THE WORLD’S WILDEST NEW NATIONAL PARKS MATTHEW M MATTHEW c CONAUG H EY OCTOBER 2018 Vol. 27, No. 10 OCTOBER 2018 Vol. 27, No. 10 50SUDS OF UNITEDTHE STATES BEST THE ESSENTIAL BEERS IN KITCHEN / AMERICA ARSENAL HOW TO TRAIN YOUR BRAIN BRAIN YOUR TRAIN TO HOW The Future ULTIMATE KETTLEBELL of Fish WORKOUTS HOW TO / THE FUTURE OF FISHFUTURETHE OF TRAIN YOUR BRAIN MATTHEW OCTOBER2018 MCCONAUGHEY A Hollywood Icon Reinvents Himself—Again By J E S S E WILL Photographs by MILLER MOBLEY McCON AUGHE Y ’ S WITH A TRIO OF UNEXPECTED ROLES, MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY IS REINVENTING HIS CAREER, AGAIN. YET THE OSCAR WINNER SEEMS TO STAY THE SAME. ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT. not knowing the two had split: “I just thought Mom was in Florida on vacation.” I AM SHIRTLESS AND MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY IS NOT. A few days before filming ended on Dazed and Confused, Big Jim, then 62, suffered a heart It’s a sweltering day in the midst of the hottest attack and died while making love to Kay. May ever recorded in Austin, Texas, and the McConaughey’s ad-lib for his character in clothing-averse actor is wearing a wifebeater Dazed, “Just keep livin’, ” was a phrase that and backward ball cap, the very portrait of the actor had been uttering to himself in the Texas decorum as we post up on stools at a days that followed his father’s death, as a way waterside burger-beer-and-taco joint, an of dealing with the loss. (It’s now the name of impromptu stop on a four-hour-plus paddle- McConaughey’s foundation, a wellness and boarding circuit of Lake Austin. When we service curriculum for at-risk high schoolers pushed off from his boathouse in the morn- across five states and D.C.) ing, I didn’t see him tuck a shirt away in the I had read about an Irish wake that the waistband of his Just Keep Livin boardshorts. family held in Longview, Texas, and asked Hours later, as we drag our boards up onto the McCon aughey what he said at it. He paused for restaurant’s dock, he pulls out the shirt and a minute. “I said, ‘There’s people in this room slings it on. Now everybody in the place, other that owe my dad money. Just ’cause he’s moved than me, is properly attired. on, don’t think you’re not paying him back. I ask McConaughey how much of a prob- You’re paying my mom back.’ ” They paid. lem this is. nothing’s a big deal. It’s relaxing. Spending How did he decide to become an actor? He I ask if he’s raising his own children to be “Zeeee—ro,” the actor says, in that signa- time with my kids, my wife, following through picked up a random paperback. McConaughey similarly independent and free-thinking. “I ture south Texas drawl. The o syllable has a on 3 a.m. ideas. Writing, poetry, music. Stuff was drawing stellar grades but getting bored realize I have 18 years to shepherd,” he says. long tail, trailing off reassuringly. I just don’t have time for when I’m working.” as a sophomore studying law at the University “And I use the word shepherd—they are who A problem? Ha. Such a thing is granted We paddle past a park, scattered with of Texas. During a break while cramming for they are. I’m not trying to make them into me, no quarter in the realm of McConaughey. barbecue grills and fronted by a sandy beach finals, he scooped the book off a frat-house but there are some values I can teach them. An extended hang with the guy turns out to that’s vacant, despite the day’s perfection. floor that would change his life: The Greatest Then they’re gonna be who they are.” be exactly as weird and meandering as you “Be a lot cooler if you diiiid,” McConaughey has roles in White Boy Rick (September 14), As I ask McConaughey about his past—pick Salesman in the World, a self-help tome from PREVIOUS SPREAD: MCCONAUGHEY WEARS TOP BY JOHN VARVATOS. might imagine. A brief paddle and Q&A ses- retorts. Serenity (October 19), and The Beach Bum a period—I realize that he inevitably reveals 1968. In the story, a rich trader credits his pros- sion has evolved into something else entirely: Fist bump. Laughter. (TBA). Now that they’re all in the can, McCon- some magic-realist moment where some truth perity to some old scrolls bearing principles: “I Chief among the values McConaughey is part endurance test, part vision quest, and an “Oh man. Oh dude,” Washington says. aughey, 48, a husband and father of three, is was revealed to him. will persist