Matthew McConaughey's new book, "Greenlights," follows his journey from a high school foreign ... [+] exchange student to a critically acclaimed actor.
It began with Ziploc bags. Inside each, the fragmented collection of journals, napkins, tape recordings and travel trinkets that Matthew McConaughey had been storing since he was a teenager came to light again. As the Academy Award-winning actor began to unpack them, he found himself transported once again to his pastto Texas, Australia, Malibu and the turbid waters of the Amazon.
This week, as Fathers Day approaches, I sat down with McConaughey to talk about those adventures, many of which are chronicled in his new book, Greenlights.
Joe Sills: Lets talk about Greenlights. I dont know if you set out to write a travel book, but to me this is a travel book.
Matthew McConaughey: Yep. Its a travel book.
Joe Sills: It is this compilation of incredible events throughout your life that you somehow had the foresight to write down and put on record. Did you know when you were writing these things down that they would become a book one day?
Matthew McConaughey: I didnt know that they would become a book, but I had a hunch that I would be prudentand it was worthwhileto keep writing them down, that one day I might be able to look at them and find common denominators of what I learned in life...what worked and what didnt.
I had a good discipline of writings things down, whether it was with a Sharpie on my arm or notes that I would take a picture of, or a napkin, a coaster, a recording on a cassette or writing in my journal. Over the years, my desk would get full and I would find time to put things in a Ziploc. Four or five years ago, I said, Lets go open up that treasure chest of all of those journals and see what youve got.
Joe Sills: In some cases, you crack that seal and youre back in your own head decades ago. What was that like?
Matthew McConaughey: It was sort of intimidating. I wasnt sure if I was going to enjoy what I saw. It was embarrassing sometimes. Sometimes, I would shake my head shamefully. But then, as I got into it, I started to notice that it was funnier than I thought. The stuff I thought I was going to be embarrassed about, I laughed at myself about.
Maybe I was able to laugh because I had learned that life lesson, or maybe some of the offenses I had committed I was still repeat offending. Some of the stuff I felt shameful about, I had forgiven myself for, or I realized it was time to.
Probably the coolest thing was seeing that the things I was writing about at 15the subjects I was interested inI am still interested in at 50. How does the world work? What is my relationship in it? What is an idiosyncrasy of someone I found funny?
I always wrote those things down so I would not forget then. When I looked back, I realized I actually remembered more than I forgot.
Joe Sills: One of the things that surprised me in this book is that you spent a long time living out of a van and traveling around America. This is after youve become a well-known person in society. Tell me what that was like.
Matthew McConaughey: I had lived in Hollywood for a little while. I was successful. I still needed to audition for some roles, but a lot of roles were blind offers to me for the success I already had. People knew what kind of work I would do, so I was getting some offers without having to audition.
Im at a time in my life where I am not really meeting any strangers. Everybody knows my name and has a preconceived notion of who I am. I didnt feel like I was seeing true and honest behavior.
I love to drive. Its my favorite place to think. Its my favorite place for ideas. I love to explore the country and I like to be able to change my backyard at a moments notice. It was me and my dog, and we just hit it.
That van was my front row seat. That was my acting class, spending time with myself and other strangers if I wanted to.
I wanted to create resistance for myself. You see it from the Africa trip to the Amazon trip to touring America in a van. The idea was, Go where nobody knows your name and see if you can hustle. See what you can get. I wanted to give myself those very basic, practical challenges like breaking down on the highway or having a flat tire and you dont have a AAA card and you dont have OnStar.
On the road is where I found those challenges. Plus, I got to see some of the great comedians of the world who didnt know they were comedians.
The things trailer park life people say...They are all transient anyways, so we were like sailers on the highways of America. The trailer park is like your port. You dock for a while, you dont have to say your name or show your ID.
I liked being a little undercover, but I also thought it was cool that if someone saw me in the trailer park maybe they thought they were on Mars for a second.
Joe Sills: What is a green light to you?
Matthew McConaughey: A green light is an affirmation. A green light says go. More, please. Yes. Double down. Continue on. Move forward. Lets go.
