The Joe Rogan Experience - #1552 - Matthew McConaughey

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award-winning actor known for such films as Dazed and Confused, The Dallas Buyers Club, Interstellar, Free State of Jones, and the HBO television series True Detective. His new memoir Greenlights is now available everywhere and at https://greenlights.com

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day hello matthew hello joe what's going on man got a book out got a book out got green lights trying to catch him trying to get him what makes a guy who is successful as you as an actor, what makes you want to expose more of yourself? Because that's kind of what you're doing by writing a memoir, right? You're exposing your thought process, your life, your lessons. Another way of communicating. You know, what I do in my day job as an actor,

it's got four filters from the raw expression. There's my raw expression. There is what's being recorded. There's what's being edited. And there's what's being put on the screen. I wanted to do something where I got rid of the filters. Writing a book, there is one filter because it's the written word. What you do, what we're doing now, when you do stand up, that's no filters.

You know, that's the direct. It's live. The big show is always recording sort of ultimate goal. But I wanted to I wanted to put it down and say, hey, I want to I'm part of these movies. They're usually written by somebody else, directed by somebody else, edited by someone else, financed by someone else. I was like, no, I want to go direct my own movie. I want to produce my own movie. How do I do that? I want to put the words on a page.

And I'd been writing for 36 years, so I had a lot of content to go through and see if it was something worthy of sharing. Yeah, so you've been keeping a journal for 36 years? Yep. What made you start doing that? I think probably in the beginning, the usual reason someone writes in a journal. You know, my heart's broken. Gretchen Donnelly broke up with me.

Why do I have all these pimples on my face? Why do I only have peach fuzz over my pecker and everyone else has peach fuzz? And then in my early 20s, I remember I was i was kind of rolling i was in college i had a job had money in my pocket i had a nice girlfriend i'm making my grades my relationships were good and i remember going oh you hadn't been writing in your journal in there as much uh notice you don't do that so much when things are going well and i said i think you better start writing down things when things are going well i mean my gut my idea was that, hey, you're going to get in a rut again. You'll lose your frequency again in life. You might want this to go back and look at to help you recalibrate.

And that proved to be true. You know, so many times we dissect failure and hardships, but we don't dissect success. And going back in those journals, I found that there were times when I got in a rut later and I was able to go back to those journals and go, what were your habits when you were rolling, man? Who were you hanging out with? Where were you going? What were you eating? What were you drinking? How much sleep were you getting? How are you looking at life? And they'd helped me recalibrate in the times when I was off frequency and get back on the rails again and find my frequency again. What were the things that when things were going great, what were the common factors? Common factors were one, check in with yourself before checking in with the world when

you wake up in the morning. Really just sit there and take a little time. Read a little something that's between me and me. Write a little something that's between me and me before picking up the damn phone and saying, hey, what emails came in? Or hopping out in the kitchen and going, and everyone else is already up going, hey, hey, what's up? Take 10 minutes to check in with me before checking in with the world.

What were the other things? Sense of humor. Sense of humor. I found that I was laughing more. My happiest time in my life when I got my wink back, man. When I got my wink. If I lose my wink,

it's like, oh, I'm taking things too seriously. So I had more of a sense of humor. Didn't take things as personal in many ways. And wasn't asking permission as much when i was rolling asking permission like what do you mean by that well just ask permission about going you know having the confidence to believe in something i want to do um and just doing it and saying hey if you ask permission you're already creating one of those filters away from the raw expression. Just do it. It's live. Don't. You can.

What you're saying, what it sounds like is like you almost like self-medicated with a type of meditation that you invented yourself. You almost like figured out a meditation. Because that's what people who meditate, that's what they say to do. Take an X amount of time, 10, 20, whatever it is, minutes out of the day. Focus on your breathing. Clean the mind out of anxiety and stress. And if you do that on a regular basis, you'll have a happier life.

And you seem to have figured that out on your own? Or did you read books about doing this? I think I figured it out on my own. own or did you read books about doing this? I think I figured it out on my own. I mean, the other thing that I didn't tell you was to book in the day before I say my prayers at night, to go through the day, which I don't know about you, but it can be hard to remember what you had for breakfast after dinner when you're going to bed. It can be hard to remember what those first things we did in the day. So I'll go back through my day when I'm happiest. I go back through my day and I like to write a mental note of what is tomorrow. What are my plans for tomorrow?

That's a big stress reliever for me. I think I learned it on my own. I've always been a list keeper. I love making long list of things to do during the day. And I add everything. I add the simple things that you know you're going to do anyway in the list. You know, like kiss your wife. You know what I mean? Drop a deuce. Whatever it is. I write things that I'm going to do

just so it's more to mark off the list. You write down you have to take a shit? Really? Just remember. Enjoy that or read something read something funny or or have a listen to that favorite tune of yours something that i know because the longer the list the more things i can mark off that day the more i feel like i accomplished and the more it makes it kind of easy to do the hard stuff you know i yeah i do that with some things that i have

to do like exercise and writing i do that with things, but it seems like you're very meticulous with this. Yeah, I go through hot streaks and cold streaks on it. You know, I do it more times than others, but I've found that those are the common denominators, some of the things I do when I am the most happy. I'm not a big meditator, but my exercise, what I call breaking a sweat once a day, exercising, I find for me that is necessary because it puts a demarcation between all of my responsibilities. And I could sometimes look up, you know how it is. If sometimes you go through the day or days

and you're so busy, and I'm good on autopilot at getting stuff done, but everything you have to do, stress comes when those responsibilities feel like they're stacked vertically on our shoulders. And there's a proverbial weight on our shoulders. When I go break a sweat, all of a sudden, all those things that were stacked vertically on my shoulders, my responsibilities lay down and they're laterally out in front of me. So there's no more weight on my shoulder. And I find that I get those things done better and with more enjoyment. If I just go,

oh, there they are in front of you. Just handle one, then hop to the next one and handle that, then hop to the next one and handle that. I handle it much more better, but I need those. I see demarcations between my responsibilities if I go break a sweat. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. I think there's a biological need for that when human beings are under pressure. Because I think the way our bodies are set up, pressure historically, genetically meant your life was in danger. And you had to exert energy. And your body stored up this energy.

You had adrenaline rushes. You had anxiety. You had all these different physical needs that you had to take care of. And if you don't exert energy, those physical needs are not met. And your body's confused. It stores up a lot of this and you just get anxious. You yell at red lights and people just freak out generally. Your tolerance for bullshit is way lower.

But if you can just get that physical need taken care of, you're way better at handling life. Way better. Way better. Way better. Yeah, I couldn't tell people that enough. I'm a broken record with it. I say it too much. And I love hearing people like yourself, successful people that have thought about a lot of the various aspects of what's good and bad about their life express that. Because I think everyone needs to hear it.

It's just we need to hear it from enough people so that it just becomes ingrained in everyone's head. Every day, brush your teeth. Every day, break a sweat. Just go do it. I mean, it's good for so many things. You know, people talk about, oh, you know, no stress. I'm like, well, bullshit.

Stress is part of life. It means you give a damn. You know what I mean? You're going to have stress. You're supposed to have stress. But I know I handle things better and more thoroughly and more like myself, like I want to. The outcome is always better. And I enjoy doing it more if I do go break that sweat and get those endorphins going. And that presses reset for me and shows me a little. It separates all the events, like I said, laterally, and they don't feel like they're stacked up on top of me. Also, sleep for me. How much do you get a night?

Nine and a half. Woo, I love it. That's great. I wish I could do that. God damn. When I get a nine and a half hour night oh my god i feel so good the next day i feel amazing i feel like a newer person well my i'm lucky i have a wife that says no no you get your nine and a half i'll get my seven because i'd rather handle the stuff i handle that you

don't while you're sleeping than be around you when you hadn't had enough sleep. Well, you set it up right. Yeah, I can't stress that enough too. Sleep is everything. Sleep, exercise, health, keep the body functioning correctly, all those things. They're not just, it's not a vanity thing, and it's not a laziness thing. It's literally like it improves the quality of the way the mind functions, and you get better

things done. The quality of your work will be better. Definitely. Think more clearly. You don't waste your time chasing down bullshit. You do the right kind of work. We all know that. I love hard work, but I've got many times in my life where I'm doing the wrong kind of work. I love the kind of work where I've accomplished what I needed to do during the day and I lay my head on the pillow and I'm exhausted because I got done what I needed to get done as best I could. I do not like the exhaustion at the end of the day where I'm like, man, I feel like I was just going to revolutions, man. I don't know if today had any ascension to it. I didn't build anything. Today was a, I don't know if I, maybe I went backwards, you know? I don't like that kind of exhaustion. And that's the kind of exhaustion that actually, I don't know, maybe I went backwards. I don't like that kind of exhaustion.

And that's the kind of exhaustion that actually I don't go to sleep well. It actually keeps me up. The only thing I get good out of those shitty days is a desire to never have those shitty days again. I think the good aspects of negative feelings is recognizing how good positive feelings are, how good the feelings of accomplishment are by failing. And that's why we're talking about, you know, like, no stress, just live in peace. That's a crock of shit.

That's like never feel bad. Well, then you're never going to appreciate feeling good. Like, we need hills and valleys. I'm with you 100% on that. I mean, I write in my book, you know, and I get asked a lot, well, do you believe in fear? I'm like, well, hell yeah, I believe in fear. Who the fuck doesn't believe in fear?

Well, you know, you see those, like, no fear. Oh, those people are so silly. Like, no, no, no, no, no. And they're like, do you fear? I say, I fear every single day. It's the overcoming of the fear. Or I know being raised, you know, we were a physical discipline family. We got the belt.

