biography of Matthew McConaughey

Matthew David McConaughey

 (/məˈkɒnəheɪ/ mə-KON-ə-hay; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor. He achieved his breakthrough with a supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused (1993). After a number of supporting roles, his first success as a leading man came in the legal drama A Time to Kill (1996). His career progressed with lead roles in the science fiction film Contact (1997), the historical drama Amistad (1997), and the war film U-571 (2000).

In the 2000s, McConaughey became known for starring in romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner (2001), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Failure to Launch (2006), Fool's Gold (2008), and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), establishing him as a sex symbol. In 2011, after a two-year hiatus from film acting, McConaughey began to appear in more dramatic roles, beginning with the legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer. In 2012, he gained wider praise for his roles as a stripper in Magic Mike and a fugitive in Mud.

McConaughey's portrayal of Ron Woodroof, a cowboy diagnosed with AIDS, in the biopic Dallas Buyers Club (2013) earned him widespread critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actor. He followed it with a supporting role in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and a starring role as Rust Cohle in the first season of HBO's crime anthology series True Detective (2014), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His subsequent film roles include starring in Interstellar (2014) and The Gentlemen (2019), as well as voice work in Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Sing (2016), and Sing 2 (2021).

Matthew David McConaughey was born on November 4, 1969, in Uvalde, Texas.  He has Irish heritage, particularly from the County Cavan/County Monaghan area. His mother, Mary Kathleen (née McCabe), a published author and a former kindergarten teacher, was from Trenton, New Jersey.  His father, James Donald McConaughey, also had Irish roots. He was born in Mississippi in 1929 and raised in Louisiana  where he ran an oil pipe supply business; he played for the Kentucky Wildcats and the Houston Cougars college football teams. Jim was selected by the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) in the 27th round of the 1953 NFL draft. He was released before the season began and never played an official league game in the NFL. McConaughey's parents married each other three times, having divorced each other twice. He has two older brothers, Michael and Patrick (who was adopted).  Michael, nicknamed "Rooster", is a millionaire who starred in the CNBC docu-series West Texas Investors Club. The family were Methodists. 

He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae 

McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980 and later attended Longview High School. In 1988, he went to Australia thinking he would be attending a high school in Sydney. Instead he lived in Warnervale, New South Wales for a year while he went to Gorokan High School (he was a Rotary Youth Exchange student) and worked as an assistant for an attorney and as a bank teller for ANZ. 

He attended the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He began in the fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in Radio-Television-Film. 

His original plan changed as he had wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until one of his brothers told him that private-school tuition would have been a burden on the family's finances. He had planned to attend law school after graduation from college but discovered he did not have any interest in becoming a lawyer

MINI BIO :

American actor and producer Matthew David McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas. His mother, Mary Kathleen (McCabe), is a substitute school teacher originally from New Jersey. His father, James Donald McConaughey, was a Mississippi-born gas station owner who ran an oil pipe supply business. He is of Irish, Scottish, German, English, and Swedish descent. Matthew grew up in Longview, Texas, where he graduated from the local High School (1988). Showing little interest in his father's oil business, which his two brothers later joined, Matthew was longing for a change of scenery, and spent a year in Australia, washing dishes and shoveling chicken manure. Back to the States, he attended the University of Texas in Austin, originally wishing to be a lawyer. But, when he discovered an inspirational Og Mandino book "The Greatest Salesman in the World" before one of his final exams, he suddenly knew he had to change his major from law to film.

He began his acting career in 1991, appearing in student films and commercials in Texas and directed short films as Chicano Chariots (1992). Once, in his hotel bar in Austin, he met the casting director and producer Don Phillips, who introduced him to director Richard Linklater for his next project. At first, Linklater thought Matthew was too handsome to play the role of a guy chasing high school girls in his coming-of-age drama Dazed and Confused (1993), but cast him after Matthew grew out his hair and mustache. His character was initially in three scenes but the role grew to more than 300 lines as Linklater encouraged him to do some improvisations. In 1995, he starred in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), playing a mad bloodthirsty sadistic killer, opposite Renée Zellweger.

Shortly thereafter, moving to L.A., Matthew became a sensation with his performances in two high-profile 1996 films Lone Star (1996), where he portrayed killing suspected sheriff and in the film adaptation of John Grisham's novel A Time to Kill (1996), where he played an idealistic young lawyer opposite Sandra Bullock and Kevin Spacey. The actor was soon being hailed as one of the industry's hottest young leading man inspiring comparisons to actor Paul Newman. His following performances were Robert Zemeckis' Contact (1997) with Jodie Foster (the film was finished just before the death of the great astronomer and popularizer of space science Carl Sagan) and Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997), a fact-based 1839 story about the rebellious African slaves. In 1998, he teamed again with Richard Linklater as one of the bank-robbing brothers in The Newton Boys (1998), set in Matthew's birthplace, Uvalde, Texas. During this time, he also wrote, directed and starred in the 20-minute short The Rebel (1998).