That is a literal version of a green light from a highway.
We all love green lights. We want our life to be green lights because we want to move forward and keep dancing. We want to evolve and say, I am not running into any resistance. But there has to be resistance to evolve. That resistance is yellow and red lights.
A yellow light is running into a problem that makes you stop and pause. A red light stops you in your tracks.
I found that, in some ways, I engineered green lights in my own life. I took sacrifices today that would give me more freedom in the future. That is where the title comes from.
Joe Sills: Can you give us an example?
Matthew McConaughey: Early on, how to be a good friend. When I was a good friend, I stepped outside of myself to do something for someone else when they needed it even though it was going to take up some of my time or I would rather be doing something else. I noticed that when I did that, those friends came back later in life when I needed them. I noticed they were out in the world on my behalf when I wasnt even around. They were paving ways of good fortune and good word on me going forward, which opened up more opportunities and gave me more freedom.
Sometimes, it was choosing little things like not to gossip on someone else when they werent there. Yeah, I might create a green light in that moment but as soon as I leave that person I was talking to is going to lose respect for me. Theyre going to realize if I talk noise on you when youre not around, I might do the same thing to them. Then, I lose a potential ally in this world.
Preparation. Like for a job interview, so you dont show up sweating and going, I am completely ill-prepared. Yeah, I might have had a good time and drinks with my friends on Friday. That was a green light in that moment, but now I am at a red light.
Joe Sills: Now you show up on set with a script thats all in Spanish.
Matthew McConaughey: Yeah. And its a monologue for me!
Joe Sills: There are so many funny stories in Greenlights, that made me laugh, but I want to talk to you about a red light. I want to talk to you about your dad. You are on set at Dazed and Confused and its your first big break. Then, hes gone. Is that a red light?
Matthew McConaughey: Major red light.
Joe Sills: What was it like to balance that professional high with the low of the moment?
Matthew McConaughey: So, Im five days into working on my first acting gig. I am as high as I can be, I mean personally as turned on as I have ever been in my life. I am 21, I feel like Im doing something I am good at and I have an innate ability to do. People are telling me Im good at it.
Im getting paid $320 a day and I am going, Wow. This is as much fun as I have ever had and I am getting paid for it!
Then, dad. Boom. He dies.
At that time, as much as it was personally a highlight of my life to be able to act, there was no question which had more importance. My father passing away was, Okay. Drop it. Im out of here. Im not asking permission. I gotta go home.
I really didnt think about the acting I had to do. It was pain and loss and confusion. I didnt think my dad could be killed. I thought he was the abominable snowman. I had never even considered him not being alive in this life. He was a bear of a man who had an immune system like a viking.
Yeah, he lived fully and lived hard, but he wasnt close to leaving this worldnot in my eyes. Then, all of a sudden he was gone. Out of the blue. Boom.
You know, death makes me so tired. Even to this day, I go to a hospital and get narcoleptic. So when dad died, I would pass out on the kitchen counter while we were talking about dad dying. My mom and brothers would still be talking, then I would wake up and pick up where they left off.
We had a wake, which he wanted. Friends came from all over the country for his wake. Im there. Im the 21-year-old youngest son, the idealist who held my father and what he taught me in such regard. That weekend, I started to learn that lesson you learn when you lose a parent. I learned that there was a difference between the message and the messenger.
Joe Sills: Eventually, you get back on set. Do you feel like youre acting for him then? Are you pushing forward for him now?
Matthew McConaughey: In a way. My heals were more firmly on the ground after dad died. I think they were pretty firmly there even while I was acting as Wooderson. But now, this is where the green light asset from a major red light like that comes in.
Now, the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in my life at that time this thing I love to do and I am getting paid for, that five days prior became the most important thing in my lifebecomes second place. The death of my father was more important.
What does that mean? It means the fact that something with so much import as this great opportunity I was living, acting, was number two? Id say I became a better actor that day.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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Matthew McConaugheys Travelogue Is The Ultimate Fathers Day Book - Forbes