until I succeed.” “I will greet this trying to instill in his kids: the concept of opportunity to, the actor tells a guy named “This is crazy. Mind blown.” taking a breather, spending the longest stretch Take the move to Texas. Why’d he decide to day with love in my heart.” “I will laugh at the delayed gratification. So far, he thinks it’s Rowdy, sitting at the bar next to us, “explore Washington makes the “exploding” hand of time in the Lone Star State since his Hol- come back? Simple. A stoplight turned green. world.” “Today I begin a new life.” working. About two years ago, he tells me, a bit, get some tans, get some tacos, make a motion at both of his temples, then staggers lywood career began. In 2011, McConaughey and Alves were vis- McConaughey heeded its advice. That Levi pointed to his father’s Oscar statue. “He Wednesday feel like a Saturday.” back and does it again. “Craziest moment in “Is there any place on the planet you’d iting Kay, the wild-ass outlaw matriarch of night, he called his parents and told them he said, ‘What’d you get that trophy for?’ And I He’s right about the shirt. No one pays atten- my life,” he says, walking away. rather be?” he asks, standing on his bright yel- THIS PAGE: © 2018 CTMG, INC. the McConaughey clan, who lives in nearby wanted to change majors: He wanted to study said, ‘Remember when we were in Louisiana, tion to the near-naked reporter with a recorder. low Laird Hamilton paddleboard, a gift from Georgetown. At the time, she was having film. After a beat, his father, Big Jim, replied, and how skinny dad was, and when you woke Everyone wants a piece of McConaughey, the surfer Strider Wasilewski. He swings a carbon- some health issues. (She’s since recovered.) “I simply: “Don’t half-ass it.” up, I had already gone to work—and we would local hero, sitting here with his wraparound This kind of encounter is nothing new to fiber paddle, and his cadence is steady; when hadn’t thought about moving,” McConaughey See, the McConaugheys know a thing or only play on Saturdays? Well, the work I was shades on the counter, his roman nose flecked McConaughey. He’s been repeating it for I ask a question, he answers in full paragraphs says. “I didn’t know it was coming. I was driv- two about mavericks. Kay was a kindergarten doing then, my industry deemed excellent.’ ” with high-SPF sunscreen. The bystanders chip exactly 25 years, since Dazed and Confused without stopping to take a breath. ing, we were at a stoplight, and Camila said, schoolteacher who bluffed her way through a “I think there was this cool ‘ding-ding’ for in from the conversational rough. hit theaters in the summer of 1993 and his It’s a Wednesday morning, and the dusty ‘We’re moving back here, aren’t we?’ There 39-year career without ever obtaining a teach- him,” McConaughey says. “What you do today Rowdy asks McConaughey about his cur- character, David Wooderson, the hanger-on turquoise water of Lake Austin is free from boat was a second of silence, and the stoplight ing certificate; Big Jim, a Green Bay Packers can line up for what you get tomorrow.” rent roster of Airstreams. (He’s been collecting townie, the stoned philosopher-poet of the wake and, for the most part, people. Hidden up FROM TOP: ANNE MARIE FOX/© FOCUS FEATURES/COURTESY OF EVERETT COLLECTION;© GRAMERCY PICTURES/COURTESY OF EVERETT COLLECTION turned green, and I said yes. That was that.” draftee, owned a gas station, and later caught a Delayed gratification is something familiar them for years and now owns four.) A busi- parking lot, voiced the actor’s most famous on a cedar-shrouded hillside sits the McCon- piece of the Texas oil boom, selling to McConaughey: The Oscar for Dallas Buy- nessman playing hooky inquires about an lines—“be a lot cooler if you did,” “just keep aughey manse. The actor married Brazilian pipe. He was known to party with ers Club was a culmination of a career reboot appearance the actor made on the Golf Chan- livin’,” “all right, all right, all right”—most of model and entrepreneur Camila Alves there his shirt off, his cockatiel close that had been years in the making. By 2008, nel. A British woman apologizes for the inter- which he improvised. in 2012 in front of children Levi, then 3, and by. The pair wrote their own love the actor had spent the better part of a decade ruption, then introduces her small, scruffy I ask McConaughey if it’s fatiguing when Vida, then 2.