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Matthew McConaughey: Embracing Resistance & Catching Greenlights

Hey, what's up? It's J Service as you saw from the thumbnail. Or maybe the name down here in the name of this year video. Matthew McConaughey is in the house today. That's right. You know him? He's an award winning actor. He's a married man, a father of three and a loyal son and brother. You probably know him as the actor from the Dallas Buyers Club, contact interstellar dazed and confused wolf of Wall Street to detective and lots and lots of others. He considers himself a storyteller by occupation, and that will be aptly revealed in our conversation today. He tells a couple of them anything stories. We also talking about his new book, Green Lights, where he tells a lot of amazing stories. Um, he's also rubble, and he believes, in his own words, that it's okay to have a beer on the way to the temple. And he says he always feels better with a day of sweat on him. Little known fact. He's also a an aspiring orchestral or sorry, Yeah, orchestral conductor, which I think is an incredible I'...

m going out of the way. I want you to know that our conversation today is gonna be relevant for you. It's about creativity. It's about honing your craft. And it's about that tension between craft getting good at something and you're intuition showing up being your authentic self. It's about adventure. It's about getting lost and finding yourself a little bit about redemption on. But if you've ever been through a rough patch in life, this is going to help. So I'm gonna go out of the way and introduce Mr Matthew McConaughey. Mhm. No, Matthew McConaughey is in the house. Matthew Ready to roll? That's right, Chase. Good to be here, but thanks. Welcome to the show. Congratulations on your book, By the way. I mean, I've seen you do a lot of press around movies, man, and you have done such a good job of getting the word out there. And for good reason. It's It's an amazing story. Congratulations. Thank you. It feels good, and it felt good to write it, Um, but then it's getting great results. Getting received to translate eso. It's Max C. Has been received a whole lot of fun to talk about with people, too. Well, I'll share that. I couldn't get one physically like that you're doing such a good job. There aren't any bookstores out. Amazon sold out. I had to read mine digitally. That's a good song. Okay, um, you know the people who are watching and listening to show and have been for enough 10 years on, by the way. So money that we were making some small talk earlier for those who were not there, um, a lot of, uh we've crossed paths with some similar folks. And, uh, in large part, those folks are considered themselves creators and entrepreneur entrepreneurs and of the people have been listening to the show watching this show for 10 years. That is a core piece of their identity. And s o, I want to start off with your creative process. I think that's, you know, we're here to talk about the book, but I'm mostly interested in you as a human, and you've made amazing mark in the world. A dent in the universe is Steve Jobs says, uh, but so much of it has its roots in creativity. And I want to hear a little bit about your original draw to so many different creative crafts and on how you think about creativity in your life? Sure. Um, look, I I growing up. I mean, I guess I was created when I look back in hindsight, but we were not I didn't I wasn't raised in like a creative family. Meaning I was gonna go tow law school, be a lawyer. The the idea when I called my dad and got the courage to call my dad and say I want to switch from going to law school to film school was a nerve wracking night because the idea of going into the arts just sounded too avant garde hippie dipping. Maybe that's a hobby for you. But that's not how a man goes to work and work his way up a company ladder and makes a living. To my surprise, um, he accepted more than accepted me wanting to go toe film school and be a storyteller. He gave me a kick in the backside about doing it and said don't have assets and loved the idea. Um, later on in life after he passed away, we're going through the attic, and I'm finding these sculptures and paintings and stuff and ask my mom who did these because So that's your dad he was doing those in the garage after I go to bed like, 00 interesting. But we weren't big. Like you weren't allowed to watch media in the family. You weren't. We weren't even big readers. We were a family. That was Hey, daylight outside. Get your butt outside and do it. Mom would always say, Don't watch somebody do something for you that you go do for yourself. So we were always really active on DNA. Ever took much time of introspection Or like, Oh, what's the story I'm gonna tell or what's this piece of art? We didn't go to museums, that kind of thing. Um and I guess after ah year I had in Australia, where I was estranged and on my own, I was forced to get creative to survive that time, meaning I was forced to get creative to maintain my sanity. I was in a small little home in the middle of the middle of Australia, no friends, no money, no car and a curfew. And I was with a very odd family and I was losing my mind, and I was having to create some very creative disciplines for myself just to have a measure of resistance to overcome each day to go. Okay, my feet are on the ground. I did that. I ran six miles. I was half assed vegetarian. I correct continued to be celibate. I was getting very awkward ways of getting creative, but they helped me get through that year. Um, then I got into, you know, always considered. I just was in the storytelling business, whether I was in front of the camera behind the camera. You're telling stories and I go into acting days confused, then all the way up through shoot from 92 to 98. My first six years of acting, I didn't know technically what the heck I was doing. I evidently had some instincts for it, but I did. That became very famous off of a film, Time to kill, which there was another challenge of creativity. Because all of a sudden you're going, you know, yesterday I couldn't do any of these scripts I want to do. And now you're telling me I could do it, all 1000 of them. And you want me to be discerning and creative and ask myself what it means to me and my soul What I wanna do? Shit, man, I would have done any of these two days ago, and I want to do all of them. Um, And so then I I met the lady Penny Allen, who I worked with for 19 years since passed away. And that's when I learned what my craft waas that's when I learned my rights is an actor. That's when I learned how to look at the script, how to break down a character, how to find needs, obstacles, how to overcome them in the script. Um, that's how I learned a breakdown story as well. Um, and then I think the process for me has always been. I want to close those gaps between There is what we want to do. There's actually what we do do. There's what actually gets recorded, and then there's actually what gets exhibited. So there's four filters there, and I would notice there was always a gap and I've been I've been I think when I've been the the better form of whatever artist I and those gaps type and tighter, and I think you know, it's part of the reason I wanted to go write the book. I want to get rid of some of those filters. I wouldn t o. When I go out to do someone else's script, I'm directed by someone else. I'm lens in a camera by someone else I edited by someone else. Before that, my initial raw expression gets handed in the capital to you to watch on screen. Now, book gets rid of three of those filters, but it keeps one. It's a written word. You know, um, this is the filter lists that we're doing right now. This'd is kind of what really excites me the most. And how you know how how to be an artist in this form and in life every day in this In this scene that were in that, you know, action was called one time the day we were born, and