Matthew McConaughey

by Neil Daniels

  The Lincoln Lawyer is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by top crime author Michael Connelly, and stars McConaughey in the lead role as criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller who operates his business around Los Angeles County out of his black Lincoln car.

  ‘Matthew McConaughey is not like the character in the book who is half-Mexican and described as very dark but with a name that did not indicate his background,’ Connelly told Nell Minow of Beliefnet. ‘He had lots of contradictions to add up to his feeling more like an outsider. I heard McConaughey had signed on. When I saw him as the sleazy agent in Tropic Thunder I leaned over to my wife and said, ‘He’d make a good Mickey Haller.” And months later, maybe a year later, I heard he wanted to do it and wanted to meet me and talk about it. He spent a year studying and preparing. It was very impressive. So it doesn’t matter how he’s described in the book. He’s that guy. He totally owns it.’

  Haller represents a client who has a plan to beat the system. ‘This guy plays the game very well and knows the system,’ McConaughey said of his character to journalists at an LA press day for the film. ‘He’s on the side of defending the people that can’t defend themselves, that underbelly of society, but he knows the game. He knows the system and his challenge is to make the system work…and make the system work for him while not letting the system know that they’re working for him.’

  Haller is hired by Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) who is a Beverly Hills playboy and son of Mary Windsor (Frances Fisher), a rich real estate mogul. Roulet is accused of beating a prostitute and Haller thinks he is innocent; a case of wrong place, wrong time. Haller and his investigator Frank Levin (William H. Macy) analyse the crime scene photos and notice how similar it is to a previous client who is in prison for murder. The film involves lots of plot twists involving his client and his ex-wife, prosecutor Maggie McPherson (Marisa Tomei), as he uncovers more evidence of the crime leading him to question whether or not Roulet is actually innocent.

  ‘We’re both kind of playing each other throughout the thing,’ explained McConaughey about Haller and Roulet to journalists at that LA press day. ‘I didn’t want to know or even have an idea of what his hand may be, and I sure as hell didn’t want to share with him what mine was. So I was just like, “Look, I’ve got my guy down and you have your guy down. Let’s meet when we’re in this scene. Let’s meet each other there and go on this two month fun journey getting to know each other through our characters.”’

  McConaughey has been in films that require heavy rehearsals but he’s also been in those where there hasn’t been any need to rehearse at all. Off screen, McConaughey and Phillippe barely spoke for the first two weeks besides doing their scenes together. They had no issues with one another; they respected each other’s talents. They were both there to do a job. ‘…I didn’t want to show him my hand,’ McConaughey admitted to New Idea, ‘and he didn’t want to show me his hand and that’s fun because you get to surprise each other each day. But I quite like the young man. He’s a very self-reliant young man. You know, he comes prepared. He doesn’t really meddle in yours or anyone else’s business. He is there to do the work.’

  Once they found a rapport off screen the pair chatted about sports – the American football season was about to start – and they also talked about kids, exercise and diet. As you get old the metabolism slows down so it’s all about diet, as McConaughey explained to his co-star.

  McConaughey’s kids visited the set on some days, which made a welcome change when he sat down with them for lunch. On one occasion they dropped in when there was a scene involving a group of Hell Angels-type bikers, which was filmed next to a nearby small airport. There were helicopters and planes passing by which kept the kids entertained. His son was enthralled; he got on one of the motorbikes and rode around. It was like being at an adventure park.

  In terms of research for the part McConaughey spent time with a few lawyers to get to grips with his role. He watched them work and saw the movement of their daily schedules but he didn’t gain anything specific. In McConaughey’s eyes they were like bookies with lots of wheeling and dealing and telling war stories. Some lawyers are born showmen. They’re always on the move, always juggling a few cases at once. They just love to talk, too. There’s less of a morality issue with some cases and McConaughey noticed that right away – it’s more of a case of, ‘here’s the job, go and do it.’ The job of a defence lawyer is to get his client off or to reduce their sentence. McConaughey noticed that some lawyers had articles of their own high profile cases mounted on their office walls.

