by Neil Daniels
McConaughey spoke to IndieLondon about his obsession with linguistics and communicating ‘…whether it’s trying to get something across now or communicating with a director, or whether it’s going and travelling in different countries where they don’t speak a bit of the language and you end up using sign language. You end up finding out that you’re all speaking the same language but with different vocabularies. I love getting through that. I get more frustrated if I cannot communicate. That frustrates me more than anything. I’m obsessed with trying to understand what somebody is talking about and trying to get them to understand me.’
He continued to explore other projects by appearing as a fire fighter in the low-budget film Tiptoes (also known as Tiny Tiptoes) with Rene Russo, which went straight to DVD in August 2004 after it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January (though it actually premiered at the French Deauville Film Festival in September 2003).
Kate Beckinsale plays Carol, a painter and independent minded and confident woman who falls in love with Steven, played by McConaughey. She barely knows anything about him other than that he is her perfect man. She becomes pregnant and Steven finally tells her of his secret – he is the only averaged sized person in a family of dwarfs, which means that their unborn baby may be a dwarf. Steven’s twin brother Rolfe (played by Gary Oldman) is a dwarf, and as Steven and Carol grow apart as they struggle to deal with things, she becomes closer to Rolfe who teachers her about life as a dwarf. The director Matthew Bright was reportedly fired from the production, and the film was recut and promoted as a rom-com, possibly on the back of McConaughey’s success in The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It’s one of his films that is best left unremembered.
Lisa Nesselson wrote in Variety: ‘Terrific make-up and visual effects help render the completely unrecognisable Oldman entirely convincing as a miniature man, whatever the camera angle. Evoking the matter-of-fact feel of brothers talking, he and McConaughey give their scenes together an emotional veracity lacking in too much of the pic.’
Writing on Reel Film, David Nusair said: ‘Likewise, McConaughey and Beckinsale make a convincing couple, though some of Steven’s decisions are a little hard to swallow (particularly as the film’s conclusion approaches). Director Matthew Bright seems to be going for a spontaneous, improvised sort of vibe, using takes that aren’t necessarily perfect – a choice that doesn’t entirely work. Presumably intended to lend the film an off-the-cuff feel, the decision instead contributes to an aura of sloppiness.’
Around this time, McConaughey let slip in interviews that he was trying to get a children’s movie off the ground, but nothing has since come into fruition. ‘…it’s a fairy tale with magic reality,’ he told Phase9 TV, ‘and it is about a little boy who is a fisherman. It’s about his dreams. There are a couple of really nice morals to the tale. I’m going to be writer/producer/director on that but right now I’ve got to get the thing written.’
The critics remained divided on their opinion of McConaughey: on the one hand he’s a box office success, handsome and charming; yet on the other he seemed more interested in appearing in lightweight comedies and cashing cheques than aiming for an Oscar. He was hounded by gossip magazines, dated leading Hollywood ladies and enjoyed a seemingly carefree lifestyle. In the 1990s he was just a humble kid from Texas who got lucky and became a Hollywood leading man; but then he became an A-list actor with a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with a tremendous view of Los Angeles. Years later he would own luxury properties in Malibu and Texas.
In 2004 he bought an Airstream trailer, his first of three, and when he felt LA was getting too much for him, he’d hit the road and stay in crummy motels, or even follow the route of his favourite bluesman Ali Farka Touré to Africa and backpack up the Niger River. He also visited a music festival north of Timbuktu. Sometimes he just had to check out, he had to get away from everywhere because he couldn’t stand the lifestyle anymore, but then he would return refreshed and with a clear mind.
‘Most of the time on a road trip, I’m just driving,’ he told the Independent’s Lesley O’Toole. ‘That’s my favourite place to think, or not think. I don’t go away to think about something, but I like to put myself in a place where answers sort of show up. My favourite place for that is behind the wheel, heading somewhere.’
CHAPTER SIX
JUST KEEP LIVIN’
‘I’m starting this brand [j.k. livin] because it accents a positive. It spreads a good word, puts a smile on my face.’