We didn't get grounded. My parents' motto was, we're not going to ground you because that takes away your time. And your time is your most valuable thing. Now, we never got injured. We just get hurt at the time. You cried and it was over with. But there were things that I did not do growing up and still do not do for fear of the consequences that works for me going i heard time things i did not do growing up going like no that'd

be a lot of fun but not so much not more fun than how much it's gonna suck if i get caught physical consequences are it's a very controversial subject because a lot of people think i don't hit my kids but a lot of people that i know who are my age were hit when they were young and they look back on it and they say you know what i learned from that and my parents didn't they didn't beat me they physically punished me for something that i did wrong. And they didn't do it to be sadistic. They did it because they cared about me. And that's how they were raised. It's a very controversial subject because people get up in arms with the idea of hitting children. So even you bringing it up that it was beneficial to you is going to have a lot of people's hackles

raised. Sure. And I get asked all the time, and I've shared it openly how I was raised and what kind of corporal punishment we got. I don't choose to discipline my children the same way my parents did. But I've said this before, I wouldn't trade one single of those ass whoopings I got for the values that were instilled in me from getting them. And I'm very clear and was at the time that I earned every one I got for the values that were instilled in me from getting them. And I'm very clear and was at the time that I earned every one I got. I earned every one. And we were a family, you know, my parents were like, we get it over with and over, take it and it's over. And we don't hold grudges. No one's going to speak of it again. And if you got in trouble, that was the night dad would take

us across town to our favorite burger joint and let us stay up as late as we wanted. It was, and it was over. You got in more trouble if you brought something back up, you know, to somebody in the family. Yeah. But what about when you do that? No, no, no. They already got in trouble for that. You don't bring it back up. You could not go to sleep in our family holding a grudge. My parents would stay up all night and let you miss school to sit there and keep passion out until we could hug it out, cry it out and say I love you and move on. Sounds like you had a wise family. I mean, it's a controversial thing to say if they hit you.

A lot of people would say there's other ways to do it. But the way they made you hug it out and stay up all night and communicate, it sounds very wise. I think it was. You know, I don't, you know, like I said, I don't choose to discipline my kids the way my parents disciplined me. But I damn sure don't judge them or say what they did was wrong. They came from a different era as well, right? Yeah, they did come from a different era, yeah. That's the thing that is very difficult for people to come to grips with

is that you know human beings that were raised 30 40 50 60 years ago they it was a different world it just was different and we know more now and like you're saying you do not choose to discipline your children that way but it was so common back then it was yeah i mean it was you know my parents were probably thought they were taking it easy on their boys more than their parents treated them yes they probably had it much more harsh yeah uh you know and it's a it's a like i said i there are things i did not do that I should not have done for fear of getting my backside lost. So there's value in that fear and consequences. And consequences go both ways. There's good ones and there's bad ones.

There's a consequence for everything we do. But there were definitely things I didn't do that I should not have done for the fear of the consequences that were useful to me. for the fear of the consequences that were useful to me. Is this, the writing of this book, is some of it almost like letters to your younger self, like a lesson to people who are like you coming up? Because one of the things that's so beneficial to young people with reading autobiographies and memoirs of successful people who lived extraordinary lives is you get to see all the thought process. You get to see the warts, the failures, the whole thing, the fears, the anxiety. You get to see it all. So you go, oh, that Matthew McConaughey guy, he's a normal dude. He's not just the guy from dallas buyers club and all these movies

he's a normal human being and maybe i can one day achieve heights like him as well or maybe i i read this book and i'm someone who feels like you know as we often do when we're going through a crisis that we're the only ones and And it's only happened to me. I'm the center of the universe. No one else will understand. And you can read and go, well, here's a guy who's successful, who, shoot, I even maybe thought he just kind of rolls out of bed and makes everything look easy, which you find out. I try to work to get to that point. But maybe you look and you hear it and you go, oh, he went through some similar things. I share some stories in here that are very subjective to me, but the more subjective and personal I got,

the more I found that, oh, these are more relatable to the more amount of people out there. So you may read a story and go, I have that story, a similar story in my life. Well, here's how McConaughey handled it or wished he would have handled it, or here's some help he got along the way. Here's somewhere where he took a walkabout with himself

and found out some things about himself. Maybe that's something I could do for myself. So there are some tools in the book for someone to see themselves in and help navigate our way out of crisis, red and yellow lights, but also how to navigate things when we are catching green lights. Because I have a chapter here called The Art of Running Downhill. I have a chapter here called The Art of Running Downhill. You know, I've self-sabotaged myself when things were going too well before until I learned that that really wasn't my right to put a roof over my expectations for myself and who the hell did I think I was. Well, that's more common than not, isn't it?

People get what they call imposter syndrome. You don't feel like you deserve all the good things that are happening to you. And it just seems odd. You see it happen to other people and it almost makes sense. You see other people being very successful. You're detached.

But when it's happening to you, it's almost like this is uncomfortable because this is not normal. And so I'm going to fuck this up so that I feel like I used to feel before which at least even if it was failure it's comfortable i'm accustomed to it i need some resistance yes you know and look and i think there's very healthy ways to create resistance in our lives when we are on so-called easy street yeah that may be not challenging ourselves in the right way you know

that we need to create resistance to overcome it, to feel most alive. But there's also foolish times to create resistance. And the fact of that is, things are going so well, you think that's how it's gonna be for the rest of your life. No, trust me, the uphill's coming. The drama, the real drama's coming. Don't create any false drama in front of you right now,

because you're kind of patronizing yourself. The real drama's gonna come. Someone is gonna get. You are going to get hurt. Something will happen in your life. The world will do unto you or you'll do it unto yourself. So don't trip yourself running downhill and face plant and break your fricking nose just because you needed some resistance running downhill. Yeah. Because that uphill is coming. You know what I mean? But to go back to the first part of that, i'm a big fan of creating resistance to keep myself in check and to make sure that i'm feeling most alive to overcome the right things in my life yeah me as well i i find physical resistance is the best thing to calm my

mind and and to provide physical challenges that allow me to it allows me to deal with success easier because there's bullshit that i have to deal with but the bullshit is physical and it's sometimes as challenging mentally to do you know like very physically exerting exercises or particularly jujitsu or martial arts because it just it breaks you down and so then so the other stuff that's sort of, it seems like it should be complicated, but it's not. You don't know why. You don't sweat it as much. And it sobers you up.

Yes. In a very literal way. In the same way, it's a daily routine to sober yourself up, to throw off the mendacious bullshit in your life that you were so concerned about and get down to what really needs to happen. Mountains become molehills. You know, it's, you know, big moments in our life sober us up too. I know my father moving on and passing on from this life sobered me up in a way that I then stepped up and said, oh, you don't have your dad to rely on anymore to catch you when you fall. All these things he's been teaching you that you've been kind of making B minuses in life.

Now you better start making A's at him because he's not there. So you better take some ownership. And I remember when he moved on, I carved this in a tree, be less impressed, more involved. And what it was, as soon as he passed away, I noticed that all the things that I was revering in life mortally, like the fame, people, success, money, they lowered down to eye level. Things that I was looking up at and all the things that I was patronizing and condescending and going, oh, sloughing off, that's not worthy of me.

They rose up to eye level. And I remember saying, boy, the world is flat. I'm looking it in the eye. I see further. I see wider. I see clearer. I've got to take ownership of myself. And I stood with my heart higher. I stood with my head higher. And I walked forward and started doing things in that way that I was saying, without asking so much permission all the time, and got a lot more done and became a lot more myself and found more satisfaction. Yeah, sometimes people do need some wake-up call to let you know that this is a temporary existence. Yeah.

And make the best out of it and enjoy it. And sometimes it doesn't happen unless something tragic happens. Like they are in a terrible way but also a beautiful way. There's a lot of power in tragedy because you get something on the other end of it and you get clarity. We will get some clarity out of this tragic and awkward time of COVID. Yes. There are lessons we're learning that we don't even know what they are right now.

That when we get out of it, will inherently be part of our being that will go forward. I sure as hell hope so. But you know us humans, we're quick to snap right back to how we were before. Yeah, my concern is that it's happening so fast, but it's going to take a long time to sort of even out and for us to reach equilibrium. That's what I'm worried about with this. Wait, that what's happening so fast? Deterioration that, you know, the financial deterioration, the fear, the changes with the masks and the social distancing and everything's happening so fast. I'm worried it's just going to take a long time before people feel comfortable again. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I think for millions of people, this is the new normal. I don't think we're ever really going back to how it was. I mean, this is a year that agree or disagree with how we've gone about it and how things have been politicized here and there.

This is a year that has shaken our floor. I don't believe this year is going to be on page 14 of the news for quite some time. I think we've got a lot of rebuilding to do in the long term. It may be a 20-year build. Yeah, no, I agree. It's just strange. It just feels strange. You go outside, the world just feels different than it felt a year ago.

And that's that phrase, the new normal that people like to bring up. And this is where we find ourselves. But I, along with you, I'm almost always optimistic. And I have a lot of faith in human beings. And I think that we can get through this and have a very valuable lesson about when things do happen that are positive and good, maybe we won't take it for granted as much as we did before, because we never thought that something like this was ever going to come along where the whole world was going to shut down for seven, eight, nine, ten, who knows how many months. Yeah. Forced winter. We had one forced upon us in something

that we don't take enough time to force upon ourselves and choose upon ourselves to do. You talked about optimism, which I'd love to open that up with you, and faith in mankind. And I was asked the other day about how do I trust? And this is a time in the world where there's great distrust and people don't believe. You don't trust others, you end up not trusting yourself, et cetera. That reciprocity goes back and forth, and then everyone's walking in circles. But my answer, and I never thought about it until this guy asked me this. I was like, well, like I'm talking to you right now, Joe.

I give you – you have 100% of my trust until you don't. I'm not coming in hedging my bet with you or anyone that I meet for the first time. I'm not coming in like, well, you're going to have to really earn your trust with me. I'm looking out for you. No, you have 100%. You may ask me some questions right now that I'm like going, I think he's getting at something else that's not really in my best interest. And maybe then you start losing some of my trust. But as of right now, we meet, you have 100% until it starts to decrease. And that's all that's up to you. I try to go towards everybody like that first. So how is that?

And let's talk about optimism because there's foolish optimism. There's like, and I don't think what you and I are saying is, hey, class half full, always see it half full. No, let's recognize that it's half empty. That's the inevitable part. It's half empty or it's half full. Now, what's recognize that it's half empty. That's the inevitable part. It's half empty or it's half full. Now, what's the constructive way forward?

What can you do something with? The half the glass has got nothing in it or the half that's got something in it? Well, I think what I can do is with the half that's got something in it, make something, irrigate something, create more water so I can fill it up. I mean, it's choosing where can we be constructive

and choose the affirmative. And that's not a foolish optimism because a lot of times I think certain optimisms, Hallmark card optimisms can almost deny that there was the other half a glass that was empty or deny it's a problem. And I'm not into – I'm not really a purchaser of denying where there's a problem. You've got what i call whiskey philosopher wisdom like if you and i were having a couple of drinks at the bar i have a feeling you would say some cool shit that i would remember and i would take home and i'd go i'd be like lying in bed going that makes i'm gonna remember. That makes a lot of sense. Where did you get that from? I think I grew up in a family of storytellers.