cut will be called one time the day we die. That's kind of right. Now what? I'm getting off, too. I've also must say this. I've gone through a period of first period of my life, been acting, and whatever art it was, I was very much into the details. I've always been a study or prepare it, get down to the details, details, the last 15 years of my career and the way I've seen life, I'm really coming to respect the impression. Fuzzy. You know, we talked earlier. All fine. I don't want I don't want that high definition camera on everything. I want to see the fuzzy It It's like it's more like music. That's not telling me every detail. Let me paint the picture. Let me let me. You know that that you know, some people we see in life and art we see that they will never look better than they did when they turned the corner at Magic hour from 60 yards away. And as you get closer, you go. No, Jeez, I liked it back there, e mean, but that the impression that has allowed me to use my imagination mawr So the impression and of things, that is what I've really been enjoying, not going further. Just let me come into my imagination sooner rather than going and getting all the details or learning to go get the details and go. No, You know what? I'm gonna go back and just work off that impression. I love love that for so many reasons not the least of which, but one that really caught my attention and I wanna revisit just for a second is the There's the craft. And then there's almost the intuition. And there's a craft of filmmaking, of acting, of writing of, uh, playing music of all of the different sort of disciplines that you mentioned and so many people tend to over index on that. But one of the things that I loved about, you know, learning more about in preparation for this was your sort of weaving in and out of craft and intuition. Early on, it was all intuition. And then you bounced into craft, and it seemed like that has happened with so many different things even, um, you know, writing your book. And, you know, I'm wondering if you can expand on this idea of intuition. Your book. It's like it's like a You could call it a rodeo in the beginning, and it's it's giving you a bunch of scars, something like that. But this, you know, talk to me a little bit about how to trust your intuition, because most people out there and again you know this the people who listen, watch this show have for 10 years. They consider that some theirselves creators and entrepreneurs and fire starters. And yet so many people just run to the craft because it's easy. You could pick up a camera, camera has settings, you can press a button, you can get a better camera. And there's a fear of soft stuff where you just talked about which really captured my my heart for a moment was fuzzy. And how do you learn to trust Fuzzy? Because it seems to me that's where all the best shit in your life has come from the fuzzy. Yeah, I think so. Now I must say, you know, the non fuzzy the definition, the I know it. The arrogance of that has put me in many a playing field where things got fuzzy real quick when I didn't think God, which gave me the gift of that. So, you know, I know in writing the book, there were times I looked at that places where I was an arrogant prick. But I look back. I was like, Oh, I'm so glad you an arrogant prick, Mr Know it all an absolute definition of the situation because it gave me the courage to put your stuff in a place where things got fuzzy. And then you actually learned you saw things a different way, which I would have had that courage to put myself in places if I wasn't in that place of definition. Right? Um, you know, craft intuition is what you seems to be that the constant dance between to just as it's a dance between responsibility and fate, Uh, you know, responsibility in freedom. When do we I'm gon Between this, sometimes I'll write the headline first, right? The fricking headline Put the stake in the stand out there in the sand and then just live the story towards that or for doing a film sitting down with producers, directors. What's the poster look like? Well, it's a close up of your silhouette, right? Okay, It's just gonna be a character piece. It's gonna really follow my character. No, it's a wide shot, you know. And the silhouettes air coming over the hill on its big wide, you know, seven million. Okay, this is more of an epic, story driven story. Just a just a That's what I mean when I say I wanted my direction north, south, east or west and then give me 16 lanes tools to swerve in. But let's just make sure that we're all heading in the general direction before I get started. I'm always like, Okay, I don't want to know the details of exactly everything we're making here, but what album we make, is it rock and roll is a country is a jazz. I mean, can we at least say that? I just want to know what kind of album I'm playing on a za character even when I go act, not even literally in music. Um, but other times I won't write the headline, and I look in my book. I think a lot of my then you said it in the question. A lot of stuff that I think I'm that that that ad art that maybe I've created that has been most true to me. Or when I jumped off the cliff and figured out the headline on the wrote the story towards the headline The headline was written when I landed or learn to fly, you know, And so on one side I'm very much perfectionist. I love to be in the know I love to know what I want and get what I want. And on the other side, trusting that thing to go jump off and go. I'm going in this. I'm diving in this proverbial pool and I don't know how I'm going to get across it, but I'm gonna trust that I'll come up on the other side. That's been the probably the biggest buzzes that I've had as an artist, but it's a I mean for May. I think it's been a continual dance between those two, because if I've I've always been a guy who to this day I don't put anything in drawers. I need to see it. Nothing. No, no, George, because I'll forget about it. But the way did you put your pork there in a Cabinet? But the cabinet, one of those big grade and still great. So as you can see through with, yeah, every play, everything in our house, I have to see it. So I still do have that sort of uncomfortable feeling right now. If I got to see it, I've always been the guy who, if I have the key to the door, you know, to get from this room to that room, but But it's in there on the kitchen table. I'm gonna leave this door cracked. E could see that. You know, now I'm still learning to go. No, go ahead. Lock the door to trust that the key will work. Go ahead, shut the door. You don't know it's on the other side. Don't be afraid of the dark, and I've gotten, you know, pulled some things off in that situation. But that's something I continued him still trying to work on, and it's, you know, becomes challenging in way As we get older, we build things that we don't want to turn a blind eye to. Family. You know, there's certain things we build, that I'm just not ready to go cover my eyes and go, Yeah, let me just see what happens over there. You know, I have to tend to those things. I want those things in front of me, my Children on family and such. So you know, it's a it's a mix. One of things I say in the book is create the weather. I like to create my weather. If I could blow in the wind, that's the conservative early liberal late, But I've also realized that many times I've been liberal, early, conservative late, which means jump off the cliff, tell the story on the way down, figure out how to flyer when you land, and that will be the find the headline in the at the end of the story. How did you learn to trust that you would come up on the other side of the pool, that you would be able to figure a way to pop the parachute or land on your feet? Seems to me that that's the part, you know, as I'm thinking about the questions that I always get about creative process or myself, or has been a regular theme in the show is where does that