Matthew McConaughey shares how Jennifer Lopez saved him from a ‘major mess’ in Mexico
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Matthew McConaughey has revealed how name dropping Jennifer Lopez and their work together helped him out of a difficult situation during a traffic stop at the US-Mexico border.
The 56-year-old actor and Lopez had starred together in 2001's 'The Wedding Planner'. McConaughey recently recalled how the movie helped him connect with officers during an unexpected encounter while crossing the border.
Matthew McConaughey says Jennifer Lopez helped him at US-Mexico border
On the Thursday, August 13, episode of the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast, McConaughey recalled an incident that happened years ago. He told host Josh Horowitz, “I pulled in one late night. I'm crossing the border, going way down south, and I get pulled over.”
“It’s one of those pull overs. They noticed me and I’m the gringo in the truck. I’m like, ‘Oh jeez. Get the wallet out. Here we go..’ It was going down,” he explained, before telling the officers, “‘Do you guys know Jennifer Lopez? Ever see ‘The Wedding Planner’? Yeah, that was me.’”
The 'Interstellar' star further added that the cops recognized him soon and “they all went off… we ended up taking pictures together and they let me go.”
Matthew McConaughey names his favorite rom-com
'The Wedding Planner' was McConaughey's first rom-com success. He then went on to work in many romantic comedies, like 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,' 'Failure To Launch,' 'Fool’s Gold' and 'Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.'
But the father-of-three's favorite is 'How to Lose a Guy' as he reportedly said, “I think it’s, probably, my favorite rom-com I’ve done and a lot of people love that rom-com. And it still pays the best mailbox money of any film I’ve ever done. By far. By lengths.”
“When it used to be just DVDs or cable, every March I’d get a big check because Valentine’s Day. But, I mean, look: the movie for me, for that genre, let me just own that genre. ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ is real anchor in the in the rom-com genre through time,” McConaughey added.
Matthew McConaughey says Hollywood typecast him
In 2024, McConaughey, however, revealed that the rom-com genre only forced him to move to Texas away from Hollywood.
He shared on the 'Good Trouble' podcast, “When I 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.”
“I was so strong in that lane that 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.’ So, since I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I stopped doing what I was doing, and I moved down to the ranch in Texas,” 'The Dallas Buyers Club' star added.