I love lyrics. I love bumper stickers. I love slogans. I love to deconstruct a big conversation down to what's a one-liner? What's the title of that song we just sang? What's the title of this hour or whatever you and I talk? What's the title of this hour or whatever you and I talk? What's the title of a relationship I have? And you get enough of those, and you go, ooh, what's the album title? I think of things lyrically, and I think that may be where it comes from,

as I think in a musical way. Is this something you've acquired? Is this something you always had, or you just sort of slowly developed it? I'm guessing it was slowly developed i mean again i come from a from a family of storytellers where we sat around the table and told stories and if you didn't tell your story good somebody else the table took it over and you better be telling a good story and not dragging on or losing your train of thought because somebody else will step in and roll over you so when you wanted to get a word in

you better be a good storyteller. Is that how you got into acting? Like the ability to entertain? Because a storyteller is essentially an entertainer. Sure. Well, I went to film school first because when I look back at the diaries, I really couldn't admit that I wanted to be

in front of the camera as an actor. But that's what I really wanted to do. But I went to film school because I felt like being the storyteller behind the camera was something that my dad one could digest as a possible route forward for his son and it was all that I could digest at the time so when I made the leap to film school I immediately would direct actors by performing myself in front of the camera so i really liked the the the first person subjective performance and then i got that that job in that summer of

92 on days confused where i ended up three lines turned into three weeks work i'm getting paid 320 bucks a day people tell me i'm good at it i keep getting invited back to set i'm like is this legal um yes and so i went back graduated picked up my packed up my u-haul and drove west young man you know two weeks out of out of graduating college and um you know i didn't have that story of roughing it when i first got out there first two auditions i went on i got the job that's pretty fucking amazing yeah did you when when you say that you you didn't want to admit that you wanted to be in front of the camera like what do you think was holding you back i think it was the idea look i was raised in a

blue collar family where you get a job you work your way up the ladder company ladder to be in the arts to be in front of the camera the actor sounded so vain sounded so avant-garde sounded so european sounded so so so nothing stable about it and so to bring that up to my dad even bring it up like i said i could it was not even in the vernacular of my dreams i did not even dream about it the only place that i admitted it was in my diaries and i found those where i wrote to myself before i could even consciously admit it that i did want to be an actor all the way back since 1988 but i never admitted it until i started doing it and it turned in about 1993 that i was like okay i think i can do this I'm giving it a shot, and I love this.

It's totally understandable that you would fall into some form of self-sabotage if it came that easy. If all of a sudden you're on Dazed and Confused, all of a sudden you do your first two auditions, you get the gig, everything's rolling, you're young and handsome. Woo! Come on. Dream nights. I mean, how did you self-correct?

Tell you what I did. It really happened around 96 after I did a film with Time to Kill. I remember the Friday before Time to Kill opened. That's the movie that I was the lead in, a big-budget John Grisham movie. That was the one that made me famous. All right. So the Friday before that movie opened, I, you know, there's a hundred scripts I wanted to do. I would have done anything to do any of these scripts. 99, no, you can't. One, yes, you can. I'm walking down the third street promenade in Santa Monica, 400 people on the promenade.

396 minding their own business. Four of them checking me out. Two girls that thought I was cute and a couple other people that maybe liked my shoes. The Monday following that weekend, Time to Kill opens that night. The Monday following, all of a sudden, out of those 100 scripts, 99 yeses. You can do any of these, Matthew. One no. All of a a sudden that same promenade walk i took 400 people now 396 were staring at me and four people weren't one of them was blind

all right it was it inverted the world became a mirror i noticed oh shit i don't need any strangers anymore people are coming up to me going like i'm so sorry about miss hud and i'm going wait a minute number one what's your's your name? I've never met you. How'd you know I had a dog whose name is Ms. Hud and has cancer? You just skipped five filters of howdy. You know what I mean? And I remember feeling unbalanced about it.

How old were you? I'm 23 at that time. I'm being told, I love you, I love you. And in my mind, I'm going, man, we don't throw that word around. I've said that to four people in my life. So I wanted to know what the heck was real, what really mattered. And I was looking for a place to go. I needed to get out. I needed to go, those demarcations we talked about earlier. I needed to go break a long sweat. I needed to go

out and let memory catch up and see what the hell was real, what was not. So I packed up my stuff. I went to a monastery for about a week. And then I got back and I went off. I had this certain dream, a repeating dream that came to me. And I went to Peru and flooded the Amazon for 22 days. And it was a forced solitude. Nobody there knew my name. They didn't speak English. I was forced to be with myself and my thoughts in my own company, which I was not enjoying. So after about 12 days of shaking the monkeys off my back, figuring out what the hell I was going to forgive myself for and what I was going to lay down the hammer and say enough's enough about. I came out of it, woke up one morning light as as a feather, and shook hands with myself and said, we're going to be all right, man. You're the one person I can't get rid of, McConaughey, so we might as well get along and reentered. And that recalibration helped a lot to disseminate

through all the bullshit and all the excess of affluence that was coming at me at the time. And I found some discernment. I found some discrimination in my choices again and moved on from there. But I've had to do that. I've had to take off on my own many times to go recalibrate. That sounds like a story of a man running and the rocks fall right behind him. Like you just missed it. Like also 23 years old, you weren't a child star, but it was damn close.

You weren't a child star, but it was damn close. We all know what happens when your personality develops in the spotlight and you're famous. Almost no one gets out alive. I mean, and I understand it. I wasn't ready to go out to Hollywood before I did. Hollywood's not a place to go find yourself. Hollywood's a place where you can be anything you want. It's infinite yeses.

Well, in the infinite yeses, as you know, the infinite options can make a tyrant of any of us. What is that noise that keeps going off? Is that on your end? That's on my end. What is that? I think it's emails coming in. It's a crazy ding. Ding.

Sign it. Is that what you get when you get emails? That would annoy the fuck out of me. What's yours do? Nothing? Nothing. I check them once a day. Oh, see, I don't text.

You know why I like to email more than text? Because I can flag an email. I can't flag a text. I wish text would allow me to flag it. Oh, I'm going to save that to flag it oh i'm gonna save that to answer it later and if i would just do text i may forget you wrote and then two weeks later go i never wrote him back right i do that where's my but at least it doesn't go there's i don't know i maybe jodie foster made it out alive. She might be the only.

I mean, you worked with her. Did she make it out alive of being a child? Fame? She made it out alive. You know, she was, yeah, she was. Wasn't she the Coppertone girl on the beach? She was a bunch of things. She wasn't.

Isn't she in Taxi Driver? Yeah. I mean, man. She did. You know who else did? Ron Howard. Yes, he did. He's a very nice guy. I ran into him, man. She did. You know who else did? Ron Howard. Yes, he did. He's a very nice guy.

I ran into him at a doctor's office. He couldn't have been nicer and more normal and really enjoyed talking to him. Yeah. Solid. You know, but I don't know. I've never talked to them about how they navigated in their youth. in their youth. They obviously had some support because, you know, I see parents with their children and they want them to be in front of the camera. And I've even seen some set that we work with. And the mothers behind the camera, like Olin Mills photography going, cheese, say cheese.

And the director, you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not Olin Mills. We just want the child to be himself or herself if they have the confidence to be themselves in front of camera. Don't be acting like anything. This is not a Olin Mills photo shoot. And so a lot of times I've seen the parents. They're the ones that actually need the recalibration. Yeah. To go, whoa, don't be making your child doesn't know who he or she is yet. And yet you're forcing them to try and be someone else, and that's their reality. There's danger in that. Yeah.

For sure. No, there really is. It's very unfortunate when you see that. You've worked with kids that have had to play your kid. Like, does that feel conflicted to you when that happens like you almost like don't want them to do it no i i that's been some of my most comfortable roles is playing a father or a father figure and i think that's because the one thing i always knew i wanted to be in life was a father i knew that since i was eight years old what i mean is for the children themselves do you feel weird for them no no the kids that are

playing your child like knowing that they're going to be in a film at a really young age they're going to experience all this um i mean i'll check in with you know again what i've noticed is it's the parent that may need the recalibration. The kid's just fine. But then you see the mother or the father loving it more than they're loving it or loving that child. Is it from the camera? Well, you know, when I can, I'm trying to talk about, are your values in line here? Because your son or daughter's future and who they are is depending on how you deal with it. I've also seen parents handle it really, really well. You're going to work. You have a job to do. If you have a talent to do that, but you still come home and you still do the chores and you're still my son or my daughter who acts just like you do. And we don't do any of that BS. Things aren't hanging around

here. And you don't want to steal. I wouldn't want my child to be raised in Hollywood by Hollywood. I now, you know, early in my career, I was like, no, I would never want my kids, if I have them, doing what I do. I've completely turned a 180 on that. I would love if my kids got into the industry that I'm in. It's been great to me. I've met some of the most creative, awesome people in my life. But there's a time I wouldn't want them to go find out who they are in Hollywood, in the Hollywood game by being an actor or that kind of story. Tell your own. I want to know their own story first before they're going to go tell someone else's story. Yeah, I've likened it to

like almost like a chemical process. Like if you want to make epoxy, you have to add a bunch of different ingredients. And if you don't add the ingredients while you're mixing it up, it'll never be sure. It'll never really firm up. It'll never be complete. And I feel like that's one of the things that happens to a lot of child actors. Like the experience of people not knowing who you are, you have to earn their respect. You have to earn their love, earn their friendship, prove yourself, not have people love you before you even meet them.

That seems toxic for children. It just seems crazy. I think it is highly toxic. We started off the conversation on this topic 10 minutes ago. Not many have recovered. No, not many. From that, the insecurity, the conversation on this topic 10 minutes ago. Not many have recovered. No, not many. From that, the insecurity, the lack of knowing who they are, the lack of talk about resistance. You know, Hollywood's a place of yes.

