Matthew McConaughey

by Neil Daniels

  However, in May 2011 Captain Kirk actor Chris Pine was in talks for the lead role but McConaughey was finally cast in August, along with Witherspoon who had the same agency as Nichols. ‘I finished the script in 2008, and I was telling people “Matthew McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey…”’, Nichols told Kevin P. Sullivan of MTV. ‘I didn’t know him at the time, so the first part [that] was cool was meeting him and thinking “Oh, awesome. This is the guy I hoped he’d be. This is the guy I’ve been thinking in my head for over a decade in this part.”’

  Nichols approached McConaughey in late 2008, early 2009 with the script. There is a likeability about McConaughey but also a smattering of danger, which intrigued Nichols.

  ‘It’s funny I had Take Shelter and Mud written at the same time before I made either,’ Nichols admitted to Starpulse’s Jason Coleman. ‘And I’d worked with Michael [Shannon] on Shotgun Stories and I showed him both the scripts, not only because I wanted him involved in Mud but also because he’s one of the smartest guys I know and I just wanted his opinion. So I asked him, “What do you think about Mud?” And he was like, “Well, I want to play Mud.” And I said, “You can’t play Mud – I wrote Mud for Matthew McConaughey. You’re supposed to play Galen the uncle.” He was like, “The uncle?! Okay Nichols.”’

  Nichols had to work against McConaughey’s image to cast him as Mud. Much like the earlier performances of Paul Newman, McConaughey was struggling to gain the reverence he deserved because of his good looks, but Nichols knew he had something unique that made him perfect for the film. ‘I bring up James Garner a lot, because they’re innately likeable,’ Nichols said to Jeff Labrecque of Entertainment Weekly. ‘They’re all guys you want to spend time with. And when you see them [play] darker, then you get a complex equation going on in front of your eyes and that’s fun to watch.’

  Filming took place in Arkansas from September to November 2011, which included using more than 400 locals as extras. ‘I remember the second day of working,’ Nichols said to Starpulse’s Jason Coleman about McConaughey, ‘and he said the lines, and it was kind of like this decade-long relief that happened because I wrote it in his voice as best I could.’

  McConaughey obsessed about Mud’s unconditional love for Reese Witherspoon’s character from frame one. Mud’s love for the woman powers him through the story. It’s what gives the film its humanity. It’s the film’s key hook. McConaughey felt that Mud was a sort of retrospective film like Stand By Me, the 1986 cult classic directed by Rob Reiner from a Stephen King story. Mud has a deliberate pace and tone that appealed to McConaughey. They shot what was on the script more than any other film he had worked on. McConaughey was fully immersed in the story and had come up with all sorts of musings and writings, which he would agree on with Nichols.

  McConaughey didn’t patronise the two child actors and he asked for their opinion, which they loved. ‘It was very easy, I’ve always gotten along well with children, and long before I was a father,’ he admitted to Total Film about the comfortable on-set rapport, ‘I always kind of understood that when you talk to a kid you talk to them like this, you don’t, you know even babies don’t really like it when you’re going [puts on baby-talking voice] “Coogicoo” you know? They’re like, “What are you doing?”. They hear the tenor of your voice and they hear you talking to adults, the spacing between words, and they want you to talk to them like an adult, even if you’re teaching them something.’

  It was Nichols’ first experience working with a bona fide movie star. McConaughey had come straight from shooting Magic Mike (which had a later release date) where he had shaped his physique to perfection. On the first night of filming he asked Nichols for a tent and a sleeping bag. He spent the night alone on the island in Mississippi where the story takes place. He sat up under a tree and read over the script and spent time contemplating his character. It made Nichols feel very secure that this A-list Hollywood actor was taking his role and the film very seriously. Nichols thought McConaughey was smart, funny, dedicated and easy to get along with. Nichols didn’t have to explain the story to his leading man who got it straight away. But what pleased Nichols most of all was that he didn’t have to put up with any Hollywood nonsense.

