by Neil Daniels
McConaughey was simply taking a chance on whatever parts came his way but not all of them were suited to his talents or even his blatant Hollywood good looks. Similar to any young, jobbing actors he didn’t have much choice in what roles he could take. He had rent and bills to pay, and was eager to get noticed by the top producers and directors of the Hollywood film studios.
Released in the US in February 1995 and in the UK in May, McConaughey starred as an alcoholic rental truck representative in Glory Daze, an independent film directed by Rich Wilkes that also starred Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, French Stewart and Alyssa Milano, and Matt Damon in a very small cameo. It was called Last Call in some countries, notably Australia. Most of the film’s actors would go onto to achieve great fame and success as Hollywood actors. The film is essentially about five buddies who share a house they dub ‘El Rancho’ while attending art school at UC Santa Cruz, and how they struggle after graduation to lead their own lives and move on.
Stephen Holden wrote of the film in The New York Times: ‘This tiny nostalgic comedy, with its smart collegiate chatter, is a much better movie than slick fatuities like The Jerky Boys, Airheads and Billy Madison, for which Mr. Wilkes wrote the screenplays. Of course that isn’t saying much. But Glory Daze, which opens today at the Quad Cinema, deftly sketches each member of its underachieving fivesome while sustaining a mood of humorously frazzled end-of-semester anxiety.’
Emanuel Levy wrote in Variety: ‘Fear and anxiety about the real world of work and responsibility underline Last Call, an intermittently buoyant campus comedy revolving around five male buddies. Though poorly produced, [the] film’s engaging premise, occasionally inspired writing and disarming acting will increase its prospects for limited theatrical distribution in college towns, with the late-teen and twenty-something crowd a strong potential audience.’
McConaughey subsequently had a minor role as Joe in the short film Submission, directed by Benicio Del Toro, and released in 1995. McConaughey cropped up in another short film in the same year called Judgement. He plays Deputy Sam Taylor in the thirty-minute film about a rookie cop in Judgement County, Texas, who faces a split-second decision when an APB for a child killer is the same man he stops for speeding. He faces a number of challenges when he is unable to contact his boss and check the suspect’s ID, thus having to rely on his own judgement.
McConaughey had yet to gain the attention from critics and when he did, as with the Texas Chainsaw film on its initial limited release, it wasn’t exactly the sort of attention he wanted, or needed. He was thirsty for a role that was going to loudly exclaim his talents and win him praise and awards and land him major Hollywood films.
Although he loved to travel and craved to visit places around the States and the rest of the world, he longed for the Texan fields, food and culture. Texans were his people. Texas was his home and in his mind he was never too far away from it, but his focus for now was on LA and whatever opportunities may come his way in the City of Angels.
CHAPTER THREE
BIG BREAK IN A TIME TO KILL
‘I’m looking at these offers and going, “Really?” I have more options, and options are power, which is good if you use it in the right way.’
Matthew McConaughey, Texas Monthly, 1996
After a few small roles and some less than appealing films, McConaughey’s big break came when he was cast as Jake Brigance in A Time to Kill, a legal thriller based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. McConaughey was just twenty-six years old.
However, during the summer of 1996, McConaughey appeared in another film. Lone Star was not quite so high profile as A Time to Kill. It was not a lead vehicle and it was shot before his breakthrough role as Jake Brigance. Written and directed by the revered screenwriter John Sayles and set in a small Texan town, Lone Star features Kris Kristofferson, Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena. The central premise is of a sheriff’s investigation into the murder of one of his predecessors. McConaughey was pleased to attract more work in his home state; Lone Star was filmed in Del Rio, Eagle Pass and Laredo.
Released in June, it won rave reviews from critics and was a modest box office success after its July release in the US and UK release in October. Reviewers of the film barely noticed McConaughey, focusing on the angle that it was a film by John Sayles instead, whose previous film debut The Secret of Roan Inish was released in 1994. Lone Star stands next to Giant and The Last Picture Show as great Texan movies. It’s a cut above the dreaded Texas Chainsaw film McConaughey appeared in, that’s for sure.
