Matthew McConaughey has not always found his prospects in Hollywood to be alright, alright, alright.
The Academy Award winner, 54, revealed he ‘stepped out of Hollywood’ for two years as he considered leaving the industry altogether, while speaking with Glen Powell for Interview Magazine.
‘I’ve usually zigged when I felt like Hollywood wanted me to zag,’ he said. ‘When I had my rom-com years, there was only so much bandwidth I could give to those, and those were some solid hits for me.
‘But I wanted to try some other stuff. Of course I wasn’t getting it, so I had to leave Hollywood for two years,’ explained Matthew McConaughey.
He recalled confiding in wife Camila Alves during the ‘scary’ time as he considered a career change.
‘Dude, it was scary. I had long talks with my wife about needing to find a new vocation. “I think I’m going to teach high school classes. I think I’m going to study to be a conductor. I think I’m going to go be a wildlife guide,”‘ Matthew McConaughey went through the list.
‘I honestly thought, “I stepped out of Hollywood. I got out of my lane,”‘ he explained. ‘The lane Hollywood said I should stay in, and Hollywood’s like, “Well, f*** you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane. Later.”‘
McConaughey continued, ‘It was scary. The days are long the sense of insignificance. But I made up my mind that that’s what I needed to do, so I wasn’t going to pull the parachute and quit the mission I was on. But it was scary, because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of the desert.’
The Dallas Buyers Club actor explained that with success came in Hollywood came a new set of anxieties.
‘For me, going back to A Time to Kill, after I first had a big success in a major studio picture and became famous, I remembered that the Thursday before that movie opened, there’s 100 scripts out there that I would’ve done, and 99 of them I could not book,’ said McConaughey. ‘Over that one weekend, 99 noes became 99 yeses.’
He added, ‘I was like, “What? Three days ago, I’d have done any of these! And now you’re asking me which one I want to do?” It was a hell of a shocking thing. I chucked on a backpack and went to Peru for three weeks just so I could hear myself think.’
McConaughey bonded with the Twisters star over the need ‘to be discerning’ with the parts they take, so not to get typecast.
‘I’ve had similar runs where I’ve said no to things, where I’m like, “Am I being too safe, or am I ferociously chasing what I want?”‘ he said.
‘Because sometimes you can get paralyzed in the no’s,’ McConaughey added. ‘I’ve had plenty of times in my career where I’m like, “I don’t know what I want to do, I just know I don’t want to do that.'”
The Dazed and Confused star moved home to Texas in 2014 with Alves, 41, and their sons Levi, 15, Livingston, 11, and 14-year-old daughter Vida.
His potential career changes during his time away from Hollywood included a Texas gubernatorial run that almost happened.
Matthew McConaughey has also served as a ‘visiting instructor’ at his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently serves on the faculty of the Radio/Television/Film department and the school’s self-appointed ‘minister of culture.’