  Mickey Haller has a lot to contend with in the film: he has to take care of his family, he has try to avoid being arrested, he has to do his job and defend a guilty man and also get an innocent man out of jail (Haller was responsible for him being there) while running his business out of the backseat of a car. McConaughey had a lot to consider for the character of Mickey Haller. There are many consequences as a result of the challenges he faces. Haller has to figure out what he wants and what he believes to be right. He is a man of conviction. With so much going on, his life has become a nightmare as he struggles to defend a man he knows is guilty. How can he resolve that and do the right thing? Working with seasoned actors Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy prompted McConaughey to up his game, although not by too much, because working with talented actors meant that he could react easily enough to them, he could listen to them and they’d react similarly.

  McConaughey is glad he never became a lawyer for a profession. He can play a lawyer in a film and retire after six months and move on to another project. He has far more options now. The Lincoln Lawyer was a good role for him. Haller is a pragmatic character who knows how the legal system works inside out. He defends the underclass of LA society; he’s helping people who can’t help themselves. Many defence lawyers try to work the system without letting the system work them. However, in the film Haller is defending a wealthy client whom he knows his guilty. ‘The thing is that most of these defence attorneys are defending people who are guilty, and they know that,’ McConaughey explained to Cinema Blend’s Eric Eisenberg. ‘It’s just to what degree, and how much you can ameliorate the sentence and bring it down. The system is much more of a game. It’s much more, “Let’s make a deal, out here in the alley outside of court, so we can go in and get this off our desk,” than I ever thought it was. This guy plays the game very well and knows the system.’

  Music is a vital part of the film and is generally a creative tool for McConaughey so he can get a feel for the character. The soundtrack for The Lincoln Lawyer was markedly different to anything he’d done before, with urban and hip-hop/rap songs dominating many of the scenes. The director, Brad Furman, gave him around thirty or forty songs to work with, which McConaughey hadn’t heard before, so they helped him with the movement of the character.

  McConaughey loved how the script moved along, especially its pace. The way the Lincoln enters and exits scenes is also impressive and it’s something that grabbed his attention when he first read the script. There are some great shots in the film of McConaughey getting out of the Lincoln. The car is a vital piece of the film.

  McConaughey spoke to Terra.com about his own use of cars: ‘I’ve always loved to customise my own cars and work out of them. I once had this 1996 Savana GMC van. I stripped out the back, put in a nice couch that unfolded into a bed, put in a big table with a bunch of AC hookups. I had a fax back there, a printer, everything. It was my mobile office, pretty much like Mick Haller’s in this film. And then I moved up to trailers, started customising trailers, which I still do to this day. Part of its [appeal] is getting two things done at once: You’re moving, you’re heading somewhere, but you’re taking care of business on the way. And it’s still sometimes one of my favourite places to work.’

  McConaughey decided it was time to shake things up. He was looking for fringe characters, unconventional roles that were the polar opposite to what he was known for. With Mickey Haller, h
e found a character that was strong willed and determined, one who played by his own rules. McConaughey found traits in Haller that reminded him of himself.

  With excellent source material, McConaughey had made his best film since Frailty and, while it did not set the box office alight, it was a success. It grossed over $85 million with a budget of $40 million. The Lincoln Lawyer is a thoroughly enjoyable film and a delight to watch after so many fluffy romantic comedies. If Connelly fans were dubious about the casting of McConaughey, they were quickly proven wrong after the film’s release.

  Author Connelly saw a rough cut of the film on 12 November 2010 and said on his website: ‘The movie comes out March 18. A couple days ago I saw an unfinished cut of it and could not be happier. I thought it was very loyal to the story and the character of Mickey Haller. Matthew McConaughey nails him. Those who loved the book will love the movie, I think. Those who don’t know the book will love it just the same. The casting and acting is really superb. Like I said, I could not be happier. I’m very excited and can’t wait to see what fans of the book think.’

  Reviews of The Lincoln Lawyer were mostly positive and while criticisms were aimed at the clichés of the courtroom drama setting, McConaughey’s performance was the film’s standout part. There is no question that he had made the right move choosing to star in the film.