  ‘He’s a great guy, and he’s very serious about what he does,’ Nichols told MTV’s Kevin P. Sullivan about working with McConaughey. ‘There’s this thinking that he’s this dude, which he is. He’s the guy you want to be with when you watch football, but we’re both there to work. He took my lines very seriously. He was totally prepared and really got into it. I don’t think he showered for a month. He stayed on an island for a couple of nights by himself. He just really got into it and took it seriously.’

  Much of the film was made in Arkansas, which is where Nichols is from. It’s a beautiful state. McConaughey was interested by the way people live down there in houseboats on the river. The houses are on floats so when it rains and the river rises, so do the houses. There are steps from the land to the boathouses for the residents to enter and exit their homes. McConaughey loved filming in the South.

  For the rest of the duration McConaughey, with his family in tow, stayed in a trailer on the Mississippi for two months, despite having a rented house in New Orleans – no phones, toys, electricity were allowed in the trailer. It really was like something out of a Mark Twain novel. McConaughey wanted to get a feel for the place, the smell and taste of the South. ‘Mud’s an aristocrat of the heart. A poet,’ McConaughey said to Holly Milea of Elle magazine of his character. ‘If he grew up and let his heart come with him into reality, he’d die of heartache.’

  The Deep South plays a major part in the film and as such it feels like a classic piece of Americana. Nichols’ direction is excellent. ‘He wants this to translate to humanity and not just be a small Southern picture about these people that happen to be in this small place with these few characters,’ McConaughey said of Nichols to Total Film. ‘It’s not bound to that place in time, it’s not even bound to a time.’

  Nichols had specific designs about the character of Mud. The tattoo is his design and he’d had the lucky shirt in his mind already, as was the case with the chipped tooth. Mud has been in the sun for so long that he is sun-tarred and dry because he hasn’t showered in weeks. Such characteristics all add to the superstitions of the character. Mud is a dreamer whose head is in the clouds, but as the story progresses it becomes symbolic, as the audience want Mud to survive. Lots of questions had to be asked and answered to make the film authentic. He’s been living on a deserted island for weeks, so how did he get there? What had he been eating? One interesting aspect of the story is not only Mud’s relationship with the boys but also his relationship with his mentor Ellis, the Sam Shepard character.

  Mud is not a character of the modern world. He’s not grounded, though he is practical. McConaughey was attracted to Mud’s innocence and youthfulness, his naivety. There’s a purity to the character, which appealed to McConaughey. Mud believes in fate and allows the powers that be to unfold events as though they are predestined. Things happen for a reason. The actor enjoyed working for four months in the South, getting into the heart and mind of his character.

  Mud competed for the coveted Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where it received wide acclaim from critics. However, after its Cannes Premiere, it did not pick up a distributor straight away for a release in the US. Ultimately, in August 2012 Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions purchased the distribution rights to have the film shown theatrically in North America. It was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013 where it won applause from the 500 people in attendance.

  ‘In a way, this film lives in the 1980s for me so it’s a trip back to my youth, back to high school, when I had my first loves…’ McConaughey said to the Yorkshire Post in 2013. ‘Everything about the film feels like an eighties classic to me, with a full narrative, with entrances and exits and pacing and deliberation – like Stand by Me.’

  Mud op
ened in April 2013 with a limited theatrical release before opening in more cinemas in May in both the US and UK. Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate had a very clever way of releasing the film in the US – first to 400 screens and then expanding to 900. The film became the highest grossing independent movie of the year with $21 million in box office receipts. Both Nichols and McConaughey were thrilled with the reception.

  The film won rave reviews from critics. Noted British film critic Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian: ‘Mud is an engaging and good-looking picture with two bright leading performances.’

  The Observer’s Philip French enthused: ‘Mud is a movie of striking performances and memorable images and of people who seem to belong in rather than being imposed upon their environment. After a rather fallow period of shallow movies, McConaughey has recently been doing fine work again, and he brings a raw, desperate masculinity to Mud, while Shepard invests the part of ex-soldier Tom with the authority and sense of understated probity at which he excels.’

  Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Robbie Collin said: ‘In his latest picture, Matthew McConaughey’s name is Mud, and not for the usual reasons. For much of the last decade the handsomely weather-beaten Texan was a familiar presence in many agonisingly bad romantic comedies, but in the past two years, with juicy roles in all-American auteur pieces like Magic Mike, The Paperboy and Killer Joe, his career has undergone what he jokingly calls a ‘McConaissance’.’

  Empire’s Dan Jolin said: ‘And not only does it include a performance which further affirms the extraordinary on-screen rehabilitation of Matthew McConaughey – whose Mud exudes intense, sweat-sheened charisma – but also showcases a bedrock-solid supporting cast (including, in a small, against-type role, Nichols’ mad-eyed muse, Michael Shannon), plus excellent turns from its two unknown leads: Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, as Mississippi water-rats Ellis and Neckbone.’

  Mud was named as one of the ‘Top 10 Independent Films Of 2013’ by the National Board Of Review and received the ‘Robert Altman Award’ at the 29th Independent Spirit Awards for its film director, casting director and ensemble cast. It also received the ‘Grand Prix’ from the Belgian Film Critics Association.

  McConaughey has a keen sense of humour and knows enough about himself not to get depressed over bad reviews. They don’t make him feel worthless or miscast. He appreciates funny reviews. ‘I went through the negative reviews,’ he said to Vulture’s Jennifer Vineyard. ‘I pulled all the negatives. I said, “Pull all the negatives!” There were a lot of bad ones, but not as many as I thought. There was a lot of them where I was like, “Oh, this person just doesn’t like me.” But there was quite a few where I was like, “That’s good constructive criticism! You know what? I would have written the same review.”’

  Continuing his run of good luck on a number of highly acclaimed films, McConaughey’s next project would bring him the greatest praise of his career thus far.

  Dallas Buyers Club is a biographical drama directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack. The film tells the real life story of rodeo and electrician Rob Woodroof, who in 1985 was given thirty days to live. He smuggled non-government approved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas, which he used to combat his symptoms and distribute them to fellow AIDS victims, thereby establishing the ‘Dallas Buyers Club.’ The drugs that he sold did not cure AIDS but they helped victims live longer and lead healthier lives. He also faced opposition from the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. Woodruff refuses to accept the diagnosis but remembers having unprotected sex with a drug-using prostitute. During one of his hospital visits he meets a drug addicted HIV positive trans-woman named Rayon, played in the film by Jared Leto. Woodroof is initially hostile towards Rayon but as the months go by he starts to show compassion towards gay, lesbian and trans-gender people. The duo have been compared to Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, the classic 1969 movie with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight.

  ‘Certainly one of the reasons that I decided to do the film is because I knew he was doing interesting work in his career right now,’ said Leto to USA Today’s Andrea Mandell. ‘And I thought, if he had sussed this out, then there must be something really special there.’

  ‘I only met “Jared” after the film had wrapped,’ McConaughey admitted to Rolling Stone’s Charles Thorp. ‘Our relationship was complex: He stayed in character the entire time we were shooting. It all sounds very weird, but it wasn’t. We both showed up on set, put our heads down and did the scenes.’

  Nobody knew where AIDS or HIV came from; they thought it was a homosexual disease, and though Woodroof was heterosexual, everyone immediately assumed he was gay. He originally thought he had the flu but couldn’t get rid of it. ‘He took his life into his own hands,’ McConaughey told The Daily Beast’s Ramin Setoodeh, ‘and really pioneered progressive research into unapproved vitamins and drugs that the FDA wasn’t letting into America for people with HIV to take at the time. It’s a wonderful story told from an original point of view. I haven’t seen the subject matter told from the point of view of a heterosexual man.’