Yes, of course you can be whatever you want. It's Halloween every day. Now, wait a minute. If you're playing dress up every day and you have the option to be whoever the heck you want and, you know, you want to go to the club all night. You can do that, too. Everything's a yes. In those infinite yeses, you can get lost and not found. Yeah, I think they, you know, you got to have some structure. And like I said, I went out at 22, 23. I don't think I was ready to go out there before I went out there because I had a sense if I didn't as much as I had a sense of who I was I had a very clear sense of who I was not um and that helped me because I was able to see some things and be invited to some things be around some place so I was like you know what

this is a stop not a stay for me this isn't really going to feed me and it really turned me on this is a short term uh um you know something I'm getting that's feeding me in the short term. But this isn't going to last. This isn't really who I am. Yeah, I've talked to a few child stars that sort of got, like Miley Cyrus is one that I talked to recently. And, you know, you see it in the conversation when she's describing what it was like to grow up famous. And it's a very difficult path. And I don't, you know, I think Jodie Foster, Ron Howard, there's a very difficult path and i don't you know i think jody foster ron howard

there's a few that have gotten through it someone should actually sit down with those folks and try to figure out what's the common denominator like how did they do it science that'd be some great signs of how they did it you know i a story about i had a teaching tool that had to do with something i i i pulled off in hollywood Hollywood for my kids. And I'm big on delayed gratification. And, you know, after I won the Oscar for best actor, my kids were like, well, what'd you get the trophy for? And I said, well, you remember a year and a half ago, we were in New Orleans, Papa would go away, you'd wake up in the morning. I was already at work. And I'd come home and have dinner with y'all and tuck you in.

And you wake up the next morning, I was gone again. And remember you said I looked like a giraffe because I was so skinny. And I'm like, yeah. And I go, well, what I was doing for those 30 days when I was gone all day, a year and a half later, somebody said, deemed that excellent work. And they gave me a trophy for that work. What I did a year and a half ago. And I remember I saw them click. They were like, oh, oh, our future is a compounding interest. You know what I mean? And I said, oh, you can build, you can do something

today and get rewarded tomorrow. And it was an example that worked for them of understanding that you can invest and make choices to engineer more ROI. I know that was a milestone for you and obviously you won the Oscar for it, but there's something about these physical transformation roles when an actor does something where you realize they're literally torturing themselves. I mean, how did you get down to?

How much did you weigh? I weighed 135. And look, you know this. I was not torturing myself. I was militant. The hardest part was making the damn choice. It was my responsibility. If I looked like I do now, playing Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club,

you are out of the movie, the first frame. Oh, bullshit. He's not stage four HIV. I'm out. What's my job? I had to lose the weight. Once I made my mind up, I did the smart thing. I gave myself five months.

I got on a diet where I'd have my tapioca pudding or whatever, three egg whites in the morning, five ounce of fish, cup of vegetables for lunch, five ounce fish, cup of vegetables for dinner, as much wine as I wanted to drink. And I lost 2.5 pounds a week like clockwork, no exercise. As much wine as you wanted to drink? Much as I wanted. How does, what kind of diet is this? It worked 2.5 pounds. And it didn't matter if I was going to the treadmill and burning 2,000 calories a day or not, 2.5 pounds a week, clockwork. And what happened during that time,

and this is another reason that I really didn't torture myself when people say, oh my gosh, it's been so hard. I was like, no, what did I learn from it? That the body's more resilient than we give it credit for. I, the power I lost from the neck down, equally or more so sublimated to the neck up. My mental game was so acute and so on point. I was clinically smart.

It didn't matter if I drank my wine until one in the morning. At 4.30 a.m., no alarm clock, bang, I was up every morning. Had incredible amount of mental energy. I had no leverage from my neck down. I mean, my knees, I had no insulation anywhere. My body would hurt when I'd try to run 10 feet. But from here up, there's some things I actually miss about it. What do you think, what was the process? Why did your brain work better when you were starving yourself? I think because it wasn't relying on it. I think on a cellular level, I felt my body going, hey, to use a baseball term, you got people over there on the bench in the dugout. Then you got people out in the field that are, you know, sitting in the bullpen not working out. bullpen not working out. On a cellular level,

cellularly, my cells that were in the dugout and over there in the bullpen had to get up and go, whoa, we're not getting fed what we used to get fed. We got to exercise here. We got to come to. Hut, hut. Because my body's not getting, we're not getting what we used to get. We're not placated by what we used to get. Our insulation's gone. What we're relying on is gone. What we used to rely on is gone. So I think my whole body woke up,

and my brain got really super, super sharp on that as well. So I think it was the going without. There was a bit of a, it was what I went without that sharpened up and made my brain on a cellular level much more hungry. What do you weigh normally? 188. Jesus Christ. So you lost 50 pounds.

Yeah. There's roles where guys do this where it defines their career in some way. Like Robert De Niro when he gained weight for Raging Bull. Christian Bale when he did The for raging bull uh christian bale when he did uh the machinist yeah yeah there's these these roles where a guy or a woman just transformed charlize theron when she played monster they they transformed their body and it's it's like a it's a different level of of commitment and when you entered into that film was this the first time you'd ever had to do that

yeah first time i ever had to do it i mean you you got jacked for that uh well i don't know how jacked you were before for that dragon movie i'm sorry i forget the name of it rain of fire rain of fire i fucking love that movie that was a great movie van zandt god i miss van zandt it was a great movie talk about a guy who was about no bullshit boy that was a sobering character i miss that guy yeah it was a fun character but you were jacked in that movie were you jacked normally or did you have to get jacked for that movie i got more jacked for that look our family my dad we we come from a um our anatomy the mcconaughey's have big tricep my dad you see you'll love this i'd be sitting there as a kid um and my dad was a big guy 64

265 you know he played kentucky under bear brian got drafted by the green bay packers he was a big bear of a man and he comes in the living room one night and i'm in front of the tv watching my favorite show incredible hulk and there's luke rick and i'm like standing in front of the tv doing all this he goes boy what you doing i was at him, man. I mean, he's got these baseball size biceps. Look at him. Wow. And he goes, uh-huh. He takes off his shirt. He goes, let me tell you something, son. He goes, that right there. He pulled the bicep. He goes, that's nice. Makes the girls scream. You know, it's for show. He goes, You know, it's for show. He goes, that right there?

He goes, that's the work muscle. That's the one that puts the roof over our head. That's for dough. Show and dough. The triceps for dough. So I had big triceps. So when I went and worked out, and if I take a little bit of creatine, my triceps go bananas. So that was a minor transformation.

It wasn't that difficult to do. No, it was minor. It was a lot of boxing and just some nice throwing some weight around. You just got fit. But for Dallas Buyers Club. Yeah. I always try to stay within 10 pounds of striking weight of whatever I need to do for the role was it hard to make the decision to do that for Dallas Buyers Club though because that was a giant transformation I mean it wasn't hard I was looking for something

to be all consumed with something to be obsessed with, a singular obsession. This is my job. So my life revolved around that. My wife made me meals. Trust me, I didn't go to Pizza Hut and say, no, thank you, the pizza, I'll have a salad. I did not even put myself in front of temptations. I was a hermit. I stayed in. My wife made me the meals and I studied and wrote and created the character all day long. And I never got tired of that. So my world, I was in a bubble. I just put myself in a bubble for five and a half months. And that commitment to put myself on that island to know that this is, it's good to have this singular obsession.

You cannot go far enough, McConaughey. That was, there's a freedom in that. There's a freedom. I've always found having a character that I can commit that much to. You cannot go far enough. That was your thought process. Yeah, I knew when I got down to 135, I was like, oh, okay, that's good. And mind you, I will tell you this.

When I started to eat more at 135 to say let's slow this train down and quit losing weight, my body had already got the message and had its blinders on that we're going south, and it kept going south. So that was a bit scary because I kept losing the weight because my body had already gotten in the rhythm of losing weight. And like I said, it turned a blind eye on getting any more food. So there was a tough transition there for about two weeks to get my weight to balance out again and say, let's just hold at 135. So you dropped below 135 at one point in time. Just went below 135, got down about 132, and then brought it back up.

Now, how long did it take for you to physically recover from something like that? Were you back to normal? Man, I'm still recovering. Really? Because I thought that. I thought that when I saw you in that film, I told my wife, I remember saying this, this is going to take a long time for him to bounce back

because I know how hard it is for guys to cut weight for fights, and I know a lot of guys that have really depleted their body doing that. And when I saw you that gaunt and skinny, I was like, he's eating his body your body ate itself it was eating itself it's the only way yeah i look i came back and i did true detective after that and i got on true detective i got to about 167 and held and i loved that weight as well because i had a little more leverage i had a little more athletic ability i had a little more insulation around my joints but i was still pretty stripped and ripped. Slowly coming back from that, I did learn this. I had to come back very slowly because

I'd heard stories about people that go, well, now I'm going to gain weight. I can eat as much as I want. And that you can grow back and look deformed. Your features can come back if you rush it. They can come back in odd ways so i very slowly put the weight back on i then did a role a few years ago i guess it was about four three three years after where i put on 47 pounds so i was 220 what was that which is a hell of a lot more gold it's called gold it's a hell of a lot more fun to put that weight on than to take it off where I was just cheeseburger king. And my family loved me in that role because I was captain fun. I was yes to everything. Milkshake for breakfast. You got it. Let's go. Now that was I've never talked about at that time. I was still mentally sharp, not as sharp as I was when I was

down at 135. But at 220, libido was through the roof. I couldn't catch a cold if I swam in the damn canals of Amsterdam, man. I was like the abominable snowman. I was insulated and had great energy during that time. Now, coming back from that, I still got a couple things on my back here around the waist. I'm like, where'd that come from? That came up with that rolling gold. And what's that still doing, hanging around? You know, so I did have to come back slowly. But I will say this, you know, 188 since then, that's my fighting weight before. I look a little different than the 188 before then, before Dallas Buyers Club. It's a different 188.

So it did take a physical toll. Sure. I would say even neck and things like that. Neck and bone structure is the same. But how much of this is just getting older too and having less fat cells right i'm not sure um but yeah it it didn't hurt like i said i think i stretched my body i i noticed when you know when i got down to that weight at 135 if i you know tried to sprint 10 10 yards and i just my knees would buckle i I had no insulation.

My knees hurt. Yeah, I watched it again recently just to kind of get it into my head. And that's when I was thinking, like, this is going to take a while to bounce back from. Like, I almost forgot how gaunt you got. It was striking, you know. And that's a fucking crazy commitment, man. You drinking moonshine? What are you doing there?

What is that? Some kombucha. Oh. It was neither that or whiskey. A few hours. Okay. Yeah. You're a kombucha guy?