Matthew McConaughey, Texas Monthly, 2008
Based on the novel of the same name by Clive Cussler, McConaughey plays Dirk Pitt in Sahara, an Indiana Jones-style adventurer who goes on an adventure to the deserts of West Africa to seek the lost Civil War battleship known as the ‘Ship of Death’. En route he helps a World Health Organisation doctor Eva Rojas (played by Penélope Cruz) who is being hunted down by a ruthless dictator.
‘As executive producer, it proved challenging,’ McConaughey admitted to Hollywood.com. ‘It was a 700-page book that you had to break down into a 120-page script. You’re going to go from A to C and sometimes skip out B. You’re going to pick out the scenes that capture the essence of what the author was trying to get across. Even before I knew of Clive Cussler’s books and his character, Dirk Pitt, I was looking for a role like this.’
The film started for McConaughey several years before when he went to Clive Cussler, lobbying to get the film made. He visited him at his home in Telluride, Colorado and two more times subsequently in Phoenix, Arizona. He finally got the author’s approval when the script and financing came together and the film was green-lit. McConaughey’s name wasn’t listed as an executive producer just for the heck of it; he had put in a lot of time and legwork into getting the film made. He was involved in all aspects of production. He met with director Breck Eisner, saw his work and had a couple of sit-downs with him to see if he was the right man for the director’s chair. They agreed on what angles they should take with the film in terms of how much comedy was necessary and whether they should pitch it as an action adventure or action comedy. The original idea was that Sahara was going to be a franchise film. They also had Cussler’s approval for casting and they both agreed on Steve Zahn together. McConaughey wrote Zahn a letter telling him about the film before the script was sent to him. Zahn enjoyed what he read and jumped on-board. Suffice it to say McConaughey was hands-on.
Dirk Pitt’s main aim in life is to search for treasures and go on adventures. He’s from a privileged background – his dad was a Senator – but he has his own agenda in life. He’s got the knowledge, stamina and energy, as well as the training and history to hunt for lost treasures. Pitt always has a plan but the fun part for the audience (or readers of the books) is that the plan doesn’t always go smoothly and so he becomes an action hero. He manages to get himself out of trouble by winging it, even though he is trained and skilled. McConaughey loved the character and thought he was a great hero for the modern day. ‘Sometimes he’s a scientist, sometimes he’s an inventor, sometimes he’s an adventurer,’ McConaughey told Cinema.com of Dirk Pitt. ‘He’s a guy who’s got plans, but those plans are always changing; he’s ready for the unexpected. He’s a great adapter. He’s been a Navy SEAL, but he’s also part pirate. He’s definitely a lover before a fighter, but if he’s got to fight, he handles his own.’
The film provided McConaughey with a chance to travel. Africa was one of the most stunning places he’d ever been to and he loved filming there. He’d already been to Mali – where the story takes place – twice on his own so it was a fantastic opportunity to go there for a third time. He adored the country, culture and people. He was taken aback by the history of the people and how they respect their ancestors. They have a simple way of life, which McConaughey found interesting. They don’t make plans for the future but live day by day and it’s something McConaughey appreciated.
The cast and crew had to respect the local tribes, their culture and way of
life. This prompted McConaughey to do some research prior to filming. Their languages and how they lived intrigued him. He learned what some of the hand gestures meant and what the protocols of the villages are. He saw how they don’t waste anything and use chicken, rice and spices. As a result of the villagers’ hospitality, he took over some western goods such as aspirin and fungus cream to repay them.
Sahara is very much a buddy movie between McConaughey and Zahn. Their chemistry is not as obvious and their relationship is not as entertaining as that of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon movies, but it works for this sort of film. On the one hand you’ve got McConaughey’s smooth southern charm, and on the other you’ve got Zahn’s screwball slapstick comedy which bounce off each other well in a film with so many gun-toting action scenes and foreign locations.