come from? Is that just is that, Ah, accumulation of scars where you get enough licks that you recognize your you have what it takes to come out of the side. Most of the time, it just occurs to me that this is most people they're not taught to trust, that we've got, you know, a very careful parent culture. And I mean, I used to leave my house in the morning and, you know, I used to have to be home a dark, and that's when I was like, 10 years old and it's different. And how do you learn to trust in and sort of the culture that we're living in right now, which is, uh, tenuous or hard or difficult? Or that's a huge, great question and has to do with a lot more than than just art. It has to do with the art of living in relationships because we're in a time of great distrust right now, Um, but it is part of the creative process from you learn to trust. I know for a fact that learning my craft that 19 years with that lady Penny Allen gave me the courage to trust and say, Put the blindfold on me and take me to Neptune wherever you want to take me. And a soon as I step off the spaceship, be recording before you take the blindfold off, and I'm trusting that I'll be my man or I'll be true to my character as as an actor. But a lot of that comment came from learning the craft. You mean preparation to come in to a scene not with one truth, but with five truths. So the director can say anything to me that the other I couldn't do anything on the other side. I'm ready. I'm calling audibles. It's an instinct, you know. But it took years to get that because the intellectual process of learning your craft is actually you stumble. I went backwards. I was not as good of an actor when I first started taking acting lessons because I now became conscious of what the hell I was doing. So up here in my head. What, you don't know? I'm going. Oh, it is just I'm going auditions and I'm not getting any of and I'm getting called back. But I'm not getting in. And I'm like, What are you so tight about? Oh, you're thinking about it. I always always like to take it to the analogy of sports as well. You get a new defensive coordinator on the team. You pretty good time to bet against that team next year because that defense is out there thinking and if they're thinking the White House already a half a step past him and then they're gonna catch it, run to score. But if you can work the things from the head to the instincts and the gut, where you're just in the moment calling audibles, instinctually, unable to dance. Now we're dancing right now playing now. We're not working. When it's up here, I find myself working. That's that. Seems like that's that's That's the required work that a lot of people don't want to do that the ability to trust yourself comes from the reps of the craft letting that stuff fade into the background. When you're operating a camera or on stage and you know how to play or anything, there's this you can. Is it fair to say that you've come to trust yourself because you put yourself in that position over and over and over, and you found out that you most of the time can, if not thrive, survive. And if you don't survive, you get knocked on your ass. You can lick up, lick your wounds and get up again another day. Yeah, I mean, 100% 100% that the learning and the preparation and the learning of the craft. If confidence permitting, we'll give it to other people, too. Then, you know, let it come from the inside, and then it comes from the instincts out. I always look. I always grew up and pulled things off. Be out of shears, almost resilience. I mean, I've gotten away and pulled off, creating whatever extent you could call it art. Just because of I love the dare of going. I think I could pull that off sometimes. Out of pure ignorance, ignorance is bliss in a lot of ways, but things I didn't know, but I have nightmares about some of the things I got away with back when I didn't know that I wake up now. Oh, jeez, If I'd have known what I knew now, I wouldn't have pulled that situation off. I wouldn't have got away with it. You know what I mean? Uh, I'm glad I didn't know that e just something. I remember where I saw it. It's like you start off and there's sort of a naive simplicity, and then you go into I think this things had functional complexity. This is the you're learning a new defense if you know, if you got a new defensive coordinator and what mastery looks like is sort of effortless simplicity again it comes to trusting instincts and repetition. And I think that there was that seemed to be a theme, not just with your professional career but with your family, with your friendships. With your going on these walkabouts, there seemed to be this yin and yang on and off ebb and flow, and I'm wondering if that's intentional for you. Well, in looking back, obviously it was intentional because I got we're gonna all connect the dots looking backwards, right? Pretty a pretty good, consistent track record of this sort of boomeranging out going out or being in the middle fly, and, um, and then all of a sudden, having the spiders and the threshold go off early enough and listening to it to go No, no, let's zap out of this. We need some solitude. I need some demarcation between the events and circumstances that happening to me and the day I got to go get some prudence and see what the hell managed to me what's true to me. So I practiced. When I look back, I'm honored with how I had practiced going away to solitude at the right times, uh, many times, not every time but many times, um, to get my to get, you know, get my head of heart aligned with my heart and spirit to get my feet on the ground but still find that place where I was felt absolutely humble, the most humble but absolutely the most powerful and the most creative. And I've got all that through my life a lot of times, you know, one was my definition of humility. Um, I'd always didn't you know, I used to be kind of falsely modest. That's a bunch of bullshit, you know? So then I heard this, uh, cool quote about humility being and knowing, admitting that you have more to learn. Well, that one I went okay, I can still receive. I can have the humility to receive. But I could still stand up, talk with my heart high in my head high and and and engage and have an identity and have judgment, have discernment, but still be able to have the humility to receive things and that, you know, it's another way of saying we're talking about this reciprocity of the giving and receiving the putting out. And are you putting out Is the World River being back to you What you're putting out again. It's that gap closed. How? Why does that gap between what we put out and what we receive? Boy, it's beautiful when that gap comes in lickety split, you know, like that when it comes back with large gotta be going What am I misreading? Did I misinterpret that did not communicate that the right way was in the wrong places? My timing off And I'm not giving context of consideration to the entity or the person of the place of the art that I'm engaging with. And, you know, sometimes you could work out those relationships recalibrate. But I found that those places to recalibrate, um and I'll harp this back Thio the book again And this is very obvious when I say it, Even though when I said it to myself for the first time a month ago, I thought, Oh, wow, that's awesome. It was like, Well, kind of no shit. Which is the more personal we get more relatable. We are. Yeah, that seems to be the thing with with with with art or translation or communication. Um, and we you know, So I see them sometimes that is a contradiction when in fact no, it's not. And at the same time, I want to make sure this is clear, because I also say, Hey, wait a minute, you know? What do you mean the more personally you get what you're saying? So pure honesty is our No, no, no, no, no, no. If you that were true, then a 12 year old girls diarrhea is gonna Shakespeare, and it's not true. So do between self expression and art. But