Matthew McConaughey - Greenlights

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my parents and brothers for giving me family, my wife and kids for creating my own, and the countless characters, inspirations, and ideals Ive met along my way so far. Thanks to my heroes, from Pat to Mellencamp to me in ten years, and to all the people who gave me poems I wrote that I forgot I did.

To my friends like Seth Robbins Bindler for the courage to trailblaze, Australia for the loneliness, Don Phillips for the sight, Richard Linklater for the seen, Cole Hauser for the individuality, Gus for the loyalty, Kevin Morris for the absolute, Mark Gustawes for the belief, Mark Norby for the simplicity, John Chaney for the steady hand, Nicole Perez-Krueger for the right one, Blaine Lourd for the extra zeros, Ms. Hud for the commitment, Issa Ballo for the guidance, Mali for the home, Brother Christian for the humanity, Penny Allen for the ferocity, Pastor Dave for the context, Jordan Peterson for the clarity, Chad Mountain for the ear, Dan Buettner for the adventures, Roy Spence for the purpose, Nic Pizzolatto for the honesty, Al Cohol for the ideas, Liz Lambert for the desert, Bart Knaggs for the Llano River, David Drake, Gillian Blake, and Matt Inman for the edits, and to the WME, Crown/Penguin Random House, and Headline teams for helping me share my story on the page.

About the Author

Matthew McConaughey is the son of twice-divorced, thrice-married Jim and Kay McConaughey, married, and the father of three children. A self-proclaimed fortunate man, he considers himself a storyteller by occupation, writes poetry, and is a frustrated musician (but hey, theres still time). He is an excellent companion on a road trip, believes its okay to have a beer on the way to the temple, and is better with a days sweat on him. A very intentional man, Matthew feels at home in the world, likes to compare before contrasting, and is constantly seeking the common denominators in life. A crooner, a talented whistler, a wrestler, a prescriptive etymologist, and a world traveler, he believes scars are the original tattoos, and has naturally grown more hair at age fifty than he had at thirty-five. He has won six water-drinking competitions worldwide, says his prayers before meals because it makes the food taste better, is a great nickname giver, studies gastronomy and architecture, loves cheeseburgers and dill pickles, has been learning to say Im sorry, and enjoys a good cry once a week at church. He doesnt stop to watch his own movies if he crosses one on TV, he likes to pull things off just to see if he can, never goes to bed holding a grudge, and has recently learned there is more than one way to be right. He would rather be a sailor than an astronaut, has fluid legs on the dance floor, will take a belief over a conclusion, and believes that to all good men nontyrants, each to his own.

In 2009, Matthew and his wife, Camila, founded the j.k. livin Foundation after-school curriculum, which helps at-risk kids in over fifty-two Title 1 high schools across the nation make healthier mind, body, and spirit choices. In 2019, as well as writing this book, McConaughey became a professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin, his alma mater, where he teaches the class he created, Script to Screen. As well as being an owner of the MLS team Austin FC, he is also the Minister of Culture/M.O.C. for the University of Texas and the City of Austin, another role and title he created. He continues to be brand ambassador to the Lincoln Motor Company and creative director for Wild Turkey bourbon, where he co-created his favorite bourbon on the planet, called Longbranch. Matthew prefers sunsets to sunrises.

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While writing this book, I found this in a pile of my journalbuck slipnapkinbeer coaster notes and scribbles. Id never seen it since Id written it. Notice the date. Two days after finishing my first-ever acting role as Wooderson in Dazed and Confused . Fourteen days after my dad moved on. (Like I said, I guess I remembered more than I forgot.)

Greenlight.

Ive been in this life for fifty years, trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. Thirty-five years of realizing, remembering, recognizing, gathering, and jotting down what has moved me or turned me on along the way. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to get what I want. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget. The idea of revisiting my life and musings was a daunting one; I wasnt sure if Id enjoy the company. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries and have a look at the thirty-five years of writing about who Ive been over the last fifty. And you know what? I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. I laughed, I cried, I realized I had remembered more than I expected, and forgot less.

What did I find? I found stories I witnessed and experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, answers to questions I had, reminders of questions I still have, affirmations for certain doubts, beliefs about what matters, theories on relativity, and a whole bunch of bumperstickers. I found consistent ways that I approached life that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still.

I found a reliable theme.

So, I packed up those journals and took a one-way ticket to solitary confinement in the desert, where I began writing what you hold now: an album, a record, a story of my life so far.

Things I witnessed, dreamed, chased, gave and received.

Truth bombs that interrupted my space and time in ways I could not ignore.

Contracts I have made with myself, many of which I live up to, most of which I still pursue.

These are my sights and seens, felts and figured outs, cools and shamefuls.

Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality.

Initiations, invitations, calibrations, and graduations.

Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets trying to dance between the raindrops.

Rites of passage.

All between or on the other sides of persistence and letting go, on the way to the science of satisfaction in this great experiment called life.

Hopefully, its medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilots license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

Its a love letter.

To life.