conscientious, all those things. But, you know, what are we at? I can figure if it's, I don't know what it is now. My house, it was you turn 18, done. You're out of the house.

Move on, whether you want to you or not. You know, nowadays kids stay around the house longer. I'm hoping my kids are going to want to go. We're out of here at 18. We've got, and hopefully, Camilla and I've done a good enough job to have them suited to go negotiate the world on their own. And that'll be hard.

I've heard many a father go, boy, taking your kid dropping them off at college the first time. Just father's weeping. They're out of the house. You know? Yeah. And now I have to watch them from afar. And hopefully we, you know, we get to watch them fly. And we've let them step in the right amount of shit.

Well, I was saying by the time they turned 18 to be able to navigate and negotiate that in real life. And let's see. Hey, we'll have a different conversation. How old are your kids? One and a half from four. Waylon will be five in March. Okay. Well, I got 12, 10, 7.

Yeah. So there's a great African proverb that no man should be an actual leader until he has raised kids through adolescence. Okay. Well, I'm not there. You can be a captain of an NFL team, but I don't know shit about leadership. Yeah. No, and it's readily apparent. But I do think as long as you know that time is a fucking freight train, like, and you're aware of that every day your feet hit the floor and you go see your kids in the

morning and you know how quickly they're going to change. If you have that mindset, I think you're okay. But it's inevitable that you're going to want to slow it down. So, I mean, let's take a hard right turn from death to like, Interstellar was a great movie, okay? You've made a lot of great movies, man. And by the way, mud, the scene I remember was the snake scene because it reminds me a lonesome dove and I hate snakes. Do you remember the scene at Lonesome Dove? Hell yeah, I remember that Lonesome. I just sat my kids and mine, we watched it during quarantine. We sat there and did it over four nights. It's great. That one of those, like, Dad, what the fuck? My dad,

on a rainy day in Montana, we're on vacation up there. We go every summer. And he has the whole family in there. And he's like, it's movie day, guys. I got a great movie for everybody. And this is kids spanning, you know, 18 to 30 years old. And, you know, there's guests in the house. And we sat

there and he's like, yep, it's called Deer Hunter. And so we all watched Deer Hunter. And by the time, Russia Roulette rolled around, I'm looking at my dad, like, what the fuck, dude? It is a great movie. The whole fucking room is like, Howie. And he's like, I forgot it was this dark. So it is a good movie.

But bad, but bad movies, okay? Like, and I'm talking about things you deem bad movies because I've had bad games. And it's, and it sucks when you are in the meat grinder. And, you know, like, it's going to last three more hours. You get made fun of on Twitter. You know, you could get stiff arm like Josh Norman the other day. Like, we take our lives into our hands, our masculinity into our hands when we, step on to field. But it's not subjective as much as like you're sharing your art, your soul.

And I know that like you might say, well, football, you know, and downplay it. But what you guys do is you share your creativity and you bear your soul for people who are just consumers. Have you ever been in a movie that you're like, yeah, this ain't working? Like if I'm in a bad game, I know we're getting drug and everybody can see that. Do people talk on set? And you're like, man, this thing's fucked. Like, you know, or do you worry about that? You just have to hit send. No, I mean, look, so I've been in movies that felt great going in, felt great in the making of it. Then all of a sudden I see the final product. I'm like, what the fuck happened?

That's not, were we not making what we thought we were? Or did they go just screw it up in the editing room? Is there a great movie on the editing room floor? Yeah. And I've been in the editing rooms, try to help rearrange things with, with studio heads trying to fix things, have failed at that, have helped some things out,

put some band-aids on some situations. I've also had the other way around where I'm not sure if it's going well. I feel like I'm doing my job, but remember this, this is part of the reason why I wrote, I wrote a book. What I'm doing,

when you're on a football field, you have zero filters. It's direct contact, it's live. What am I doing? I'm performing someone else's script, being directed by, somebody else being lensed in a camera by someone else and framed, edited by someone else, before my raw expression gets to you in the context of a story. So there's four filters

that's gone through. Now, my goal has always been, let's close those gaps. Well, that's why I ended up going off writer book is one filter. Yeah. It's a written word to you. Right now, the interaction or what you do when you used to play football, that's no filter. Stand-up comedians is the most direct form of expression. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's, it's there. you're live, there is no re-record, there's no take two and it's a direct unfiltered connection.

That's sort of the ultimate place to go. I saw you say that on Rogan about, you made this book and part of the motivation, correct me if I'm wrong, was, I don't know, for me, I'm a bit of a control freak. I'll admit that. Cowboy Reed behind here, my producers is like, fuck yeah, you are.