can your own self expression be really be formed instructor in a way of art? And if anyone becomes art is when it's relatable to the week where the that that gap that you're talking about, that's maybe that's authenticity. Maybe that like there's a resonance. I don't know. I think there's vulnerability, authenticity. There's something in that, like the Venn diagram of those two. Maybe that that's that when the art feels the best, when you there's this connection and you know you, you reference now the book, and for those who aren't tuned into pop culture right now, the book that Matthews talking about is Green Lights, which is your new book. It's probably a good time for me to say again. Congratulations. It's incredible. It really is. I've read a lot of memoirs, and this doesn't feel like one, but, uh, it is in a poetic and beautiful, um, heartfelt Ernest. Playful, playful way. So congratulations. You created something beautiful. It was fun to see a different, uh, different outlet from you funded dive into different outlet. Another means of communication again, like we talked about earlier. A fewer filters. Um, you're very It was a little bit of a freedom journey for May. I'm not one for looking back. I like to do things. Yet that was done. Let's move on, move forward. But to go back and track my lineage Thio from zero to here CB surprised and go. Uh huh. The same stuff you're interested in the you're still interested in, you know? Oh, let's Let's have a look. Have your questions on the same subject evolved a little bit. Well, that's good. Okay, a little bit, but we're still waking up in the middle of the night excited to write down the same things about the figure trying to figure out the science to satisfaction in the art of living and what can what? Relationships and how What? How are we responsible for the green lights we create in our life? How do we get lucky sometimes and and how to keep our head up and own that good fortune and take advantage of it? And then how's it sometimes just about perspective of coming across a yellow light and sometimes going, I'm not even going to give that son of a bitch credit. I ain't slowing down. I'm pressing the gas and blowing through that bitch. And that's also another way to catch him, you know? And then I learned through the run of the book Is that the hardships and the crisis in my life that I would call metaphorically the red and yellow light? Those have been the best. Those have been the best tools and teaching lessons that I've had. Those are our I'm quite sure I would not be here talking to you right now with the life I have family. I have. Unless I had those and I wouldn't give any of those back Brilliant. Yeah, um, mutual friend of ours, Tim Ferriss, stuck to Tim about journaling. And, uh, for those who haven't read the book yet that there's this intertwined relationship between the book that you are reading and the journals, the journals that you had created and then the ones that you we're creating. When you went to say to the desert, um, got the permission slip from, uh, step away from the family for a little bit and go out on your own, I'm wondering, Has that role of journaling did that lead you to the book, or did the book lead you back to your journals? And how important has writing things down, Ben, for your success, your introspection? Humility? How important has it been? Sure, the journals led to the book. The journals. I always, uh, again, since I was 14. I've always been the guy that would hang on us before phone. So hang on. All right, write something down. I don't have any income by that Sharpie waitress forever, and I write it on my arm or right on the napkin or on the beer coaster. Or then phones came along, and I'll pull it out at a dinner party, and I have to let the whole table known that guys, I'm not writing anyone else I'm here. I'm right actually writing something and I'm write it down and then I I hand you the phone chase and go. Did I quote you right? Chase where you sign that? That is what I said. I go Great. Do you mind? I'll footnote you if I bring that up. But I think you just said something that I feel is applicable that can scale out that I want to test out on things in life and see if that reverb comes back to me in, like, way. See if it kind of gratifies me. Eso That's always been the stuff that's interested in this stuff that I wrote down in journals. Um, e threatened to go right about 15 years ago. I just didn't have the balls to do it. Um, you know, And my excuse was Oh, you know what? Just keep, keep, keep living. Don't get retrospective and write anything down. And you know what? When you die, Camilla or some good friend will go back and look through those journals. Maybe there's something worth sharing. Let them do it postmortem. And that was really an excuse. But then about three years ago, I said You know what? I'm gonna That treasure chest of journals was just Always take it with me was staring at me. It started barking at me a little bit, so I said, Okay, I'm gonna go away with you, See what you got, But I wasn't crazy enough to do it on my own. Got a ghostwriter. The ghost writer and I meet one time for three hours that afternoon, his boss for the New York Times pulls him off the project. He can't work on it. And right when that happened, as soon as I told my wife I said, You know what? Stephen got pulled. I think I need to look for a We both looked at each other's moment. This is perfect. I gotta go into it. She was, like, exactly You got to go do it so packed stuff up, went to the desert to see what I had. Um, I did do this. I came into it thinking, Oh, this is gonna be very academic. No, Maybe part of me go. I don't know what it was. It was something that was And this is gonna be very academic. And remember, after four days looking to my grandmother was like, I don't think academic Did you think on first I was let down and I was like, But you know what? It is more poetic, and I was like, Well, that's cool. Alright, that's more musical. I like that. And so I sat there and I went through these thousands of pages and stack them in their categories, the categories they fell into or stories people, places, prescriptions, poems, prayers and a whole lot of bumper stickers. And so I then looked through those and look for the theme. And that's where the title Green Lights came. For the reasons that I was saying earlier, Um and look, I found that I remembered more than I thought I forgot. I knew that I would be ashamed of certain things. I knew I'd be, um, embarrassed about certain things. I knew I would, as I said earlier, see myself as an arrogant prick it times, and I saw all three of those things and felt all those. But most the stuff that I thought I would be embarrassed about. I laughed at most of the stuff. I thought I'd be ashamed off. I'd either already forgiven myself for or forgave myself or in the writing of it. And then those things where I was an arrogant little know it all prick. I was like, Well, do that arrogance did put you in the ring and got you gained more out of that arrogance and learned that you were wrong and did were not a know it all like you thought it were. And you got more things that you wanted and at least that arrogant gave me the confidence get in the game. Um, so, yeah, it was a fun overall was fun, fun writing process. I loved it. The hardest part was coming back to civilization and dealing with other people. Uh huh. The process of on your heart out can be grueling. It could be exhilarating. That's sort of I feel like what you just walked us through. You got the full tour of your emotions and reconciliation and was there anything that you didn't get that you wanted to? Well, to go back to the craft and intuition I went in. It was a craftsman. I went in thinking, Oh, I know that this is gonna be This could be a really academic book is gonna be almost thought it was gonna be almost more like self help advice. Thank you for being tactical. And I love politics. I love