McConaughey and Zahn had to undergo great physical endurance for their respective roles. Much of McConaughey’s training, for example, included mountain climbing and hiking on location in Africa, and aside from that, during pre-production in LA, he did a lot of boxing, rock climbing and weightlifting. He saw it not only as a physical but also spiritual transformation. Zahn learned how to throw some flashy moves with hand weapons, slinging guns as though he was in a western.
Production was hit by a couple of storms so they had to shut down filming temporarily. It was something the locals warned them about. They decided to shoot through the sand storms and the locust storms just to see what happened. It’s a struggle against Mother Nature in the Sahara Desert and they felt they were at her mercy, but they soldiered on and completed filming. There was also the scorching heat and insect infestations to contend with.
McConaughey spoke to Hollywood.com about Penélope Cruz’s experience riding a camel: ‘She got to be very good on her camel but saved it all for the take. She was lagging behind Steve [Zahn] and I but when we starting rolling film, she flew by us. This kind of movie is not for everybody, man or woman, especially going in as a woman in a big action adventure with the guys. But she dove in, she wanted to do that and she did.’
Released in April 2005, the film’s box office receipts barely accounted for half of its overall expenses. It grossed $160 million in production costs and a further $81.1 million in distribution expenses. The film grossed $122 million in box office sales but it lost around $105 million overall. It was expected to make $202.09 million with an overall expense of $281.2. Such was the perceived box office failure of the film, that proposed ideas for an Indiana Jones or James Bond style franchise based on further Dirk Pitt adventures were scrapped.
‘I thought the movie was close to what we were shooting for,’ he reflected to Chud’s Devin Faraci in 2006. ‘I was overall happy with the film. I thought it was a lot of fun, I thought it knew what it was, I thought the film never tried to be what it wasn’t. Our plan, our hopes, was to make a franchise of them – that’s why I got involved, because I wanted to come back as Dirk Pitt. There are a bunch of books. We didn’t quite make the money that we had hoped to greenlight another film. It’s doing great on DVD, and that might give us a chance to do another one. It did wonderfully international and it’s doing great on DVD. You know how much money you can make on DVD these days.’
Such a franchise would have potentially been great for McConaughey’s career, especially after a series of so-so films. McConaughey’s career was hardly going smoothly, not for a man of his talents. The roles were not challenging enough. It seems as though the critical acclaim that had greeted him in the 1990s was a thing of the past, and any notion of becoming the next Tom Cruise – a talented good-looking actor with massive global box office appeal – was not going to happen; certainly not with films such as Sahara and risible nonsense like The Wedding Planner – not forgetting such howlers as Tiptoes. He desperately needed to reinvent himself if he was going to be taken seriously or if he was going to remain a legitimate bankable A-list Hollywood movie star. He could have become a household name, but with too many failures and distinctly average films, at least as far as box office receipts were concerned, his commercial appeal was slipping. However, for every perceived failure like Sahara, there was a little gem of a film like Frailty, and it was those small productions that kept him on the favourable side of the critics when his commercial films were often so badly received, especially as the rom-com genre had become very stale and predictable. McConaughey was simply a better actor than many of the films he was starring in.
Sahara was used by the Los Angeles Times in a special report on 15 April 2007 as an example of how Hollywood films can cost so much yet recoup barely half of their expenses. The film was involved in a multi-million dollar legal wrangle between author Clive Cussler and producer Philip Anschutz and some of the documents pertaining to the film’s finances were made public.
McConaughey promoted its upcoming release by repeating trips he took in the late 1990s, such as sailing down the Amazon River or trekking to Mali. He drove his own Airstream trailer, which had a huge Sahara film poster on each side, across America, where he stopped at five military bases and several colleges.
McConaughey came up with the idea of using his Airstream for promoting the film when his production company partner said they should maximise the film campaign by going out on the open road. McConaughey loved the idea. ‘We talked about it for a few minutes and then that night I woke up at three in the morning with a vision of the Airstream being wrapped in a billboard,’ he admitted to Crazed Fanboy’s Michael A. Smith. ‘So the next morning I called Paramount and said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” I told them about the Airstream and they laughed. So I called them back the next day and reminded them that I was serious. So we got that done and they started working with me on that.’