Like, you want things done your way. And that can suck. But as long as you know, it can be awesome though let's get that for a second a lot of people get people talk about people getting a bad rap for being a control

for being a hell of a lot better than showing up to your boss and the boss going I don't know hey whatever people in Hollywood people go oh but that guy or that girl that actor actress is so weird

they need all these things I'm always like are they clear about what they need however goofy weird idiosync are they cleared like yeah I'm going then say thank you

give them whatever they want set them up be let them be as weird as they want to be. What you don't want is someone going, I don't know. And then just all of a sudden come up and saying, I want this and the people that are supposed to do and go, well, I don't know how to get that done for you. I think that's why people that know what they want, scare people.

Yeah. Because they're going fucking places. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying I'm going anywhere. I might just be going to the editing bay after this to piss Cowboy Reid off to tell him, no, I like this done this way. But I do think that being in control and finding that line aware, like, okay, you're a control freak that's like toxic

or like you're a control freak that's particular about this is what the fuck I want and this is how I want it done and that's okay. If you're the boss, you can do that. But you're the boss writing this book. But on the field, like if I'm a victim of a bad call, the people at home don't know what the bad call is. If you're the victim of a fourth filter on a movie, you know, so that makes a lot of sense.

By the way, I had a drone, you know, one of those DJIs that you go take up in the mountains and take cool pictures. I named it Coup. So I'm a method consumer. Oh, there we go. You did method acting. I do method consumer.

I also crashed an Impala SS because I got it because of the movie drive. I totaled it the second day. I was really into the movie drive as well. Okay. Nice. You are a method consumer. Method consumer, man. Method consumption.

Yeah, man. I wanted to ask you about the industry because of COVID and the pandemic. Yeah. I know what it's doing to sports. That's a complicated deal. But, like, I miss going to the movies, man. I really, it's one of my favorite things in life is to go to a theater and eat some candy and some popcorn. Or maybe some pasta that I brought in from a restaurant.

Are you okay with that? People bringing food into movies. I'm fine as long as you don't in my ear. Pasta's okay. It's not over the line. I've been told me some people. Hey, man, I'll bring my homemade tuna fish salad. Now, that's not a sound thing.

That's a smell thing. I'm like, forget it. Yeah, but there's a hippie in here or something. Yeah. So what's happening in your industry right now? Yeah. So a lot of my peers are working. Yeah.

They're on sets. They have what they call these little bubbles and these pods of when certain people in a crew and how many come at what certain time. They're still making movies. They're still creating content. I'm not right now. I'm over here bearing down with my family and my 88 year of mother. trying not to bump into this this this COVID thing.

Mind you, I'm in a privileged position to be able to do that, but that's what I'm doing. Hey, so how much of right now is the new normal? See, a lot of it. Yeah. A lot of it. Yeah. A lot of it. I'm going to hug people when there's a vaccine.

Okay. I don't, I don't care. Some people say handshakes are gone. Hugs are gone. I can't live without hugging my friends or. Well, you will, but there are millions out there that will never do that again. There are millions. millions out there that are never going to a theater again if there's even a theater to go to.

Look, our floor has been, in our industry has been moved beneath our feet in a real way that things are going to change. I don't know. Do films become a more of an event that's once a month in a secured area that you buy a ticket too early and you get tested and it's all set up where like a luxury, event in the Cinerama Dome where you have your own sort of pod that you're watching collectively the movie. I don't know. I don't see how right now the theater business, they're just trying to keep their head of the water right now. And how do we consume it? But this has been a question even before COVID, but how we consume our entertainment. Quibi just went down. And that was about consumption on this thing. Right. You've got small screens. You got TVs. You don't have to

plan to be there Monday night at 8 p.m. when the show's on because you can order it whenever you want. You can stream it on Netflix. Now the question with streaming was always, wait, is streaming cannibalizing the theater experience? In actuality, you could argue that no, it wasn't. It was actually feeding the theater experience. People that want to watch it on, watch it on. People like yourself, that's great. I want to go to the theater. That's where I want to consume it. So, you know, I'm going through this now with the book. Audio. Does audio cannibalize the, the readership of the hard copy? Or does it say, no, it actually makes me want to go buy the hard copy. Does the hard copy make you want to buy the audio? Does one feed the other?