precision as we were talking about earlier. But then the intuition is what revealed itself, and it became Mawr poet. It became a poem rather than an academic tool. And so I didn't get what I initially went in thinking I was gonna get and wanted to get, Um but I came out with something that something that feels a little more magical and even more true and mawr relatable to ignorant experience. Well, that's the trust part, right? You trusted that you're gonna come back to something And sure enough, that repetition that learning to trust yourself over and over If you if you didn't trust yourself, you probably still be writing is trying be writing that technical, You know that how to book trying to, you know, the old square peg in a round hole and and and And I remember it hitting me early on gun just and my my wife gave me great advice When I left. She was like, remember when you leave, she was like, Don't come in. Don't don't come back, do you? Don't even need to call me. Have a drink at 6 a.m. If you want one. Your rules need to be absolutely no rules. Well, when you're you know, someone you care about love gives you that amount of freedom. Yeah, well, then every damn night at six o'clock, I climbed up on top of the mountain to get cell reception to call home when she stared. Go ahead and have a drink at 6 a.m. Then I would go days and not have a sip of anything because I was writing, you know, it was full open to do. And I s I put away all the clock. I don't know what time it was. I didn't give myself any measurement of day night meals. I said, Do you just do what you want when you want, You eat when you want, you drink. You sleep when you want you right when you want. And it turned out to be the writing was the champion and I was averaging 17 hours a day, and the hardest part was saying, Hey, we gotta get a little sleep here. You got to get a little bit of sleep here. And what a awesome you know, challenge toe have if you're going to go away and work on something is the challenge of saying, Hey, I've got to set it down for a minute because I got to get some rest Having um, Camilla in your life makes me want to ask a question that that the support that you just felt from her And, um, you know the phrase you're the five people you spend the most time. How important has that been in your life and successes and the failures? Um, you know, how do you choose who to spend your time with And, you know, the the book for against those who haven't I highly I so many energy stories family and parents and brothers, piers and agents and that we're really powerful. And I'm wondering how intentionally you've been with ups or Anderson. I think I've been very intentional. Um, look, I've got three kids and a family when you know when that happened. The first thing that goes is some of the friends don't have time. Thio, go right now. Hey, chase, when I goto Mali, tomorrow is put on a backpack. Let's go. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't happen. So, you know, the first few years after have a first child, the friends are still calling. Hey, meet me down from something like e can I'm I'm running around. We're doing homework, but gets the bed. And tomorrow morning, I gotta go to soccer Deal at 6 a.m. No eso They start to understand. Um, I understand that, um, you know, my favorite friends. I have a lot of male friends and what we do, and I love talking to him about it. We either get together in person or well, sometimes what conference call or I really enjoy one on ones with him. And we talk about my favorite subject how to be better people, how to be better men, how to be better fathers, how to be better husband, how to be true or artist. Um and I like hearing from I like engaging with my male friends about those things and people that have succeeded in their own right that don't need anything for me. They're doing their own thing. They were They were just fine before May and Luckily, I was doing all right before I met them. Um, you know, and then there is immediate family, which is the non negotiable thing in my life. And what's beautiful about that is, you know, meeting Camilla and then us getting married. It was the first time when I was like, Oh, okay, so if we fall down in the relationship now, you get up. It's not the sign of Oh, Thistle is the sign of the end coming. You know what I mean? In previous relationships, something goes wrong. You stumble. You're like, Oh, this is a sign. Here we go. It's gonna be broken. But now with with her for who she is in my life and also through the bond of marriage is like you stumble, you get back up, It's not over. And before that, I used to, you know, feel that Oh, you stumble Well, it's This is the sign of all the way to it ending. And a lot of times it was true. Um so to have that security now also that my family and having Children immediately became number one, which put career or my art in number number in the second spot. So Skerry again, Let's go back to trust. Oh, shit, it's number two. I'm not gonna be is good at it. I'm not gonna be is true at it. But actually, I became much more true at it and much more A better communicator through my art when it became number 21 because my work ethic was already good. I mean, you can't tell everyone Make it number two because some people just go Well, okay, I don't even do anything. My work ethic was already there. I was already, you know, on it, chasing it, prepared, Did the work seeked it all the time, But because it became number two, there's pressure came off of it. It's sort of it opened up the lid on on it and gave it to become taken more risks. Got more courage, because if that fails, I know it's not the end of me. I got my non negotiable thing a family that I'm taking care of them that's in good spot. And I don't have to look over my proverbial shoulder when I go onto the set or go away to write or whatever, Then I'm just ferocious at those times when I'm working or when I'm creating because of that security I have of that non negotiable aspect of my life, which is my family more ferocious than they used to be before. Well, the risk risk is an interesting topic. It's something I may have got some notes here that I made when I was reading. And there's a point in the book. I think that you're, like, dry on additions for like, six months. And I think it was asked you after you've had some success and you know, it's classic like sophomore slump. Probably right. You have some success. And I think if I'm remembering it correctly, you attribute that dry spell to not taking the same risks that you did early on. Almost when it was that sort of like that neophyte don't have the skills. What did I say earlier? Uh, like just blissful simplicity. And then you start getting your head sort of the functional complexity kicks in. So what did you realize that risk was? You know, when you when you acknowledge that you were dry because you weren't doing the stuff that got you the gigs in the first place did it was it Immediately you shift gears and start even the things that made Matthew Matthew Or how did you approach that? No, I actually became the arrogant prick I was talking about earlier. Instead, Like I'm going to change this. I'm going. I'm going to go another way. And it was very awkward move. But again, it was one of those arrogant prick moves that put me in the game to absolutely embarrassed. That's not out of myself. Which then woke me up to go. Oh, okay. Now I get it. I'll tell you this story because it's a funny one. Um, there was about six months where I now become a little conscious of what I was doing now hopping out on the Jumbotron in the third eye and and the third person having to look at myself where before everything was just subjective. I'm gonna press record. I've got natural ability. You want to be in the scene? Yeah. Come be in this scene. There's no lines written. I don't care. Well, all of a sudden, I get a little conscious of what I'm doing. And there's that we talked about that period