  There were all sorts of conspiracy theories about where the disease came from and what it was. It was even more perplexing that heterosexuals could get AIDS, which is why Woodroof faced stigma. Even today, some people don’t believe heterosexuals can contract either HIV or AIDS. When the basketball player Magic Johnson came out with HIV in 1991 and abruptly retired (only to play again sporadically) some players didn’t want to play on the same court. They didn’t want to shake hands with him either. Fear comes from ignorance. Both HIV and AIDS sparked taboos and superstitions in the 1980s and early 1990s when there was less research and knowledge about the viruses. People thought you could get it from saliva or sweat when we know now that it is from blood, and that shaking a victim’s hand will not give you either HIV or AIDS.

  Working on the film and researching his role, McConaughey was reminded about the time when he first understood what AIDS was when he was a senior at high school in 1988. ‘I remember hearing about [HIV] in’86 but then realising in’88,’ he admitted to Susan Riley of Stylist magazine, ‘when I was becoming heterosexually sexually active, that I needed to talk to a doctor because everyone was looking for the pamphlet with the dos and don’ts and there wasn’t one. So I said to three different doctors: “I’m a heterosexual male, I’m not having sex with hookers or things like this – talk to me about how careful I need to be.”’

  ‘I was the only one of my friends who did,’ McConaughey added when told by Riley that it was a mature thing for a teenager to do. ‘The doctors had three completely different [answers]. One said: “You’re heterosexual? Nothing to worry about.” Another said it’s one in a million and the other said it’s 1 in 110.’

  The real Ron Woodroof died in September 1992 and had been the subject of a long, detailed feature in a 1992 edition of The Dallas Morning News. Screenwriter Craig Borten interviewed him before his death with the intention of writing a screenplay about the Dallas Buyers Club. Despite writing ten drafts based on hours of interviews and having Dennis Hopper direct and Woody Harrelson star as Woodroof, the film was never able to get financial backing in the 1990s. Towards the end of the decade Marc Foster was reported to have been asked to direct with Brad Pitt in the lead role. However, in 2008, director Craig Gillespie and Ryan Gosling were in talks to resurrect the screenplay. It wasn’t until French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée and Matthew McConaughey signed on that the project attracted financial backing.

  The film had been declined 137 times before Vallée and McConaughey came on board. McConaughey had wanted to make the film for a while but the story was not popular enough for a studio to invest money in it. To the studio chiefs of Hollywood it was an AIDS drama with little commercial appeal. As soon as other people started to surround the project, the more interested Hollywood became and $5 million was raised to fund it as McConaughey explained to Deadline’s Christy Grosz: ‘Jean-Marc (Vallée) and I were locked,
and we’re like, “Let’s set a date and do this thing this year.” We had Jared (Leto) and Jennifer (Garner) cast, and we budgeted for a lot less than Jean-Marc thought he could make it for. A week before the shoot, Jean-Marc calls me and says, “This is just not enough money to make this. We don’t have it, and we shoot in a week. (But) I’ll be there if you’ll be there.” I was like, “Yeah.” I had been losing the weight, and then I kept hearing “This is not happening.” And I was like, “This is happening.” Then that last bit of money came like a wave.’

  Dallas Buyers Club is a human rights story which one day may be spoken in the same breath as, say, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Mississippi Burning or even Schindler’s List. ‘No one in Hollywood wanted to touch the film,’ said McConaughey to Garth Pearce of the Daily Express. ‘Every time producers and financiers heard the words “AIDS drama” and “homophobic hero” they instantly turned off.’

  The director Vallée didn’t see McConaughey in the role at first, but producer Robbie Brenner got the pair to meet for a three-hour sit down at a New York hotel and he was instantly impressed. The way McConaughey spoke about the character and his vision for the film was inspiring. McConaughey wanted to go somewhere else with his career and was accepting new challenges. The role was a leap of faith. Vallée promptly changed his mind about McConaughey and the pair worked together to deliver a respectful film in Woodroof’s honour.

  Brenner spoke to Variety’s Jenelle Riley about the Texan actor: ‘He’s so great in A Time to Kill. Yes, he chose to take a lighter path after that, but I think there’s something very deep behind the eyes, and he’s incredibly charismatic and likable. And, of course, he’s from Texas.’