Just choices, I guess. I think that they can feed each other. I just don't know physically coming out of this when, you know, how much, how much of what we're doing right now with sports and the re-engagement of people is just a grand experiment that may bite us in the backside. I don't know. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that I look up in a year and go, actually, I was overly cautious. I would love to be wrong about how cautious. It's always better to be overly cautious, and we're doing the same thing, and that's what thing. And you mentioned the privilege of being able to stay home and work from home and all that stuff and get to be around your family. You mentioned theaters. We were talking about, you know, theaters going out of business. There's one ratty old theater

here in Charlottesville. It's long out of business. And it's like, you know, they all turn into roller parks and shit like that. Right. You were there, bro. You came to Seaville to do the time to kill for John, who was my baseball coach. John. Oh, really? Christium? Yeah, dude. I got in trouble twice because John Grisham sent us on these baseball trips and I would get in trouble on the trips and come home and it's bad to piss an author and a football player off at the same, ride the bus all the way up. Are they still open? Are they holding their head about what? No, done? It's bad. It's bad. been a while, you know, but in general, I think they're all struggling. Is there a biopic when things get, get rolling again that you're like, I want to play that guy? I don't know, man. I mean,

I've been circling for years, evil can evil. Perfect. I think it's got to got to got to get that script right. Because I got to know him pretty doggone well. Really? Yeah. And, you know, his stories, he was a badass. His stories were incredible. I spent a lot of great time with him and had a lot of late night phone calls with him as well. But I got to say you this, man, I'm, what's turning me on right now and hopefully will continue to turn me on is what's the role that I want to play in the big show, life. Right. The one where the record is always on. the one that action was called when I was born and there will be one take and they will only say cut when I die. What am I doing? I quit acting like one.

What kind of? Hey, be one. You know what I did? Let's go. Let's go. It's live. We're in it. The camera is rolling.

Who are you going to be? So that's what I'm challenging myself. And this sort of leads back to our earlier conversation about what is it? you know, family and fatherhood and husbandry and how are we leaders? Are we fit to be leaders in what areas? Do we have something that we can share that can be helpful for ourselves and the most amount of people? That's what I'm trying to chase right now is what does that answer for me? What's my legacy choice to make now and going forward?

I feel like my values are in pretty good order. They get rearranged from time to time. obviously is all ours do. But that's what I'm looking at right now. I still want to act. I still want to go put something a performance in a capsule that you can go watch in a theater. But I'm really interested in this more existential question of like,

what about the big show, bro? I dare you. What about, I dare you? You know what I mean? That's, this is the one that's just turning me on. And look, that was part of the fun of writing the book.

You know, a lot of these truths were more exciting and wilder and funnier than most fiction I read. So I'm like, all right, well, you have done some things that could be movies. There's a lot of movies in this book, or at least characters, you know, that I've met traveling the world. And, you know, you're a traveler. Culture, man, that's been my greatest educator. And hopefully we're back where we can still. I still want to go back to Molly.

I've been, every week, it's on the tally to take my family back there to meet those families. I can't go back, or I can, but it would be foolish because they've been in a civil. of a war for so long. And my good friend over there lost all of his tourism job. He became a farmer, just as he becomes a successful farmer five years in. He gets, you know, a group just comes and takes over his house when night and steals all his farm on him. So now he's broke again.

But, you know, I want to travel again. I keep traveling around the world. Like you said, you want to go to the theater. We want to get out there and re-engage and move around this big backyard called Earth again. And I want to do it with the family this time and hopefully, you know. So let's see. I'm questioning the big show. Good deal.

Question the big show. Real quick. Two football questions. One, prediction for Texas, Oklahoma State. Give me a score for that if you can. I know you like gambling.

I wish I could have talked to you more about gambling. I love calling back to that Buffalo Bills, Oilers game. I lost a lot of money on rice on the quad doink, so I hear you on the gambling. The quad doig. How I got in that hole with fucking rice is absurd.

I didn't know it was in a... I didn't even know where the university is. Where did you... It's in Houston. Where did you even... Where did you find rice of rice football game? Blame your boy, Stanford Steve. Stanford Steve and I do a gambling show.

He gave it out. He's like, bro, you got to get on rice. Okay. So give me a prediction for that game and then one compliment for the Oklahoma football program. Sure. Prediction on that.

Texas play. plays the big games well. We can come out of Stillwater 3531 victorious. Complement on Oklahoma. My compliment to you, Oklahoma, you Sooners, is how you compliment

us, the Longhorns. Every time you do this. Thank you. You are using our sign to get your confidence. You know, all you really got to do, if you want to get technical about it,

is turn over and now it's facing up again. It's not that hard to do. Thank you. I hope you get your own sign one day and you can be proud of that. In the meantime, we're welcome to keep putting horns down for us. It is a backhanded compliment.

Well, they've always been thieves, haven't they? The whole mascot is predicated on running out there in a field and getting the land first. It was somebody else's. Hey, Matthew McConaughey, this has been such a pleasure, man. It's great talking to you. And the book was awesome, man. I can honestly say it went fast.

people should go check it out green lights lots answers in there and uh really introspective look thanks again matthew right on chris i enjoyed it man yeah man have a good good brother yes