Kim Newman wrote in Empire: ‘Even one-scene characters are unforgettable, but Sayles really gets under the skin of his struggling-to-be-heroic leads, Sam and Pilar. Long after this summer’s crop of action flicks is gone, you’ll watch this for the third or fourth time and see fresh material. Outstanding.’
A staff review in Variety enthused: ‘Lone Star is a richly textured and thoroughly engrossing drama that ranks with indie filmmaker John Sayles’ finest work. Bountifully rich in incident and characterization, Lone Star recalls the vast canvas of Sayles’ City of Hope. This time the maverick writer-director focuses on a small Texas border town where the sins of fathers continue to haunt sons.’
However, it was A Time to Kill that changed everything for McConaughey.
Directed by Joel Schumacher of The Lost Boys and Flatliners fame, and also starring Sandra Bullock – with whom McConaughey would later have a much-publicised romance in the mid-1990s – Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, A Time to Kill also boasted Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland and Patrick McGoohan in supporting roles. The film was made by the same production company and distributor (Regency and Warner Bros.) as Boys on the Side and its director Schumacher was already aware of McConaughey’s work.
As quoted on Cinema.com, the young Texan actor impressed Schumacher: ‘At any rate he’s a total original. I don’t know anyone like him. There’s an innate integrity and, yes, elegance about Matthew. Yet there’s also a kind of shitkicking, dangerous side to him, too.’
McConaughey went to visit Schumacher on the set of the 1995 movie Batman Forever where he chatted to the director about a minor role in A Time to Kill (which ultimately went to Kiefer Sutherland). McConaughey then read Grisham’s novel and convinced Schumacher that he was the best actor to play the lead role. McConaughey beat Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer and Woody Harrelson to the part. Schumacher even joked that he went through every actor alive from Macaulay Culkin to George Burns, but that he just couldn’t see any of those actors as Jake Brigance. Schumacher, however, said McConaughey reminded him of a young Marlon Brando. The director had McConaughey in mind for over a year, and while Schumacher and Grisham preferred an unknown actor, the studio, Warner Bros., wanted a big name so they could sell the film to audiences whether they had read the best-selling novel or not. The director and author were initially dubious of how the studio would treat the casting of an unknown in the lead role, but Schumacher was convinced he’d found the right actor for the part of Jake Brigance. The overall say-so was down to John Grisham who still, at that point, considered his 1989 debut novel A Time to Kill to be his best work.
Grisham would not sell the movie rights until he was happy with both the director and lead actor. Schumacher had directed 1994’s acclaimed Grisham adaptation The Client and the author was happy with Schumacher in the hot seat, but had yet to be convinced of a lead actor. Schumacher told Grisham he had a secret up his sleeve; a relatively unknown handsome Texan named Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey took time out from filming in Eagle Pass – in the aforementioned film, Lone Star – to undergo a screen test for Schumacher who would then send the tape to John Grisham in Virginia for his approval. A makeshift set was arranged for McConaughey on Mother’s Day 1995 to deliver the climactic courtroom battle. Grisham and his wife watched it twice and were in awe of McConaughey’s exhilarating performance. The actor went back to the set of Lone Star and received a call from Schumacher and Grisham in May 1995. He was ecs
tatic; he was glowing with the good news.
‘I went out in the yard and yelled “(Bleep) yeah!” about twenty times,’ said McConaughey to Billy Watkins of the Clarion Ledger in 1995. ‘Then I went back into the house, got down on my knees and thanked God for the opportunity he had given me.’ With Grisham’s approval Warner Bros. were now happy to go ahead with the film despite McConaughey being an unknown actor; McConaughey’s fee was $200,000.
Jake Brigance is an amiable white lawyer who is hired by the father of a black girl who had been raped in the Mississippi Delta. When the film was screened for test audiences – common practice by studios to determine if the film will connect with audiences – it was given 500 ‘excellents’ out of 509 cards. Warner Bros. were thrilled with the feedback, as indeed was Schumacher.