where you get a little heady. It takes a while. You kind of stumble around before it gets to your instinct. Well, I was gonna audition to get first callback, second callback, but not the third. I don't get caught. It was going on hanging. Every time you're leaving these auditions, you're driving down the road going, Dammit! You were tight. You only gave 90%. You didn't. You didn't. You had the moment, you contextualize the moment you should have done it. And I said, also, I get this blind offer on a job. This movie cut Scorpion Spring. It's independent movie. I'm supposed to come in for one day's work. Hey, right. The byline. There's this drug drug runner on the South Texas border. The coyotes air coming over with this. With this cocaine, you're supposed to pay them for it. But instead of paying them for it, you you know, you shoot him dead and steal the cocaine and steal it and come across El Dorado is my name. Okay, so I get this bright idea. It's very arrogant. Bright idea. Hey, man, you got to go back to how you did in the beginning. Today's confused when you don't know what you were doing, and you have the instincts for it. And you had three lines, but you work for three weeks. You just knew your man. You just acted like your man. Forget lines. Forget what the scenes about, you know, and so I say, bright idea. Matthew, I'm not even going to read this script. I'm not even going to read the scene that I'm in. I'm gonna know my man, that man El Rojo, who does that? What would that man do? And that's what I'll do. That's what I'll say to get what I want. So e on set that day, I've gotten a leather jacket on. I got a cowboy hat on. I got some greasy jeans. I mean row, I know what I want This I wanted to cocaine, and I killed them to get it done by whatever means, I don't care what they dio. I'll just do what I need to do to do that, to get away with that. So I'm standing on my mark about to shoot the scene which I have not looked at, and the one of the P A s comes back and goes, Mr McConnell, would you like to besides, inside of that little small version of what scene is? And I guess I'm feeling starting to feel anxious and maybe a little insecure in my plan because I said, yeah, let me have a look at those. So on my mark get the same in my mind. I'm telling myself, Well, you can have a look at the scene, right? Because if it's written, well, obviously that's what you say, and we're going to say anyway. And if it's not written, well, just say what you would say and just being your man, but have a little peek. I look here on page one. Mm mm. Page two, Page three, page four. Um, can I get a Can I get 12 minutes now? Why did I think I needed 12 minutes? Because there's a four page monologue by a raw in Spanish. Uh huh. Eso Let's be the sweat comes up on the back of my neck, and I remember, Can I get 12 minutes? Which in my mind, I remember very distinctly in my mind. That was like, Oh, not enough time to inconvenience the crew who was ready to shoot the scene but enough time to maybe learn four pages of monologue in Spanish because, hey, I took Spanish one semester in the 11th grade. Well, I was right on one of the accounts. It really didn't inconvenience the crew that much, but it was not enough time toe four ways in Spanish, and I came back and did the scene. I've never watched the movie too embarrassed to, but from that moment I went Oh, okay, okay, No, you have to prepare toe, have the freedom. You have to have conservative early to be liberal that you have to know your craft, understand it at every angle possible so you can come in and forget it all. And I started taking a lot more risk. That point lead to a meeting with Jill Sean Schumacher on a time to kill. I went in to meet him for another role. It's much smaller role in the movie, but before that meeting, I not only read the script and the scenes and every character movie, I read the book and was quite clear that what I wanted was the lead role of Jacob Ganz and went into that meeting looking for saying Wait for a moment toe. Let him know that, and we got in that meeting. I remember when I was smoking cigarettes. At the time I had to sleep this John Mellencamp T shirt on. I'm sitting back and we had just gone through all the reasons that I was right for this other role of Freddie Lee Cobb. The conversation. Sell us a second. Smoke a cigarette, I go. So who's playing the lead of Jacob Ganz? He goes, you know, I don't know. Who do you think should remember? I mean, gosh it And he goes, Wow, that's a great idea, but it's never gonna happen. You're kind of an unknown in the studio. Needs name that well, not to go through the story of how many things went my way. But I ended up getting a screen test for that and got the roll. But that was because of the embarrassment that I felt of sitting out there not knowing my scene and not knowing my man and my character on that film Scorpion Spring that I got so prepared for the next meeting and have been since that I come in majorly prepared so I can maybe pull off a little spot in the middle of a conversation and throw my name in the hat and have the confidence to go. No, I think I should. If I wouldn't have been prepared on that, he I was ready to answer any question Joel Schumacher would have had to me about the character of Jake Brigance. I was ready. I could have talked to him for 30 minutes about who Jake Brigance was Because I read the book because I read the script because I was came in loaded. Um, so that arrogant little ignorant move Okay, I won't read the script. I don't read the scene. I'll just do it. My man would do The clumsiness of that lesson is what spurred beyond to taken a lot more of the risk that I've taken since. And many of them have paid off. It clearly has been, Ah, it's worked for you. And another thing that emerges in the book um, that seems to have worked is the idea of the walkabout. Now we're I talked. Camilla gave you the sort of the green light to go away and do do the work that you need to do in this particular chapter, right? This particular book unintended. And yet if you look backwards, which is, as you said earlier, how we connect the dots. There have been many walkabouts. There was a walkabout ostensibly walk about in Australia. Uh, you, you know, Southeast Asia. These these walkabouts that have seemed to be like a fixture in your life, Like a drumbeat. Is that hiding or is that seeking? Is it? How important is it? And, uh, how important you think it is for? For all people. Is it just Matthew McConaughey air? Is it everybody? What's the role of the walk about it? Incredibly valuable for anybody. Look, not everybody, as we said earlier, can say Okay, I'm gonna throw the backpack 22 day walk about Peru or Molly or Southeast Asia. I get that. I still have to work today. Every day. Can I get a Knauer? Whether that's ah, breaking a sweat, whether that is starting the day off with myself to do a little inventory of what my day is and how I'm feeling, uh, and how I want to approach it. Um, going around and making sure that I'm good with Good morning to each child and my mother and my wife first. Before I go hop out of the bed and want to engage in my work, which I can't wait to do. Don't go check out all those things. So So if you if you if you if I'm, if I'm right with my family early, off to start the day before I goto work. I'm not coming out at lunch and they're going no high. Well, good morning, and all of a sudden that's the start of a little bit of attention, You know what I mean? So it's constant Jenkins, but those are I always is it hiding? Sure, it was a bit hiding, but I made sure to go. Look, I'm not a big fan of running away from anything until I know what I want to run to. I'm always going to it. What's the affirmative? I don't want to regress or step back unless it's something I'm going to and you know it's it's still when When people speak, it's like don't use the double negative. Just use use. Use the affirmative that affirms the opposite of the