In 1999, he starred in the comedy Edtv (1999), about the rise of reality television, and in 2000, he headlined Jonathan Mostow's U-571 (2000), portraying officer Lt. Tyler, in a WW II story of the daring mission of American submariners trying to capture the Enigma cipher machine.

In the 2000s, he became known for starring in romantic comedies, such as The Wedding Planner (2001), opposite Jennifer Lopez, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), in which he co-starred with Kate Hudson. He played Denton Van Zan, an American warrior and dragons hunter in the futuristic thriller Reign of Fire (2002), where he co-starred with Christian Bale. In 2006, he starred in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch (2006), and later as head coach Jack Lengyel in We Are Marshall (2006), along with Matthew Fox. In 2008, he played treasure hunter Benjamin "Finn" Finnegan in Fool's Gold (2008), again with Kate Hudson. After playing Connor Mead in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), co-starring with Jennifer Garner, McConaughey took a two year hiatus to open different opportunities in his career. Since 2010, he has moved away from romantic comedies.

That change came in 2011, in his first movie after that pause, when he portrayed criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), that operates mostly from the back seat of his Lincoln car. After this performance that was considered one of his best until then, Matthew played other iconic characters as district attorney Danny Buck Davidson in Bernie (2011), the wild private detective "Killer" Joe Cooper in Killer Joe (2011), Mud in Mud (2012), reporter Ward Jensen in The Paperboy (2012), male stripper club owner Dallas in Magic Mike (2012), starring Channing Tatum. McConaughey's career certainly reached it's prime, when he played HIV carrier Ron Woodroof in the biographical drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013), shot in less than a month. For his portrayal of Ron, Matthew won the Best Actor in the 86th Academy Awards, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, among other awards and nominations. The same year, he also appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). In 2014, he starred in HBO's True Detective (2014), as detective Rustin Cohle, whose job is to investigate with his partner Martin Hart, played by Woody Harrelson, a gruesome murder that happened in his little town in Louisiana. The series was highly acclaimed by critics winning 4 of the 7 categories it was nominated at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards; he also won a Critics' Choice Award for the role.

McConaughey met Camila Alves in 2006. He and Alves became engaged on December 25, 2011, and were married in a private Catholic ceremony on June 9, 2012, in Austin where they reside.  Together, they have three childreN

A Christian, McConaughey often speaks publicly about his faith.  He attends a non-denominational church.  He has stated that he has received private personal criticism and judgment for his beliefs from some members of Hollywood: 

I have had – and I won't throw any people under the bus – but I have had moments where I was on stage receiving an award in front of my peers in Hollywood, and there were people in the crowd that I have prayed with before dinners many times, and when I thanked God, I saw some of those people go to clap, but then notice that, "bad thing on my resume" and then sit back on their hands.

In 2019, he became a minority owner of Austin FC, a team in Major League Soccer which began play in 2021. 

McConaughey has been a longtime fan of the Washington Commanders football team. 

In 2023, McConaughey stated that he and longtime friend and True Detective co-star/co-executive producer Woody Harrelson could potentially be brothers. His mother claimed to have been intimate with Harrelson's father, Charles Harrelson, around the time of McConaughey's conception. 

In September 2023, Madame Tussauds New York unveiled a new wax figure of Matthew McConaughey, inspired by his 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show. The event, featured during McConaughey's visit to The View, promoted his children's book, Just Because.

McConaughey started the "just keep livin foundation", which is "dedicated to helping teenage kids lead active lives and make healthy choices to become great men and women" On February 25, 2016, McConaughey received the Creative Conscience award from unite4:humanity for his work with his foundation. 

In 2019, McConaughey officially became a professor of practice for the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the Moody College of Communication at his alma mater, UT-Austin; he had served as a visiting instructor since 2015.  The first two sessions were about the filming of the movie Free State of Jones.

