Matthew McConaughey reveals pact he made with wife after leaving Hollywood that changed his career
AUSTIN, TEXAS: Matthew McConaughey recently sat down for an interview with Nick Kyrgios for his podcast, ‘Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios’, where he spoke at length about his decision to leave Hollywood years ago.
The Oscar winner also disclosed a pact he made with his Brazilian-American model wife, Camila Alves, with whom he shares sons Levi, 15, and Livingston, 11, and 14-year-old daughter Vida.
McConaughey left the glamor town over a decade ago. Though he did films later, he and his family have continued living in Austin.
The ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ star shared that he was famous for his rom-com movies and also made millions of dollars. But he wanted to expand his experience as an actor and Hollywood was not ready for the change, as per The Variety.
Matthew McConaughey insists on importance of saying ‘no’
He told Kyrgios, “Look, man, the devil’s in the infinite yeses, not the nos. ‘No’ is just as important, if not more important. Especially if you have some level of success and access.”
“‘No’ becomes more important than ‘yes.’ Because, I mean, we can all look around and see we’ve over-leveraged our life with yeses and going, ‘Geez, oh man. I’m making C-minuses and all this shit in my life because I said yes to too many things,’” McConaughey explained.
He further mentioned that he “was rolling with the rom-coms, and I was the ‘rom-com dude,’ that was my lane and I liked that lane. That lane paid well, and it was working.”
Matthew McConaughey wanted to do movies of his own choice
“Anything outside that lane – dramas and stuff that I want[ed] to do – were like, ‘No, no, no. No, McConaughey.’ Hollywood said, ’No, no, no. You should stay there,’” the ‘Dazed and Confused’ actor shared.
The negative reaction prompted him to shift from Hollywood as he stated, “I stopped doing what I was doing, and I moved down to the ranch in Texas.”
Not just that, he also made an agreement with his wife. “I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do,” he added.
Matthew McConaughey felt ‘sense of insignificance’ during his break
However, this was not the first time McConaughey has spoken about leaving Hollywood.
He told Interview Magazine in June, “I’ve usually zigged when I felt like Hollywood wanted me to zag. When I had my rom-com years, there was only so much bandwidth I could give to those, and those were some solid hits for me. But I wanted to try some other stuff. Of course I wasn’t getting it, so I had to leave Hollywood for two years.”
McConaughey also admitted that the break was “scary.”
“The days are long—the sense of insignificance. But I made up my mind that that’s what I needed to do, so I wasn’t going to pull the parachute and quit the mission I was on. But it was scary, because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of the desert,” he mentioned.
However, his big move eventually paid off as he then signed the 2013’s ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, which also got him an Oscar. Since then McConaughey has continued to play a variety of roles in different types of movies.