Mm-hmm. I love that stuff. Daily. I do, too. Yeah, that's great for the immune system. When you look at a role like a role like dallas buyers club or something like that like what makes you choose a role does it just have to resonate with you is it who's involved who the directors are the producers the the other actors that are

committed to it like what what makes you decide this is interstellar let's do it all right well first what's the pedigree of the people around me? The director, the script, the producers. Are they excellent? Are they the right for this story? I do look at that. But the main thing I look at is this character. The last 12 years, I've been able choose characters that that made me shake in my boots

the right way you know that good kind of scared where you're like oh i don't know what the hell i'm gonna do with this but i can't wait to find out um i like characters where the decisions are really going to cost them where there's consequences with every single scene that they're in and the the favorite consequences to have are something like a Ron Woodruff. It's life or death consequences. Something like a Van Zandt. How can I remain from becoming extinct?

You know, those are great. Okay, we brought it down to the bare necessities, how to survive or how to stay alive. From that place, then I can give my all. Choosing roles where I'm not going to have any compression from the ceiling to the basement of the emotions I want to give. No one's going to tell me, oh, you can't be that angry. Oh, no one's going to tell me you can't be that sad.

You can't cry that hard. No one's going to tell me you can't laugh that hard. No one's going to tell me you can't hurt that bad. I don't like to be, I've been enjoying choosing roles that have a really high ceiling and a limitless ceiling and a limitless basement to where I, Matthew, can go as deep or as high as I want to with them. There's a lot of roles that I've done in my career, for instance, like with romantic comedies, where those emotions are compressed for a reason. The ceiling, you can't laugh that loud. You can't love that hard. You can't get that pissed off. You'll sink the ship of those movies. They die built for buoyancy. I've been enjoying

the dramatic roles. And that's what I love about drama is that now it's to the individual actor, your ceiling of how much you want to love or your basement of how much you want to hate. Go for it. There is no there is no limit on either one of those. That's the kind of role that really has been turning me on. And that makes me feel like I'm having an experience in the making of the movie, in the architecture of the character, rather than just going and doing a job and getting a paycheck. During the quarantine, the lockdown, my family and I had movie night basically every night, especially when the kids were doing Zoom classes because we had to do something different.

So we mixed it up and we watched Contact again. And I haven't seen Contact in forever. And first of all, God damn, what a good movie that was. Good movie. That's a good movie that was. That's a good movie. That's a good movie. And a great movie about aliens. Like a movie that gives you a different perspective on the possibilities of contact. And just the fact that it was a Carl Sagan book. And there's just so much good to it.

That character that you played was a fascinating guy, and I kind of feel like there's some of you in that guy. Sure. I mean, you are, am I wrong here? You are religious in some way. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to bring this up in this day and age when people go, no, I'm not religious. I'm only spiritual. You know what the Latin root of religion is? Re legare. And legare means to bind together. Re means again.

Well, in a world that's saying I'm only spiritual because I want unity, that's exactly what religion means. We bastardize the meaning of it over time and we've excluded people and we've corporatized it and such but yes i am religious um that character you know i had written stories i'd written a college paper called john wayne goes west and it was about how do you how do you how can you be a believer in a world of science and i remember writing things like during the making of that movie like science is the practical pursuit of god um the two are not exclusive uh they they they dance together they're they they go together um belief in science and i never saw those as

contradictions and that's part of what the reason i attacked that role and became part of that movie. I wanted to play a person that had that point of view of a believer in a world of science. Not at the exclusion of science and not at the exclusion of belief. Yeah, it's a confusing role for a lot of people if someone is a believer and also a proponent of science. Because they want to know what are your literal beliefs like do are you taking the bible at its literal word or do you use it as some sort of a guidebook of the experiences of these people that lived thousands of years ago that have been translated from multiple different languages back to English.

And is there wisdom in those translations? Is there wisdom in those original thoughts, these thousands of years of people contemplating and, and mulling on these things and that so many have used these as a scaffolding for morals and ethics and for societies. Yep. It's, it's, it's,

I mean, you know, for people that go, Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's a,

it's a circus book or people that nonbelievers and I'm like, well, it's still the best one going. Um, there's a lot of great truths that, that, that, that come out of the Bible and it is open for a lot of people.

It has been interpreted and reinterpreted. It has been translated. It has been handed down. I, for myself, I don't know what to do in my daily life with the burning bush. I don't know what to do with that. I do know what to do with love your neighbor like yourself. I do know what to do with Matthew 6, 22. If I be single, that whole body will be full of light. I do know what to do with some Proverbs that I can take into daily practice and go, oh, I felt my life.

I felt improvement. I felt success in my relationships, in my relationship with the day, with my career by following that, by treating others how I wanted to be treated, the golden rule. So I take the practical stuff myself and try to utilize it and pick out what can work for me. When you say you don't know what to do with the burning bush, what do you mean by that? I don't know what to do on a daily basis with the teaching of, and then he showed up as a burning bush, or the magic tricks.

And I don't know what to do with, and Jesus healed everyone, and he couldn't walk, and now he touched me and he can walk. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to take that into my life and go, oh, there's something useful and practical and healthy for you, Matthew, that you can practice there. So the magic that leans in towards what we would call now more fantasy, I don't know what to do with that. There's philosophies, there's proverbs, and there's teachings that I think are very valid and very helpful that we could all be reminded of that are in the Bible that I do find quite useful. Yeah, I think it's almost impossible to figure out what they were trying to say with a lot of the things. It's why it's so, it's open to interpretation, but also open to manipulation. And that's where people have a

real problem with it, when it's used for, to separate people, to exclude people, to marginalize people, to judge people. But it's hard for people that understand those aspects and that those things happen to actually parse out that there's good about it too and that there's a lot of really valuable lessons in these books. A hundred percent. Look, I get it. I mean, it's like a what are our what our fathers teach us is your father still alive well i don't really know him i have a complicated uh family history okay well fathers or father figures i have a stepfather he's still alive and i'm close to him

well stepfather when he goes you'll find out some things where the messenger and the message weren't exactly in simpatico does that mean that you throw the messenger out and you're like oh bullshit you weren't following all that stuff no you take the message this is the stuff that you can that could work for you that

maybe they wanted it for you they couldn't follow through on it themselves there's certain parts of the bible that have that too. You don't throw out the whole, you can't, I don't think it makes any sense to throw out the whole book. It's what we're doing in society now. I mean, we're making people persona non grata

because of something they do or that is right now deemed wrong or it's the hot point on a hot topic right now. You can't erase someone's entire existence. Where the heck does some forgiveness go? And again, that like optimism, it's not erasing the crisis. It's not saying there wasn't a problem first. It's not saying that there's parts of the Bible that have been people have bastardized and used in the wrong way.

But you don't throw the whole book out and say, well, it's all bad then. Because it's false. Have you encountered difficulty expressing this in Hollywood? Hollywood is predominantly left-wing and very secular or Jewish in some circles, but it's not like a place where Christian fundamental values are espoused openly. A lot of Jewish folks are in Hollywood, and that seems to be okay with a lot of people, but some other religions, particularly if you're a fundamentalist Christian or if you have Christian values, a lot of people frown upon that.

Why do you think that is, and have you had difficulties with that? I don't know. I haven't had difficulties. I have had, and I won't throw any people under the bus, but I have had moments where I was on stage receiving an award in front of my peers in Hollywood. And there were people in the crowd that I have prayed with before dinners many times. And when I thank God, I saw some of those people go to clap, but then notice that, well, it's going to be a bad thing on my resume, and then sit back on their hands. Oh, wow.

And I've seen people read the room and go, whoa, that wouldn't bode well for me in the future. If for getting a job or getting votes or what have you. I have seen that. I've witnessed that. I don't judge them for it. I just wish that it seems like a silly argument. One of the things that some people in our industry, not all of them, but there's some that go to the left so far

as uh our friend jordan peterson who's back um saw his video being back that go to the illiberal left side so far that is so condescending and patronizing to 50 of the world to 50% of the world that need the empathy that the liberal side gives and should give to throw somebody's, illegitimize them because they say they are a believer.

It's just so arrogant and in some ways hypocritical to me. Yeah, so I haven't run into, you know, I haven't head-butted trouble on that. But I've always, you look, my career, I've pretty much gone my own path. And by hook or by crook, just trying to figure a way out into what I was doing.

And I haven't measured or noticed where it has harmed or gotten in my way of what I wanted to achieve in Hollywood. I think you slipped through the net. You got far enough down the river where it's not going to be a problem. Well, kind of like when I, you know, like my mom when I first got famous, you know, it's a great story in the book. Right when I got famous, I'm trying to figure my own shit out. Right. And then next night I get a call. My buddy says, hey, you watch this.

I'm like, what? He goes, turn on hard copy. And there's my mom with the cameraman taking a guy through our house. And this is where I caught him in bed with Melissa. You know what I caught him doing in there. Oh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. I've seen it a thousand times. And I'm going, I call her up. I'm like, mom, what did you do? And she's like, what? I go, don't say what I can hear it in your, on the other end of the line. You're watching it too. It's hard copy. She's like, oh, I didn't think you'd find out. So I had eight years where my mom and I's relationship was strained. I couldn't,

I didn't have a mother to talk to, to share things with. Because hell, I'd show up on a hard copy the next night. But once my career got solidified enough, you know, I slipped through the net. I was stable enough. I went in and let go of the reins and said, Mom, you can go for it. You can take the mic anytime. You can hit that red carpet, wear your short leather dress, and talk whatever, tell whatever stories you want to. But again, it took a while for me to feel stable enough to slip through the net and let her go be herself as well. This thing you're talking

about with people disparaging people for their opinions and their beliefs and the way they live in their life, I think a lot of this is coming from this condensed way of impersonal communication that we're getting from social media. I think this is so much of the way people are judging people and the way people are communicating with people. One-on-one is how human beings are supposed to talk. That's how we're supposed to work things out. And when you look at a person's eyes and you experience their feelings and you read their social cues, that's how we communicate and that's how we work things out and hash things out and figure each other out. And maybe someone has a different set of beliefs than you, but they happen to be your neighbor and you like them. And you're like, hey man, tell me what's it like to be a Sikh what what is it like to be a