TRIVIA : 

• Has three bedrooms in his house and sleeps in all of them in turn.
• Afraid of revolving doors.
• Animal lover Matthew McConaughey has helped rescue many critters, including countless pets stranded after Hurricane Katrina.
• Police responded to a disturbance call at Matthew's home in Austin, Texas in October 1999. When they arrived, the music was blaring and Matthew was playing bongo drums in the nude. He was with an unknown man and police attempted to arrest both of them after spotting illegal drugs. Matthew resisted arrest.
• Has played Brazilian music for eight straight hours in the operating room to help his then-girlfriend Camila Alves McConaughey, now wife, give birth to their first child, Levi McConaughey (b. July 7, 2008).
• He lost 47 pounds to play Ron Woodruff in his Oscar award winning role in Dallas Buyers Club (2013).
• His favorite actor is Paul Newman.
• His first professional acting job was in a beer commercial.
• Has his own line of clothing, called "j.k. livin", named for his life's motto, "Just keep living", which is also the name of his charitable foundation.
• During a guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), Leno surprised him with an old airline training tape he had acted in. McConaughey had no memory of being in the video.
• Announced that he would be auctioning his 1971 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray on eBay, with all of the proceeds of the sale earmarked for donation Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network Hurricane Katrina and Rita relief funds (2005).
• Good friends with Lance Armstrong Jake Gyllenhaal, and Reese Witherspoon.
• His life motto is "Just keep living'".
• Was for some time strongly considered to play Jack Dawson in Titanic (1997), until Leonardo DiCaprio decided to accept the role.
• His original career plan in college was to graduate with studies in pre-law, and then graduate law school, with the goal of becoming a criminal defense attorney, something he'd end up portraying in A Time to Kill (1996) and The Lincoln Lawyer (2011).
• In 2006, he did an interview with Barbara Walters and was very happy with the way it was conducted. As a 'thank you', he gave Walters a foot-rub.
• In November 2007, he bought a 3,500 square foot, four bed - three bath home in Malibu for $10 million. He was shopping for a home in the area and spotted the property - which was not on the market - and made an offer to the residents for the property, which was accepted.
• Voted "Most Handsome" in his senior year of high school.
• He is well known as someone who almost never wears deodorant or cologne.
• He owns a 1,600-acre ranch in west Texas, which he purchased for $500,000.
• His childhood hero was Evel Knievel, and he has said that he would like to star in a movie based on Knievel's life.
• He lived for a year in Warnervale, New South Wales, Australia, as a 1988 Rotary exchange student in 1988, returning with an adopted Australian accent which remained with him for awhile after returning to the United States.
• Is a huge fan of English rock band, The Cult. On March 17, 2012, at one of The Cult's performances in Austin, Texas, he even went onstage and played bongo drums with them during two songs.
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6931 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on November 17, 2014.
• Has kept a daily diary for most of his life, a source he used to great advantage when writing his acclaimed memoir "Greenlights" (2020).
• His first two L.A. auditions were for Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Boys on the Side (1995), in that order... both of which he landed, learning about being cast in Boys on the Side while physically on the set.
• His father, James Donald McConaughey, died of a heart attack in August 1992. He once played football for the Green Bay Packers.
• The marriage between Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves McConaughey was a private, Catholic Church ceremony, which took place in Austin, Texas, where they maintain a family residence for part of each year.
• Attended the University of Texas at Austin, College of Communication, where he majored in film, receiving his Bachelor's degree in Radio-Television-Film (1993).
• He was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame on March 10, 2006 in Austin, Texas. The other inductees were Kris Kristofferson, JoBeth Williams, Cybill Shepherd and Lyle Lovett.
• Became a father for the 1st time at age 38, when his then-girlfriend Camila Alves McConaughey, now wife, gave birth to their son Levi McConaughey (b. July 7, 2008).
• One of his first acting jobs was in a music video for country music star Trisha Yearwood's song with Don Henley, "Walkaway Joe".
• Became a father for the 3rd time at age 43, when his wife Camila Alves McConaughey gave birth to their son Livingston Alves McConaughey on December 28, 2012.
• Had a dog named "Mrs. Hud", named in appreciation of the movie Hud (1963), which starred his favorite actor, Paul Newman.
• Is a huge fan of Willie Nelson.
• His mother Kay McConaughey appeared in Bernie (2011).
• Attended and graduated from Longview High School in Longview, Texas in 1988.
• Arrested in Austin, Texas for "resisting transportation" after first being under suspicion for marijuana possession.
• Despite being a native Texan, he is a huge fan of the Washington Redskins NFL team.
• Member of Delta Tau Delta, international college fraternity.
• He has said that the superhero he would most like to play is The Hulk, but he doubts that it will happen since both Edward Norton and Eric Bana have played him. When someone asked him if he would consider playing Captain America he said that he thinks "Captain America is an awesome name".