  Peter Bradshaw raved about the film in The Guardian: ‘Here is the week’s unexpected treat: a terrific LA noir thriller based on a novel by Michael Connelly. It stars Matthew McConaughey, who gives a career-best performance as Mick Haller, a fast-talking criminal lawyer who has just regained his licence after some unspecified peccadillo; unable to afford an office, he does business on the move, from the backseat of his chauffeured Lincoln car.’

  The Daily Mirror said: ‘McConaughey’s new film might be the best legal thriller since Jagged Edge – and no, I can hardly believe it either.’

  James Mottram wrote in Total Film: ‘Looking increasingly haggard as the trial unfurls, as Haller gradually comes to the realisation that this is no open-and-shut case, McConaughey gives his best performance in years. It may not quite be on the level of Paul Newman’s ambulance chaser in The Verdict but it’s subtle, assured work.’

  The Lincoln Lawyer was undoubtedly the turning point in his career. It changed, or at least helped to change the opinions levelled at him by critics and audiences. It was not a massively straining role in some respects but it did help rebrand him. It gave him the push that he needed to reinvent himself. It is an excellent film, slick, stylish and polished but with enough grit and realism to give the story and the characters from the novel justice. It’s a contemporary noir story with intriguing characters and an intricate plot with an abundance of twists and turns. The film certainly surprised the critics, many of whom had already written off McConaughey. It was just the right type of film that he needed to make at this juncture of his career. He just got lucky, to paraphrase a line from the film.

  NPR’s Ella Taylor put it best in her review: ‘Just when you thought Matthew McConaughey had settled into pre-retirement content to play the (dry-aged) beefcake in a string of dippy romantic comedies, the actor comes roaring back with some real acting.’

  What did the best-selling author think of the finished film? ‘The truth is I can’t believe my good fortune. I sold the book six years ago to Tom Rosenberg at Lakeshore Entertainment,’ Connelly wrote in a blog for the Huffington Post. ‘In a previous stage of his life he was a lawyer. A trial attorney in Chicago. He told me back when he bought the book that he knew the world of Mickey Haller and promised me that when he made the movie that he would keep the novel’s gritty realism intact. Six years later he has made good on the promise. Along with McConaughey, Furman, Romano and everyone else involved. And that makes me say, “I just got lucky.”’

  ‘I’m pretty happy with Lincoln Lawyer,’ McConaughey expressed to Terra.com. ‘It was a lot of things I wanted to get across, and I think what we’re all trying to get across happened. I think it’s good. I think it’s a good, strong, legal thriller. I think it’s surprising as hell. It’s got a killer cast. An all-star cast. It’s the kind of movie I want to go see in the theatre, you know?’

  Connelly’s previous film adaption was Blood Work, released in 2002 and directed by Clint Eastwood. It was a greeted with modest critical reviews but was a box office failure grossing $26.2 million on a budget of $50 million. It took a while for Hollywood to be interested in green-lighting another Connelly novel.

  Since the publication of the novel in 2005, Mickey Haller has appeared in four other novels (the most recent being The Gods of Guilt in 2013) by Michael Connelly, and has become a popular character in the world of legal thrillers. Since the film’s 2011 release nothing has been confirmed regarding any film sequels, which is a disappointment, since Connelly’s novels have progressed in quality as he has become more comfortable writing legal thrillers – his usual territory is detective fiction with his main character LAPD Detective Hieronymus ‘Harry’ Bosch, who features in the second Haller novel, 2008’s The Brass Verdict. Haller made a cameo in the 14th Bosch novel, 9 Dragons, published in 2009. With praise from Connelly and nods of approval from his fans, and given that The Lincoln Lawyer made a profit, surely another film could be green-lit. Time will tell on that front. There’s certainly more chance of another Mickey Haller film than there is a Dirk Pitt film.