Muslim what is it what are your beliefs as a a Quaker like what do you what what's going on in your life tell me I've I had a neighbor who was one of my favorite neighbors I've ever had he was a Scientologist and he was a weird dude man but he was always friendly as hell and I would go outside we would have weird conversations about these things that he was doing and i just try to figure him out and he'd try to figure me out we you know we always waved to each other we're always friendly i miss that guy but he uh he and i if we were talking online i'd be like you know if if i was a younger man and i was dumber and he said something about his belief and i thought that was stupid I'd probably say what kind of dumb shit is that you believe that nonsense written by a science fiction author

but talking to the guy that that was never the way I talked to him when he and I were looking at each other we're just two neighbors trying to figure each other out and just trying to be friendly and have a harmonious neighborhood well it's, it's one of the things I think you're going to like about your new home, the city. I think I mentioned this to you when I called you to say welcome. One of the great things about Austin, Texas is even though it's the blueberry and tomato soup, the more liberal city in the conservative state, you can see neighbors next door to each other talking to each other, and one has a Trump sign in the yard,

the other one has a Biden sign in the yard. They're still having a conversation. No one's going sneaking out in the middle of the night to go rip that other person's sign out. When Austin is at its best, it has that. You know, I think that the, you know, and I've got young children, and they're starting to get,

we don't, wow, I'm on social media yet. But you see these people who are living in a time where you put out something of yourself. And your whole value of yourself is reliant on what the world out there, strangers you don't know, comment about that. And if I put out a picture that I'm really happy and excited about on Instagram tonight, and if I'm going to look what the reaction is, and the majority says, oh, F you, McConaughey,

all of a sudden I have a bad night. I'm having a bad time. But if you go, same picture, and you go, awesome. And the consensus, awesome. All of a sudden, you've controlled how I feel and I'm having a great night.

I'm in a great mood. So we're sort of at the behest, people, of we're reacting. That's kind of what we're doing more in this social media. We're reacting and you look at, you know, things that go on on issues right now. Everyone's reacting to things instead of creating the story or having an opinion coming out of the gate. And, hey, I understand it to some extent because you get hired and fired on those things these days.

You know, hired and fired or not hired because you don't have as many people following your whatever it is. That's a measure now of what we call success in this life. What's at the top in America? Money and fame, baby. You got that. You've made it in America. You are successful. We pat you on the back. We give you respect. I got nothing against money and fame. I got money and I'm famous. But that's not where my value system lies or what I'm what is most important to me and what I'm trying to teach my kids is a way to get that. And if you can do it in a way to have your value system, let's let's praise that. But it's tough because that's not what the world right now, especially America, rewards people for. Yeah, I think there's a real issue with social media, in particular with children, in that we're just not designed for that. We're not designed for that kind of communication.

And it's so easy to dismiss someone who's just text on a screen. It's so easy to shut someone who's just text on a screen it's so easy to to shut people down and it's you see people getting praised because they're famous and because they're wealthy i mean how much of what social media is for a lot of young kids is seeing famous people in front of lamborghinis with a million dollar watch on it's a bizarre posing ritual that people are doing. It's very strange. Funny story about that. I'm in Miami, Southeast. Now, mind you, I really like Miami because it's so obvious. I mean, in LA, people get like a boob job or a lip job or a calf job, and they try to say, no, it's all natural. In Miami, they go, I just got my calf job. I just to say no it's all natural in miami they go i just got my calf job

i just got a boob job hold up hold up calf jobs how many people are getting calf jobs oh guys will go get a calf implant is that real that's still happening and in miami they're proud they're showing you like they're out there's no shame in that there's no embarrassment not getting that all right i'm'm in Miami making a film. I think it was The Beach Bum. And I'm walking along the beach, and there's this guy, unbuttoned silk shirt, got his gold chains on. He's all greased up, and he's leaning against his purple Lamborghini. And he's got somebody taking pictures of him.

And I'm just saying, like, what's going on? He's got the palm trees in the back of the ocean. So I ask him, I say, what are you doing? And he goes, oh, man, I'm getting this picture taken for my tinder page man in the next 20 minutes two other guys came by and i asked a guy go is that your lamborghini he goes no no i just rented it for the day for my tinder page pick two guys walked by in the next 20 minutes and paid him 50 bucks to lean against his purple rented Lamborghini to get their Tinder page pick. Oh, my God.

I wonder if it works. It's got to work. It's got to work on someone. And he got his rent paid for, for his purple Lamborghini. Yeah. Well, Miami, you should have a passport to go there. It's barely America. It's a lot of fun. It's a Lamborghini. Yeah. Well, Miami, you should have a passport to go there. It's barely America. It's a lot of fun.

It's a great place. It's a lovely city. I love visiting there. But I don't think I could ever live there. I go to Miami and I just go, you guys are fucking out of control. And then I get out of there. It's the only place.

Before I was doing my last Netflix special, I was using these yonder bags. And what a yonder bag is, is you have to put your cell phone in the bag when you go in there so you can't film the show. Or you can't talk on it. And the idea is that the people won't be distracted because their cell phone will be in this magnetic pouch. You have it. You have possession of your phone. Nobody's taking your phone.

But when you want to leave or use the phone, like if someone's going to call you, maybe you've got a got a babysitter you can go outside they'll open the pouch up and then you can use your phone okay most shows i did this i did shows all over the country the shows people were more attentive they sat down they didn't get distracted by their phone and they just listened in miami all they did was get up and go outside so the whole show the fucking show is like an hour and 45 minutes. It's just people getting up and going out and coming back and getting up and coming back and getting up and coming back. It was like people were constantly going back and forth. I don't know if they're doing coke or if they're just part. But they were – the idea of not having their phone with them, they're like, what the fuck?

I need my phone. They're so distracted, so chaotic. It was a lot of fun, though. I'm not even complaining. Where the mannequins, even the mannequins have fake boobs. It's true. It's true. It is true.

If you go to a department store, the mannequins have giant fake boobs. Yeah, because, look, the girls that want to buy those clothes also have fake boobs they don't want some weird natural body like how am i gonna know what it's gonna look like on me and again i'm not shitting on miami i love it here i love it there rather but i always said if you want to starve to death open up a bookstore in miami ain't nobody buying books there nobody's buying green lights they might get the audio book and listen to it when they're on the treadmill but it's it's a wild place and and that show that i did the shows that i did down there they were fun i had a great time the audiences were great they were they laugh hard but they were just all over the place just

up and down and back and up and back and coming back and sitting down excuse me pardon me up more people i'm like you guys are out of fucking control yeah yeah it's it's a it's an obvious place uh have you ever seen the documentaries cocaine cowboys yes well that's all the whole cult like how it all got started down there well the craziness let's those cocaine cowboys one and two of my all-time favorite documentaries just miami's got a wild fucking history yep it does and stories like that make great films though because there's some, because there's real live stories about this country in particular, but this world in general, like Scarface or something like that, where it's just like, this is kind of based on reality. It's one of the beautiful things about a film is that a film like Scarface will make you look into that. Like, well, how much of this is real? Did they really do that?

Oh, yeah, they really did send over prisoners and release prisoners and send them to America. And they really did have hundreds and thousands of murders and gun violence all over the streets and cocaine everywhere. That's real. That was real. Yeah. Yeah.

And it was happening. Well, that's, you know the best it's always said you know truth changer stranger than fiction but yeah i mean i one of the one of the words i have a page in the book about my least favorite word in the english language being unbelievable um no it's all pretty doggone believable and and you see it happen. You're like, yep, wow. I didn't think that was possible. Well, it damn sure was. And it's usually stranger than any Hollywood script could make it. Or more exciting.

Yeah, I say unbelievable too often. And it's sort of a placeholder word for holy shit. Right. You know, unbelievable. But it is believable, yeah, for sure. I mean, you have to be pretty odd in this day and age to be unbelievable. I don't remember the last thing I saw that was unbelievable, whether it was my son or whether it was like, are you fucking kidding me?

I'm like, boy, there's one thing you can depend on people being, it's people. Yeah. So in your life right now, you've had this incredibly successful career, in your life right now when you know you've had this incredibly successful career and i assume you're still writing down these lists of things to do when you when you look at like what you would like to accomplish i mean you've accomplished so much in the world of acting and filmmaking is there something out there that really is a a goal or a thought that's sticking in your mind or something you haven't done yet? Yeah. One of the things I've got to do that's at the top of the list is do my best to shepherd three young children through this life

so they can go off and be independent and autonomous and hopefully competent young individuals. That's priority number one. But personally, there's a role that I've created and assumed for myself called the Minister of Culture. And it's about finding a shared and competent value system. And it's something that I'm going to initialize it, hopefully right there in Austin. Values, as far as I can tell, are the common denominator I'm going to initialize it, hopefully right there in Austin. Values, as far as I can tell, are the common denominator that they've always been cool.

There's ones that we can agree on. They work then. They work now. They will not go out of style. We're in such a time right now where our social contracts are so broken, and they're broken with ourselves as well. We don't have expectations of each other or of ourselves. It's kind of anarchic, a nation divided. And in Austin in particular, as a very popular and fast-growing city,

it's changing a lot. And, you know, if Austin as a city starts to consume more than it creates, starts to not be conscious with its money. Starts not to invest in itself. If too many people come to Austin from California, wherever they come from, and try to turn Austin into why they left where they were coming from, we're going to look up in 10 years and go, what the hell happened, man? And Austin's got a lot of soul. Got a lot of soul. And I think it lies in its values.

So this sort of campaign movement that I want to push is reminding those of us from Austin why we love it there. Austin's a place where nobody's too good, nobody's good enough. And initiating and educating newcomers and saying, hey, here's who we are, here's who we're not. If you don't really want to abide by who we are and what we believe in, make it a stop, not a stay, keep on moving. But I think Austinites have earned that, and I think newcomers will appreciate that. I want to look up in 10 years and Austin be a city that's an example of a place that became a metropolis that held on to its soul. That, you know, the things you look at around town, crime rate, employment, et cetera, are still at numbers that are incredibly respectable.

That we don't get, don't get loose. It's a very creative town, you know? And like I said, it's the blueberry in the red state. But it's not an anarchic town. It's not a dirty town. It's not a sloppy town. It's an innovative town. It's a creative town. It's not a dirty town. It's not a sloppy town. It's an innovative town. It's a creative town

and it's a young town. And I think we all know progress is not saying yes to every new thing. Progress is more about innovation but it's also relying on tried and true things that work, have worked

and will continue to work. And I just want to remind us all the certain values that we have as Austinites and as individuals. And where that goes from there, if that goes outside of Austin and through the United States, it's a scalable idea that I dream of that could go outside of the United States. It could go worldwide in success. I like looking at cities and people, looking at cities as individuals that have personalities and reminding the people. So let's sell. Let's sell a city to the people that live in it.