The chemistry between the ensemble cast is palpable: Bullock could prove her diverse acting skills having starred in the action movie Speed and the screwball comedy While You Were Sleeping; Samuel L. Jackson was an actor of immeasurable talent as seen in Pulp Fiction; and Kevin Spacey, an actor of incredible skills, can do anything he puts his mind to. Donald and Kiefer Sutherland both excel in the film, too.
‘The first day we started rehearsals, we went into Joel’s office,’ Sandra Bullock explained to Billy Watkins of the Clarion Ledger. ‘I like to tell people how I work and let them know that no matter what they want to try, I’m game for everything. Some actors don’t like to improvise or veer off what’s there. But I do. I like to try different things, especially if it’s not working. Matthew said, “I want you to know I’m dedicated to anything you want to try, too.” And that’s what it’s all about in this business, working together.’
McConaughey filmed twelve consecutive weeks, five and six days a week. He had to learn hundreds of pages of dialogue, but he was dedicated to the role and poured as much energy and enthusiasm into it as he could muster. McConaughey didn’t memorise his lines. He read over the script a couple of times before filming started and then went over his lines before a scene was shot; his reason being that if a co-star forgot their lines, all he had was what’s in the script with no room for improvisation. He took some advice from veteran actor Robert Duvall who took out every comma and full stop and read it as though it was a general conversation, straight from the heart.
McConaughey knows how to create tension onscreen but you wouldn’t think it by looking at him. Before filming the pivotal final scenes, he gave himself a night off and ate boiled shrimp and raw oysters and danced for four hours at the film’s end of day shoot wrap party at Hal & Mal’s in Jackson. McConaughey was staying at a Madison County lake house and turned down an invitation to dinner from his friends two days later so he could be in bed by half past nine as he had the final scenes to shoot the next day. Michael Singer, the revered film publicist, was on set the next day and was mesmerized by McConaughey’s powerful performance.
‘To be honest, the summation has very little to do with being a lawyer or knowing how lawyers talk,’ McConaughey explained to Billy Watkins of the Clarion Ledger about the climactic sequence. ‘In fact, I’ve tried to stay away from the way any of the lawyers talk that I’ve seen on TV, ’cause I don’t really like any of them…This is more of a human thing. I want those people on the jury to see me as a person, hear me as a person. And anyone who would rather hear a lawyer talking up there…then I certainly hope they’re not on the jury.’
John Grisham became one of the most popular authors of the 1990s. His readable and often exciting legal thrillers were perfect fodder for Hollywood. His books, like those of Maine author Stephen King, became almost a genre in itself. Lazy Hollywood producers looked to his books for material for upcoming movies. The Firm, still probably the best adaptation, began the trend in 1993, with The Pelican Brief released the same year. The Client followed in quick succession a year later, which then paved the way for A Time to Kill in 1996, the same year another adaption – The Chamber with Gene Hackman and Chris O’Donnell – was released, albeit to little fanfare (The Chamber is generally regarded as the poorest Grisham film). Hollywood quickly became bored of Grisham books and adaptations of his work slowed down by the 2000s, though Francis Ford Coppola did an excellent job with 1997’s The Rainmaker, starring Matt Damon and Danny DeVito. A Time to Kill was, in many respects, the perfect starring role for McConaughey’s breakthrough role.
John Grisham said of the film to EW’s Tina Jordan: ‘I had script approval, casting approval, location approval, so I got way too involved. When all was said and done I was happy with it, happy we were able to find a kid like Matthew McConaughey. It wasn’t a great movie, but it was a good one.’
‘That was sort of “Hello. Welcome.” And then there was funny stuff like “McConaughey Saves The Movies” on the cover of magazines,’ as quoted in an article in the LA Times by Glenn Whipp. ‘Hell, I wasn’t trying to save anything. After Texas Chainsaw, I just wanted to keep working, man.’
Released in the US in July 1996 and the UK in September, A Time to Kill was positively received and grossed $110 million at the box office with a modest budget of $40 million. It also helped raise the author’s profile. John Grisham became one of the most talked about writers of the decade and is now one of the highest grossing authors in the world.
Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers wrote: ‘Grisham rejected the usual star suspects (Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Woody Harrelson) but sparked when director Joel Schumacher brought him Matthew McConaughey, a Texas greenhorn best known as Drew Barrymore’s cop loverman in Boys on the Side. Grisham was right to hold out. McConaughey, twenty-six, is dynamite in a performance of smarts, sexiness, scrappy humour and unmistakable star sizzle.’
Ian Nathan wrote in Empire: ‘Once it is assured McConaughey can do the business, whipping up sex appeal and camera hoggage like a thoroughbred, it is hard for Schumacher to mess up. An actual niggle is, ironically, talent overload: there are hints of too many cooks with scant opportunity to savour the likes of Sutherland, Platt and Spacey, even top billed Bullock is only a support player. With all the acting bases covered – jail-bound Jackson, as taut as a piano string, is fantastic – and the stormy southern location squirming with sweaty confrontations, lynchings and racial tension, there comes the reliable bluster of the movie courtroom complete with stir-’em-up staples – rent-a-mob riots, objections, last ditch evidence, wholesale implausibilities and Patrick McGoohan’s sneery judge.’
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthmann was enthused by the acting: ‘Untrained as an actor, with only three minor roles to his credit, McConaughey holds the screen against Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock and Kevin Spacey, and completely justifies the buzz surrounding his role…’
The film caused controversy in Europe, however, particularly with socialists who claim the film makes an excuse for the death penalty and the right of self-defence. Some even went so far as to call it a fascist film.
McConaughey’s success was a saviour to Creative Artists Agency (CAA) after they had parted ways with Kevin Costner and Sylvester Stallone, then at the peak of their careers. McConaughey had switched over from William Morris and brought in his onetime Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother and childhood buddy, Gus Gustawes, to help run his business affairs through his production company, j.k. livin productions, which he had just founded. McConaughey’s publicist was the much-respected Pat Kingsley. The company name of course comes from the line, ‘just keep livin’ from Dazed And Confused. It has since become a brand and even iconic turn of phrase. ‘It’s a verb, man. No “g” at the end. No period. Sometimes you wait life out; sometimes you drive right through it,’ the actor said to Details’ Bart Blasengame.
At this time the company only consisted of McConaughey and Gustawes, working out of a living room and arranging two or three meetings a day, but with plans to expand and hire staff, produce movies and venture into other avenues of work. Acting is hard work, taking up six or even seven days a week with more than ten laborious hours of work a day, so it was i
mportant for McConaughey to have something on the side hence the creation of his company. But for now, it was focused on McConaughey’s acting.
*****
In the mid-1990s McConaughey was living in a modest house in LA with a Pacific view; he had not yet made the millions that are awarded to household names, one of which he would become soon enough. He kept Texas close to his heart, however: he had a Longhorn hung up on the deck; a UT clock in his living room; and on the stairwell, there was a highway map of Texas-New Mexico with marks on it from a recent road trip he had undertaken.
The awards and acclaim from critics and film buffs were coming in thick and fast in a whirlwind of activity. McConaughey could hardly catch his breath as everything was happening at such a frantic pace. McConaughey won an MTV Movie Award for ‘Best Breakthrough Performance.’ He was on the cover of Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood issue in April 1996 and dubbed the new Paul Newman. Even John Grisham thought he was a cross between a young Brando and Newman. The New York Times also mentioned comparisons to a young Gregory Peck.
Make no mistake, Matthew McConaughey was no longer an unknown struggling actor. He had become an overnight success. He got used to the meetings, handshakes and interviews that are an obligatory part of LA life. He had gone from being told ‘no’ a hundred times a day to being given scripts for any film he wanted to star in. The calls from Hollywood producers were coming in all the time; the phone just did not stop ringing. It was overwhelming but he journeyed through the media onslaught by concentrating on work. His life was turned upside down. However, whereas some actors struggle with the fame by turning to a hedonistic lifestyle of drugs and drink, McConaughey threw himself into more roles, albeit with varying degrees of success.