of the negative. Um so those were times for me where one was forced on me. Uh, the year in Australia I decide I want to go away. That that was crazy, by the way, all that. I'm crazy. It's straight up. You got to read the book. I mean, you go into a little, you go into a little bit, but I don't know how you weathered that man. I don't know. Sorry. It was a It was 1/4 winter. Yes, of insanity. Um, uh, and one that I'm quite sure I wouldn't be sitting here right now if I didn't have that year. But other ones were were conscious to me. I mean, I get famous in Hollywood over one weekend. That movie, a time to kill comes out. The world's a mirror to me. I'm not meeting strangers anymore. Everyone has a bio on me. Everyone said, Oh, I love you. I love you. I'm going. Wait a minute. I've said that the four people in my life Well, here's do any of these scripts. Wait a minute. Two days ago, you wouldn't let me do any of them, and I would have done all of them. If I could. I would have done any of them. Now you're saying yes, any of them. Give me some discernment here. Wait, what matters? But really what? E gotta get the hell out of Dodge. I gotta go hear myself think. And so, you know, fortunately, had a specific dream that kept recurring in my life. That gave me sort of the impetus to go. You gotta go chase that dream. And one of those was particularly to the Amazon in Peru. And I was looking I was looking for Ah Foge mundi. I was looking for a walkabout. You need to have a reason to chase it. And, you know, the 1st 12 days my in my experience, those walkabouts when I need them the 1st 12 days air. Absolute hell, I do not like my company cannot stand my thoughts. Um, I'm not present. I'm not sleeping well, I'm clumsy. I'm from, you know, talk about tripping yourself running downhill. Things couldn't be going well. I'm looking from creating resistance to feel, you know, and and bleeding at times, you know, so and then after about 12 days after, you know, each one of those has had a night, usually around a day 13 that I'll have a purge that I'll strip every talisman that I'm about, whether it's a you know, a family name or American ball cap or anything to do with any of this newfound fame or anything has to do with unoccupied ation. Forget artist. Forget actor What? Who? Let's crack it all down a child. I'm not even a man, not even sexuality. Break it down to my version. What's called Child of God, him mammal. Let's break it down to there, Buck naked, literally and proverbially and go okay. And guess what, Makana, You're the only son of a bitch I can't get rid of. You know I'm stuck with you. So we gotta figure this out. Let's shake hands on some things. Let's forgive ourselves for what we should forgive ourselves for, because you're being a little arrogant and how guilty your feeling about some things. Yeah, let's forgive you that. And let's say the buck stops here on some other shit. You let yourself get away with enough. Quit letting that slide. We're not going back into the world and reintegrating back of the world let herself slide on and all of a sudden, at that point. I wake up the next morning and I'm light as a feather And people around me who don't even speak the language are telling me La Luz la Luz, you are so light and all of a sudden, then the journey is the seeking. Then the journey is I'm finding out. We're seeing beauty seeing poetry in the world. My reaction with it, my relationships with people. Everything I sent to my wink comes back and then those journeys were beautiful. But they wouldn't have been that unless I went through the first days. I just knew that those times that I needed him that I that I that I needed to cut the chaff off, that the frequent had too much frequency going. And we have so much frequency coming at us today. How do we go? So we hear ourselves think in the middle of the noise. I mean, we can you know, we can't just all go well. I'm gonna go become a monk later. It's a it's a lovely idea, but it's quite a privileged one if you can pull it off, you know? So how do we How do we How do we? How do we find that in the daily dance? Um, you know, when times when I found myself kind of leaning into conversations or intruding or wanting to interrupt are already thinking about what my interests, someone's question or what? My take is on a certain topic. I'm like, Whoa, your your little your little your little fast board right now. Why are you raising its time? Kinda Let time come to you. Sit back. You know the times when I'm happiest and usually are those proverbial walkabouts or better daily maintenance of them in my daily life without having to go away for 20 days? 22 days is and I do this every day. It's a really good measure, Um, through the day, don't wear a watch, but just guess what time it is. And if when I'm when I know I need to take some time off whether that toe walkabout or daily maintenance or church on a Sunday is when I go, I 4 and it turns out to be 302 I'm going. Whoa! We better slow down, son. You're an hour and a half head of natural time. When I am I would say the happiest is when I go about just 4. and I looked at the clock and it's 4. 44. I'm sorry. No. 4. 48. I'm two minutes Like behind him. I'm just on the back like a like a good drummer in a rock and roll band just on the back side of the wave, just on the back side of the beat. That's when I'm like the most happy when I'm slightly behind time or I'm on it. I love being on time, but like being slightly behind it and feeling like that. So I'm like, That's right. Time is on my side. I'm gonna dancing with it. Don't be in a rush, Thio Race to the red light You know what I mean? Which happens so much racing to the red light, you get them Thio, I rush and I got here. And now what? Oh, why didn't I just enjoy the drive? Getting there? I would have got the same amount done, and actually I would have enjoyed the doing of it more. It's very insightful. There's an element that you're when you're talking about. It's sort of like coming home, you go away, whether it's on a walkabout or in our own mind, were being distracted by all the stuff you talked about it for the first few days. If you walk about and then you have come home, I also found there's a really there's a really interesting recurring theme. It seems like now that I know a little bit more in your life. But also in the book like You've Talked About Home is permanent or Texas, but it's also temporary, right? You already mentioned five or six locations around the world. Colorado. For a while I've had P o boxes, your airstream. I'm wondering what role home place for you. Yeah, good question. And one that I've thought a lot about and not thought a lot about, but noticed how I felt about it. And looking, looking back, um, my goal. My headline that I tried to achieve that I've noticed gives me great satisfaction or when I am happiest or most joyful or most myself in my life is when I'm home in the world. Yeah, the I write about one of the book I called, you know, give a place the justice it deserves I love the challenge, and it has proved to be one that that has been fulfilling and true to go. Any place you traveled to, even if it's on your own property or another side of that house or across the globe. If I can stay there until I go, uh, this could be me. This could be my existence. I could do this forever. Then and only then do I believe it's OK to leave. Because if it didn't get to that point, I didn't give the place or the person or the time the justice it truly deserved. Now it takes longer. Sometimes sometimes I can feel at home and 30 seconds someplace go, I got I could do this forever. Sometimes it breaks that 12 days I was talking about. Sometimes it takes 20 days and then only after it sometimes takes a month. Sometime. I'm still working on, you know, um, but to to to feel like a home Wherever I am in the world, the you know, I my identity, you know? Sure. Then that goes to what's gonna go from what's not negotiable and then goes