Sell Austin to Austinites and to people who are coming to it. That's that's that's my goal. That's what I'm into right now. That's the character that I'm inhabiting right now in my life. That's not on the screen. I'm one. I'm wanting to say, hey, the big show's live. Life. The recorder's always on. And what's the story we're telling in life? That's the character I want to play right now in my life outside of my family that's not on any kind of screen or any kind of capsule that's going to be on your television screen.

If I pull it off, it's going to be something that I'm just living and doing and becoming. There's something about this town that's very unique. And I knew it for years. I've been coming here and doing stand-up since the 90s. But when the pandemic hit and I decided to move here, I did have that feeling like, boy, lot of californians are going to move here how do we not fuck it up and you and i had this very conversation like don't turn this into the place you left so what specifically do you think people need to not do to not do yeah well you're

coming to texas because you got no taxes you You're coming to Austin because it's affluent. It's happening. You're coming for the people, the food, the swing. It's happening. It's a creative town. It's alive. It's young. and personalize the place, man. I mean, give your tithe to the city. It is a place, like I said, that nobody's too good and everybody's good enough. We don't run over people to get where we're going. Austin will open up their proverbial roller decks. And you tell me if you've felt this with yourself.

Quicker than any city I've ever been to as a newcomer. Oh yeah, you want some contacts? Here. I mean, and in some ways I'm like, Austin, boy, you know, you maybe could take more ownership of that IP. But it gives it away. It's very free. And we trust. It's a very trusting town and a town of second chances for people.

But don't take advantage of that freedom. Understand that there's responsibility to the freedoms that we have, that we do have to earn it daily. And don't just over-leverage ourself and spend because, hey, we're the most popular person in school right now. Don't get caught looking in the mirror at ourselves going, oh, aren't I great? Look at us. We're number one. We're popular. Uh-uh.

We still got boots on and we still pull them on and strap them on and get work done. Even though we're young and innovative in tech town, we're still a classic and it's accountability, it's responsibility, it's fairness to other people. It's understanding where is Austin idyllic and what is it really? Because in some ways I think of Austin, I'm finding out it's not as ideal

as I think it is in my mind. And why? Well, I've got a listening tour. And I talk about the diversity in Austin. And it is a international destination. And I talk about the equality of Austin. The rule in Austin has always been, all you gotta do is be yourself.

That's kind of the rule. That's what's cool about Austin. Not what you think you ought you got to do is be yourself. That's kind of the rule. That's what's cool about Austin. Not what you think you ought to be, but just be yourself. Doesn't matter if you're blue haired, short, lesbian, American Indian, cowboy, sheriff, whatever. Everyone's sitting at the same bar having a drink and no one's yelling about their place. Because if you're yelling about, hey, I want to let you know why I'm different in Austin, Austin's like going, what were you yelling about? We didn't really care.

That's one of the great things about Austin at its best. It celebrates differences when Austin is at its best. Austin's not trying to homogenize people to say, hey, we're all the same. No, we're not. We're all very different and that's cool. But we do have some social contracts amongst us. We're a clean place.

We don't lie, cheat, and steal to get where we're going. We look ahead, but we appreciate tradition at the same time. We take care as much as we can of our natural beauties around here. At the same time, we're metropolis. We're growing up. Now, how can we grow up and wide and still grow deep? That's what I want to lean into is what are the roots so we're not just again looking up in 10 years and going who do we become where did all

these socialites come from you know yeah um one thing that's plaguing los angeles uh that I'm starting to see here is the homelessness in tent form all over the city. Los Angeles is out of control. I mean, it's bizarre that it hasn't been handled. I mean, I was just having a conversation with my friend Brian about it before the show, and he was telling me that in Burbank, they just shut that down. They won't let it happen. You can't just put up a tent somewhere. I mean, I'm an empathetic person, they just shut that down. They won't let it happen. You can't just put up a tent somewhere. I mean, I'm an empathetic person. And I think that, you know, all the people that are out there that are homeless, that are down on their luck for whatever reason, whether it's they've been abused or they're alcoholics or drug addicts or whatever it is, they're all our brothers and sisters. And I don't, I'm not a social social engineer i don't know what the solution is to something like that but i know that it gets out of hand it's gotten out if you go to

venice my friend bridget sent me a video of her driving down venice and it's a mile of tents i mean a straight mile she got the phone out the window and it's just tents everywhere like it's just tents everywhere. Like, it's crazy. How do you put a stop to that without being an asshole? How do you maintain empathy and say, hey, you can't put a fucking tent up on the sidewalk? Great question. And I don't know the answer. You said it earlier. Look, most of these people have a a mental challenge or they've gotten drugs and so you know in austin we're you know putting some and up in some some

vacated hotels um i don't know to what extent that's that's working um you know i've got friends who have businesses downtown who who they've got homeless people camping out in front. And if someone walks in there, they're getting berated by this person that's homeless, that has this mental, something mentally askew in their, in their nugget. I don't, I don't know. You can't eliminate the problem, but how do you re, you know, this question of how do we rehabilitate is an ongoing question, not just with homeless people. With people that don't have mental problems, we have the question of rehabilitation. Be sincerely seeking retribution and understand what you did wrong to get the chance to be forgiven and rehabilitate and get a second chance. For the homeless people, I think if you're going to go to the – how do we get them more mentally stable and can we to what extent get them mental help? And not just keep picking them up and saying, let's move them to this side

of the curb. Well, that curb got full. Let's move them to this side of the curb. And then you end up with a shantytown or something. I think there are always going to be, to some extent, there's going to be homeless. There's always going to be some socioeconomic imbalance. I don't think we're ever going to. That's another thing that I think we have to, as a people, especially on the left, have to realize this whole perfect equality amongst all of us and perfect justice. I don't think that's a possible destination for anybody. I think it's great to keep, America is a constant chase. It's a chasing of the cat.

We never will get there. And that's the point. Just keep chasing it. Try to have a little ascension in our journey going forward and a little bit of evolution. But we're never going to arrive at this utopian state where, ta-da, we did it. It's the Garden of Eden before an apple was eaten. It's not going to arrive at this utopian state where, ta-da, we did it. It's the Garden of Eden before an apple was eaten. You know, it's not going to happen, I don't believe. So, I don't know, I question how the best way to rehabilitate situations and like the homeless one all the time. And I don't know the answer. I do, if we can get them some mental help and then give somebody,

you know, not just, if we can make jails not just a holding cell. I mean, know the answer. I do. If we can get them some mental help and then give somebody, you know, not just if we can make jails, not just a holding sale. I mean, think about it. If jails really worked, once you've done your time. You ought to be even money, right? Yeah. Yeah. You should be better. You're not even money. You're coming out with the scarlet scarlet letter on you and you're going to have to work five times harder than the next guy to get that job. You know, if you're an offender of such, you're going to be found and located and they're going to share your location through the city and you're going to find out from your neighbor that you're moving in. And you can understand the people going, I don't want that. Somebody's living next door to me. Right. Well, if rehabilitation worked, it would be like, well, no, it's OK because they did their stint. It doesn't really work like that.

So it's a constant question I have about how it's the best way to rehabilitate. Yeah, no one seems to have an answer. Everyone throws their hands up in the air and just keeps on moving. What do you— I don't know. One of the things you were talking about before, Jordan Peterson talks about that equality of outcome is a terrible idea. Equality of opportunity is a fantastic idea your memoir and reading an autobiography of a successful person is realizing that there's work to be done. There's things you have to do in order to be this person that people admire. And it doesn't come easy.

And some people aren't going to do that work. And if they're not going to do that work, they're not going to achieve that outcome. And that's just life. And the equality of opportunity, you know, that's not even real because different people start off at different blocks in life. They start off in different spots. They start off with different challenges and different physical attributes and physical problems. Everyone has their own hand of cards that you're dealt. But treating people equally and giving people the best possible chance that we can as a community and as a culture, that's what we all strive for. And the problem with the homeless situation and the problem with

prisons, it's a similar problem, is that the downt downtrodden the people that have hit a bad spot in the game of life like what is our responsibility to them and if we are a community look if there's only three of us and one of us is fucked up we go hey let's help mike you know he's he's fucked up let's let's try to bring mike into the fold and and give him some life lessons and and give him some love and hope that we can bring him back up to a point where a couple years from now we're looking back on this going, hey, look, you used to be over there and now you're here and everything's great. That's what we'd ultimately love.

But there's almost too many challenges and too many people and everybody has their own problems. So people throw their arms up in the air and they keep moving. And these things don't seem to get better. The prison population seems to increase. Homeless population, especially during this pandemic, has increased. I don't have answers. I really don't.

So I'm spinning my wheels as much as the next guy. Yeah. Yeah. It's a question that's yet to be answered on many levels before this time and after this time. That equal opportunity, that would be the gig. That would be there. Then you could measure. Because we are all born with different innate abilities.

And if we're fortunate enough to be in a position where we go, well, I'm going to do what I'm good at and I'm going to work my backside off for it. And I'm going to get educated about it. I'm willing to put in the work. America's a place that that's the American dream. That's what they mean by the land of opportunity. If you should have the chance to pursue what you want to do and if you're willing to work for it and get educated on it, you have an opportunity to make a life. I understand there's not complete equal opportunity across the board. I understand that I personally was born with different innate abilities than you or someone else.

I was also born with more opportunities than a lot of people. I was born into a two-parent family. That's one of our biggest diseases, I think, that we have in the States is that the family breaks up sometimes too quickly, too easily. Mom or dad jets. If the going gets tough too quickly. So I was, some would say, symmetrically speaking, I'm a good looking guy. So that's got me indoors that maybe it wouldn't have got other people into. I tried to do my best once I got in the door. I'm not going to apologize for any opportunities I've had, but I do understand that I've had opportunities that other people have not had. I've created many on my own, but I've also been introduced and met people who opened those doors for me that would not have been open for other people.