• He was considered for the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic (1997). He then played Dirk Pitt (in Sahara (2005)), who found the Titanic in another adventure.
• He chews tobacco.
• McConaughey was on the sidelines with the Texas Longhorns football team during the 2006 Rose Bowl, when the Longhorns beat the USC Trojans 41-38.
• Is a huge fan of John Mellencamp's music. Was seen wearing a T-shirt from Mellencamp's "Whenever We Wanted" tour in A Time to Kill (1996).
• Chosen by People Magazine as the Sexiest Man Alive in 2005.
• One of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.
• (March 26, 2011) Was in attendance at the wedding of Reese Witherspoon to Jim Toth.
• Was accompanied by Penélope Cruz to the Grammy Awards in 2005. The couple met on the set of Sahara (2005).
• (December 26, 2011) Engaged to Camila Alves McConaughey.
• He traveled around the United States for a month in his personal Airsteam trailer promoting his movie Sahara (2005).
• In Michael Connelly's novel "Nine Dragons", in which Micky Haller, the character McConaughey plays in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), makes an appearance, a suspect claims that McConaughey is his alibi.
• One of his paternal ancestors, Confederate Brigadier General Dandridge McRae, who fought to keep slavery in the South, was born in Baldwin County, Alabama. One of McConaughey's most famous early roles was portraying Roger Baldwin, one of the lawyers in Amistad (1997), a real life historical person, who fought to free captive slaves, and later became Governor of Connecticut and a US Senator. The lives of McRae (1829-1899) and Baldwin (1793-1863) overlapped in time from October 1829 when McRae was born, until February 1863, when Baldwin died, which was during the US Civil War, which McRae was fighting in at the time.
• His mother, Mary Kathleen "Kay" McCabe, is a schoolteacher.
• He is from the same small Texas town, Uvalde (2010 census population of 15,751), from which the late, former three-term Governor of Texas, Dolph Briscoe (after whom the post office is named); singer/actress Dale Evans; former Speaker of the US House of Representatives and former Vice President of the United States John Nance Garner; Grammy winning Tejano group Los Palominos; and long time NFL safety Vann McElroy call(ed) home.
• His ancestry is Irish, as well as Scottish, German, English, and Swedish. On his father's side, he is related to Confederate Brigadier General Dandridge McRae, who was born in Baldwin County, Alabama. One of Matthew's paternal great-grandfathers, Robert Smith Maitland, was a Scottish emigrant, who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland; and one of Matthew's maternal great-grandmothers, Adele Selma Pack, was a German emigrant, born in Elberfeld, Westphalia, Prussia, German Empire. The surname McConaughey is also of Scottish origin.
• His brother, Michael McConaughey, aka Rooster McConaughey, had a son and named him Miller Lyte McConaughey.
• Good friends with singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson.
• Served as the Grand Marshall for the Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
• Has worked with such well-known directors as Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Richard Linklater and Jonathan Mostow.
• Traveled to France to support his good buddy, Lance Armstrong, during the 2009 Tour De France.
• Has played characters named Joseph Cooper in both Killer Joe (2011) and Interstellar (2014).
• Named one of People magazine's "Hottest Bachelors" in 2006.
• Travelled around Peru after filming A Time to Kill (1996).
• Became a father for the 2nd time at age 40, when his then-girlfriend Camila Alves McConaughey, now wife, gave birth to their daughter Vida Alves McConaughey (b. January 3, 2010).
• Played a character named Abe Lincoln in Boys on the Side (1995), plays a defense lawyer who works out of his Lincoln in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), and now is being endorsed by Lincoln cars and appears in most of its commercials.
• He has worked with 6 directors who have won a Best Director Oscar: Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, William Friedkin, Steven Soderbergh, and Martin Scorsese.
• Turned down a role in The Jackal (1997).
• Is closely associated with the likes of Robert Pattinson, Terry McGinnis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire working on several projects and conservationist initiatives together.
• Was considered for a role in Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997).
• Paternal great-grandson of James (May 24, 1867-September 1, 1922), born in Texas, and Frances (née King) McConaughey (June 28, 1876-April 15, 1969), born in Iowa. Both his great-grandparents died in Texas.
• Paternal great-grandson of Robert (1855-March 23, 1926), born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Julia (née Westerling) Maitland (1866-April 24, 1949), born in Louisiana. Both of his great-grandparents died in Louisiana.
• Paternal grandson of Hugh (September 16, 1904-July 27, 1971), born in New Mexico, and Barbara (née Maitland) McConaughey (December 31, 1907-September 2, 1991), born in Louisiana. Both of his grandparents died in Texas.
• He has traveled around Mali in western Africa.
• Attended Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with his then-girlfriend Camila Alves McConaughey, now wife.
• Born on the same date as Sean 'Diddy' Combs.
• In Magic Mike (2012) he played a character named Dallas, and he is from Texas.

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