  ‘Well two things have got to happen for a sequel,’ McConaughey said to New Idea magazine when asked about any future Mickey Haller films. ‘You’ve got to make a good movie. I think we’ve done that. Second thing is that movie has to make a certain amount of money in the box office. We’re looking pretty good right now. I would love to be in these shoes again if the script is good’

  McConaughey later expressed his interest in a sequel in 2012 during an interview with Total Film. ‘It’s actually a mix of two. I won’t reveal what those are, but it’s a mix of two. I got good reviews on The Lincoln Lawyer. There’s a lot of times that critics have written the review before they’ve seen the frickin’ movie. They’ve written the review on me before they’ve seen it – maybe the critic doesn’t like me.’

  McConaughey had already been thinking about upcoming projects and what he wanted to do with his career. He knew he wanted to explore unconventional roles and that he was aiming to surprise people with daring characters but he also wanted to challenge himself as an actor and say to all those naysayers out there, ‘Hey, look at what I can do.’

  *****

  In October 2011 Freedom Films announced Gerard Butler, Sam Worthington and Matthew McConaughey were to star in Thunder Run, an action thriller to be directed by Simon West (When a Stranger Calls, The Mechanic). A CG 3D film, Freedom Films said they would use proprietary facial-capture technology soon to be seen on West’s upcoming Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3-D (eventually released in 2014; produced by West and directed by Zebediah De Soto), along with the motion capture technology used in Avatar, the massively popular James Cameron-directed science-fiction 3D venture.

  Thunder Run is based on the book by David Zucchino, with Robert Port (Numb3rs) and Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) having penned the screenplay. The film’s press release said: ‘Thunder Run is the untold story of the dangerous and bloody capture of Baghdad by American Forces at the onset of the Iraq War. In April 2003, three battalions and fewer than a thousand men launched a violent thrust of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles into the heart of a city of five million, igniting a three-day blitzkrieg, which military professionals often refer to as a lightning strike, or ‘thunder run’. In telling the story of the surprise assault on Baghdad – one of the most decisive battles in recent American combat history – this movie paints the harrowing picture of the soldiers on the front lines and the realities of modern warfare.’ As of yet it remains unmade, even though IMDB are listing a 2015 release date but with no cast or director details.

  Nostalgic for his east Texas roots and his fellow Texans, McConaughey c
ollaborated with Richard Linklater for a third time on the film Bernie. Linklater had cast McConaughey in Dazed and Confused and The Newton Boys and had enjoyed those previous collaborations. They’re good friends and have fun working with each other. Linklater is the only director where McConaughey can pitch something to him and say ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you…let’s talk.’ They think very highly of each other and have much reverence for each other’s work. For McConaughey, his work is so much better when he has fun. It’s part of his ‘just keep livin” mantra.

  The film is based on a 1998 article called ‘Midnight In The Garden Of East Texas’ by Skip Hollandsworth that was published in Texas Monthly. The article tells the story of the 1996 murder of the eighty-one-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent in Carthage by Bernhardt ‘Bernie’ Tiede who was her thirty-one-year-old companion. Bernie was very highly respected in the Carthage vicinity, so much so that despite having confessed to the police, the District Attorney had to request a change of venue in order to secure a fair trial, which is very rare in legal circles.

  When fifty-year-old director Linklater spoke to McConaughey about the film and gave him the script to read, the actor thought he was being offered the title role, but was ecstatic to find out Linklater wanted him to show off his feminine side by playing the grande dame. Linklater laughed and said he wanted McConaughey to play a DA from East Texas. McConaughey had to wear a wig made of thin grey hair, oversized glasses, plumpers in his cheeks, and a weight belt that added an extra 20 pounds to his waistline. He was radically different from the handsome lawyer in A Time to Kill. McConaughey was on board for whichever part he was offered because he was so impressed. He thought it was hilarious. It’s a dark comedy with murder, but it’s not a cold film.

  ‘There’s something about him, either your charm or you give that kind of charm…’ he said of his character, DA Danny Buck Davidson, to Donna White of Austin Daze. ‘It’s just moving. There was something innocent about it that attracted me in that way. I never read this and thought, no it’s too dark. When I read it, I felt on pace with the tone. I thought it was much more funny than dark.’