Yeah, what do we do with them? I think there's a place, and this is what I'm striving to get to and understand more and more. None of us do a damn thing about anything unless it's personal. Intellectually, we talk about it. It makes sense. But we really don't take action until it's trespassing on our walls and it's going to affect me or you or my family. That's when we go, OK, I'm going to take action. So I think whatever we do has got to be personal. The choice that I'm making for my own selfish choice for me. There's a place where there's a choice where that also is what's best for the most amount of people.

Where the personal choice is also the best choice for the most amount of people. I call it the egotistical utilitarian. That's where the I meets the we. That's where what we want is what we need. And what we need is actually what we want, where what's best for us is best for the most amount of people. Where we're the most selfless, we're actually the most selfish. We're the most selfish, we're actually the most selfless. That's the place where, when I talk about like green lights, there's a place to create green lights that are best for ourselves and others at the same time. That's the honey hole. I don't know exactly what that place is all the time, but that's the place I think we could all be a little more conscious um of of how we go about moving forward and making choices based on that austin seems to be of a manageable size as i

was trying to describe this to one of my friends in la he's like what's so great about austin i was like first of all people aren't devalued because there's not too many of them there's a problem with when there's too many people then people become a nuisance there's too many of them. There's a problem with when there's too many people, then people become a nuisance. There's too many of them. Austin doesn't have that problem. So when I look at the homelessness problem in Austin, I'm like, you know what? This is not out of control yet. This seems like you could still fix that.

Someone's got to realize that this could get out of hand. realize that this could get out of hand and this is a thing that you can kind of it's it's within the boundaries of resources to step in and manage this and man now yes before it gets out yeah look up in 10 years ago shit is too late it's out of control like venice yeah to just grow and and turn our backs on that and not look at it now all, all of a sudden, it's out of hand, and I don't know what to do with it. And it happens quick. It happens quick. Venice two years ago was not this. There was a few tents.

Every, you know, here and there you'd see tents. Now it's fucking bonkers. And I would, I mean, obviously you're dealing with a much larger population in California, but this place is special. I mean, it really is. It's a great size, and the people here are really exceptional. It does have a personality. It has a very unique, like a mixture of cowboys and hippies.

It's a weird spot, you know, and it's that melting blending of all these different types of people here has made it very tolerant and very unique and the fact that there's the university here and there's a lot of artistic people and musical people and creative people it's a real it's a real good spot and i'm happy to be here but i don't want to fuck it up i hear you well there's a lot of you know there's there is a community in austin and austin at its best does come together and realize that it has an identity to move forward with, to protect. And you're right. It's not so big. And I believe that it can grow. And but it can grow while still having a sense of itself and its own identity and to protect that identity and grow forward. Turn the page. Progress. yes, it's coming.

But also preserve the core DNA of who we are. We're no longer the little hippie town that just had some music in the Capitol and at university. No, we're dot com, tech town, we're banker town, lawyer town, international destination, all those things, that's fine. But in that, there's a, you know, Austin has, I wanna help define

by listening to a lot of austinites as well what our constitution is in austin that's separate from anywhere else so this is something you're you're actively trying to do you said a minister of culture is this something you you have a thought in your head of how to how to do this? Yes. I have a shared values campaign that I've put together. And I want to sort of advertise and sell Austin to Austin, all around Austin. And it's just sort of value-based aspirational messages just to remind us who we are, to keep the community as tight as possible, to form expectations and solidify expectations amongst ourselves. So if someone acts outside of those, they're noticed and they're kind of nudged back. There's another thing Austin does very well. Austin, I don't know how it is now since we've had like the protests with Black Lives Matter and stuff. But Austin used to be,

there was a great relationship with the police force. Not just with me, with seeing Matthew McConaughey walk down the street, with John and Jane Doe. You went jaywalking across 6th Street, they caught you before

and like nudged you over and said, hey, don't do that, before they gave you the ticket. There was a play of, like, they were part of the community. They felt like, you know, you give them a wave. You didn't see a cop in Austin and go, oh, shit. You saw one, you waved. And if you, they weren't looking,

you never felt like they were looking to get you. Crime was low, you know, so we'll see how that relationship has to be worked on in the city of Austin right now, you know, quite a bit. Yeah. What were your thoughts when the whole idea to defund the police came to fruition? Well, let's break that down. One, defund the police, that moniker, if you want it to say it, it's almost like it should have been renamed because defund the police does not sound anything like there's been money reallocated to different areas of handling some police exercise. It sounds like you got a million. We're taking 300,000. Good luck.

Yeah. And it's not exactly what it is, to be fair. And it's not exactly what it is, to be fair. The community and the police, and not just in Austin, but all over, and I think they are doing this in Miami, to bring up Miami, need to get back together. And the community needs to say, here's what's unfair. Here's how I feel unfair as a black man or a person of color or whatever situation. Here's my problem with my relationship with you as cops. Well, the police got to get clear to go, okay, our whole force isn't screwed up.

We have to have law and order. Do we all agree on that? Yes, we can all agree on that. We got a few bad apples that either need to be trained better, so we don't have those kind of bad apples or people or cops choking under, under, under, not, and I mean the word as in fumbling at the goal line, I don't mean literally choking, I mean that, that don't follow through on, on, on their duty in the right way when they're under that, when they're under the gun, under the heat of the moment, that's what I mean. There are cops that have done that. So few of these bad apples need to be removed, but they also, we need to make sure we're training them better. Now, also the cops need to go to the communities and go,

can y'all remember and understand our point of view that we're like the tow truck driver. We're not called when there's good news. We're called when it's bad news. So we're coming in going, looking for trouble. All right. So we're coming in going, looking for trouble. All right. So we're already under stress if we even get a call. So can y'all help us in our way that we communicate? Can we get trust again that if a cop says, hey, stand still, take your hands out of your pocket, hold them up. Yep. I'm doing that. That we're not going to be, something's not going to happen to us that shouldn't. That there will be a, you know, because obviously the situation's like that. You're not being called. You're not in that situation when it's good news. You know, so everyone's

already tensions are high. But that's, you know, as far as defund, we're going to see. We're going to see if this reallocation of money, like in Austin and other places, how that works. I mean, my first gut instinct was I don't see how that repairs the relationship between the community and the police

force. I don't see how that's coming together. I don't see how that's going to rehabilitate that relationship. And now you have spite on both sides. Again, we're going to see. I don't know if we really had a bird in hand when we made the change. Have we practiced these other?

Have we seen these other forms where the reallocated money goes to for 911 calls and stuff? Have we seen these other forms work? Have we seen them be improvements? I don't know. So hopefully we'll see if this is just sort of guinea pigging the idea. We'll see how it works. But I'm more for saying, OK, instead of taking away your money and your funds, which you could use to train better and work on the relationship of what your job is and what you expect and what communities expect from you. I'd rather have done that than pull money from them.

So we're going to see how this experiment goes. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think they need training. They need more training and more understanding. I think we all need to understand that there's a tremendous amount of these people that are under insane stress every day and they probably have massive ptsd and you know if you're every time you're pulling somebody over you're worried about getting shot every time you're visiting someone's apartment for a domestic abuse case you're worried you're going to get killed you're going to see someone killed you've've seen murders and deaths. And the human mind is not designed to deal with that kind of stress day in, day out.

And a lot of these people are, you know, when you see these horrible reactions that cops have to situations where they do completely overstep their boundaries and abuse people. I think a lot of those people are really fucked up by the time they get to that point and i don't yeah a lot of people were fucked up before that they got that's right or they got before they even became a cop or they became a cop for the right reason uh they had problem personal problems yes and we need to filter those people out and that also comes through training the same kind of training that they filter people out through the military. You know, when you want to be a Navy SEAL, you got to go through buds and good luck. If you have a lot of character flaws, you're not going to make it. They will be exposed. and training and then communication with the community is what we need. We don't need to defund them.

It seems like a popular social sentiment that people are repeating because it puts you in this ideology of a person who cares and is progressive. But I don't think it's ever been fleshed out. I don't think people have thought it out in the long term. And if you're looking at the consequences of how this is playing out in New York City, homicides are up by hundreds of percent, burglaries, armed robberies, everything's up. It's not good. The defunding of the police has been horrible for New York City. The consequences have been the exact opposite of what everybody hoped they'd be.

And I'm worried about that here as well but governor abbott has stepped in and said he's going to put a stop to that which is uh you know there's talk about not giving the the the towns that do this they're not going to have access to property taxes and this is you know obviously there's no income tax in austin and in in the state of texas so the governor supposedly stepped in and going to iron this out so i'm hoping it works out and cooler heads prevail. Me too. I'm with the training and have more reverence for the job and understand they're called in when they're not called in when it's good news. You know, my brother Rooster has a real good, interesting take, I think, on like, you know, gun control. And Texas is a big right to carry state and, gun control. Um, and Texas is a big, uh, right to carry state and gun, a gun state.

Um, but he brought up the samurai sword, how there was a reverence for it. And I remember how we were brought up. You, you, you, you got your toy gun and then you got your Daisy one pump. And until you'd mastered that, like not turning and ever, if you turned and even though it wasn't cocked, if it was aimed at someone, Nope, you got the gun taken away from you you know what i mean but you had to master the daisy gun first and then after years of that you moved up to the 22 and you had to master that and you had to make sure it was always unloaded and put back in the case you've got a reverence for this tool there's a long sort of initiation reverence before you could move up to a larger gun. We've lost a reverence for that tool.

And the samurai sword is a good example because there's a reverence for that. There's an initiation period to get to where you could have that. And I think that'd be, you know, that's kind of one of the places where I lie with the, that it's too easy to get a gun where i lie with the uh that is too easy uh to get to get a gun sometimes that there that there should be that background check which goes back into when we're talking about with police force background check training have a reverence for the job understand the expectations understand it's a high stress job can you handle it let's learn how to handle it because they have to call audibles in the moment

that our life audibles yeah and as we said get rid of the ones who can't because it is a hard job and hard jobs are not for everybody and i think that and that's that punishes the good cops when someone does a horrible thing like the George Floyd case, all those good cops who would never think about doing that ever in their life ever are lumped into the same category as that guy and I think that's awful. Yep. Agree.

Yeah. Listen, man, I enjoy talking to you. This was great. I really do and I wish you luck with your book and I've loved your movies and I wish you nothing but success and, and let's get together and break bread someday. I look forward to it, Joe. Thanks, man. Enjoy talking to you. And I look forward to doing it in person. Let's do it, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with the book. Bye. Bye. Bye.