The first stop on the journey was Daytona 500 where he marshalled the race. He had just six weeks so Canada and Mexico were out of the question. From Daytona he ventured to Orlando, and then on to Macon, Georgia, Atlanta, New Jersey, New York, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and finally to LA for the film’s premiere, where he got out of the camper and walked the red carpet in front of the glare of the world’s paparazzi and entertainment journalists. He totalled 6,000 miles! It was not the first time he’d done a road trip in his Airstream. The year before he’d driven from LA to Florida and back through Kansas City and Colorado in a forty-day venture. It was just him and his dog, alone and on a solo road jaunt.
Matthew attended premieres of the film, signed autographs for fans and did interviews at each stop: 3,000 hats and more than 4,000 T-shirts were handed out to fans at truck stops and cafes. It was a huge, heavily hyped publicity blitz.
‘It’s a little more organic, you know?’ he said to Empire about the whole experience. ‘I’m seeing new places, new faces, new parts of the land. It’s been fun. I’ve just got out of a theatre and the film went down real well. We talked to a lot of college students, to a lot of people in the services who’ve just got back from Iraq. A lot of the guys missing their arms, their legs, on crutches. It was a pretty eye-opening experience.’
There was an E! channel special on the film release, too, and while all this was going on, McConaughey kept a blog of his trip on MTV’s entertainment website. Viacom owns both Paramount, the film’s distributor, and MTV.
Despite the perceived failure of the film, McConaughey was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards: ‘Choice Movie Actor: Action/Adventure/Thriller’ and ‘Choice Movie Liplock’ (with his co-star Cruz). McConaughey also made the celebrity headlines that year. ‘I like the “Alive” part,’ said McConaughey, then thirty-six, to People on being crowned their ‘20th Sexiest Man Alive’. ‘Now I’ve made it. Wait until you see the roles I could take after this. You’re going to see my gut hanging over, plus 22 (lbs.). It’ll be a whole new kind of sexy!’
Kay, his mother, joked that it was about damn time when he’d called to tell her the news. ‘Not much has changed, man,’ he also said to J.P. Mangalindan of The Cinema Source in reaction to the poll. ‘It’s been fun,
to be fair; it’s funny too. When they called me, I laughed, and when I called my mom, she said, “It’s about damned time!”’
Sahara doesn’t mess about – as soon as the characters are introduced it gets straight into the action, which makes it appealing to young people. McConaughey enjoyed playing Dirk Pitt and spoke about returning to the character, but it’s unlikely that will ever happen. ‘The film knows what it is,’ he explained to Hollywood.com, ‘has a real definite personality to it. Sets up the rules in the first act with a wink. And then never really breaks them, so in that way it remains a classy action adventure. Doesn’t take itself too seriously, got some killer action sequences.’
Sahara opened in the US and UK in April 2005. It received mixed reviews from film journalists and, suffice it to say, fans of the novels were not too pleased with the end result. The film provided another opportunity for McConaughey to show off his body, for which he was mocked. But in his eyes, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times: ‘Sahara may be the ultimate test of Matthew McConaughey’s still-unrealised potential to enter Hollywood’s magic circle. If this movie can’t propel the 35-year-old Texan actor into Harrison Ford’s $20 million trekking boots, nothing can, and the longstanding heir apparent will never be king. His character, Dirk Pitt, an unflappably game treasure hunter obsessed with finding a Confederate ironclad ship that disappeared at the end of the Civil War and may have landed in Africa, epitomises Rhett Butler Lite. Twinkling and sinewy, his rakish insolence accented by a moustache, Mr. McConaughey’s Dirk is the Flower of Southern Manhood, Texan-style, a fearless all-American pirate with a keen sense of humour and a social conscience.’