into the permanence and impermanence of things. I mean, look, I did a film contact, and it was about the challenge of God and science, Belief in science And what I got from that talking with that Carl Sagan and being in that it was like, Oh, God's backyards! A lot bigger than I thought. So when I look at the I like to look a life in the world, we're living in the earth from the the proverbial Google map and go look, it's all just one big backyard and it's got puddles here in a little river here. Call him an ocean or whatever. It's all just a backyard, and there's different colors, and there's different things of it. Essentially, if you're there long enough, you end up seeing that all everyone really wants is something. Look forward to wake up in the morning, no matter what the socioeconomic scale is or what have you, and and they want a little community if they could get it. Um, so home was felt if I haven't felt at home everywhere, but there's places that I haven't felt at home that I still need to return to, because maybe it was me who I was at that time. that couldn't feel home there and couldn't give that place the justice. Because maybe I didn't. Wasn't respecting that place because I wasn't respecting myself enough at that time. And I need I want to return to him because I'm gonna go like I still have a bad taste. My mouth about that place now challenge that. That could be I don't wanna be foolish in looking for trouble, You know what I mean? I write in the book. I you know, I love kissing the fire and walking away whistling, but I don't wanna go. Always say this. It's okay to have a point to prove, but don't keep trying to prove a point. You know what I mean? We don't I'm not saying go to those places where you know you're in the devil's den and go. I can overcome this thing. I could make this beautiful and I could make this utopia. Now, hang on. This certain fights, we shouldn't just pick you know what I mean? Picking out ones that it really wasn't a downfall to be. There really wasn't a downside or debt wasn't bringing out the debit section and who I was, but maybe I just didn't see it. I didn't give it the justice it deserved. I still have some of those places to return to. But let me go back to this traveling those places like the going in the writing. As I said earlier, when I don't have to look over my shoulder because my wife has said Go, I've got everything handled here Don't go back to that allows me to feel at home if I didn't have the insurance of the non negotiable bond that my my wife and I have my family's taken care of. I'm not going to give the place the justice it deserves because I can't completely be there and be engaged in it. It's that it's so insightful, and I have to then grounded in roles like Ron Woodward like, Is that an escape? Is that go away or is that I go home? Is that a thing that you feel like you can connect with or you can go there, which is Yeah, it's like complete transformation for you, right? Like I don't know how much weight you lost, Um, but that was the role for which you won the Academy Award. That's a home. Let's go. That's coming home. I mean, you know, people all people say about the work that actors and do and I would say, could be true for any kind of art or they go, Oh, wow, you were able to so step outside of yourself and become someone else like No, no, no, no. When I've done maybe decent work or not so good work. That's what it was. It was other than I was objectifying the situation of the person or trying to imitate. But when we do really good work enough for me when I do the truest work No, I'm more me way Got everybody in us Each one of us has everybody in us. I looked like that seventies equalizer man. You just kind of fine tune. Well, I'm gonna turn up the HK's es the 500 because on the trouble side of this side of myself, and I'm gonna turn down the lower baselines because that side of myself maybe is not who this character is, not who this character is. So it's that character coming through. The vessel of me is the actor. But I'm just recalibrating my equalizer for that part in May. Um, you know, uh, Ron would if that was, you know, the perfectionist side of me. Let's turn that up. This guy was a clinical clinician. Decided me That's like Survivor, underdog. And what's the ultimate thing? The ultimate cost life. Oh, if I don't pull this off is a businessman. I die. Uh, so I'm not I'm not fighting not to die again. To use the affirmative instead of the negative. No. I'm going to fight to live, do whatever it takes by hook or by crook. No rules of the world are on that character. Uh, he's a He's a hustler, man. He's going to do whatever he can to stay alive like cheat, steal, and in the way and in the meantime, actually be doing an altruistic thing. But don't play the altruism don't play that It was a help. Don't play the guy. The guy was not a carry. The white flag. Everyone come marching behind me. We need rights for he wasn't that guy. He was trying to survive on his own. And through that selfishness, his humanity came out and there came the eye meets the week through his the more selfish I got with him, the more his humanity came out and he said, Oh, this guy was did great things for spoke for an active for a lot of people. Ah, lot of people with HIV at that time. And still so that's that's coming home. If I can get it to come home, that doesn't all. Sometimes it takes hard longer to get there. That was a character that was definitely coming home, and I understood him from the inside out. But you know, you want to get to set going, having done enough work to go. It's May. I am characters. May I am. It's so clear. That was an incredible, incredible role. I talked Thio at Jared Leto's Brendan. Um, he's been on the show and just watching you play that he's like, incredibly impressive and heartfelt in earnest. And I actually was struck with emotion, reading you, talking about that, playing that part and that your answer, they're just brought me a lot of joy again. Just that it was going on. Can I give you a great Leto story that that a larger context to of, uh, of a process please so and has to do with that being so much into the subjective e not even being conscious, Uh, that there's a that there's a you know, a goal line or a finish line. So Jared playing Ray on I don't really know Jared. I know he's got a band. I know he's an actor, but other than that, we show up. I'm Ron and we cross each other around the around the set on the first day and down there doing hair and makeup. You know, I'm pretty much rond him. I'm noticing. He's pretty much being Ray on 2 May he even started. I came in my trailer on Jared. You out that I don't know if I ever told you this, but your little secret that Reagan was a klepto. I know, because you still some of my shit out of my trailer like you still might. You still like a pack of matches the first day we met? And I think you still some other things from me. Thank you very much. Anyway, we go through days rehearsing and then shooting for 30 days. And we were around each other every day and met each. We were getting to know each other are Onley. Interaction was in those scenes as Ronald Reagan when we wrapped the final night and they went that to wrap. And I know for me my head was down. I was like, Okay, guys, I'll see you tomorrow. And they were like, No, that's like a film wrap. There's gnome or we're done. Oh, October and I went let, uh okay. And he goes, We kinda let you know I'm from Shreveport. Belong. You really did that, that that's the first time we met each other right there where we wrap Awesome. It was right when we yelled Cut at the on the on the set when it was a film wrap is when he and I first shook hands, looked at each other within through different eyes. And I said so I was going with the band and he's, you know, he found out he was raised just east where I was raised, and then that's when that's when we first kind of laughed and the only time and since we've been each other, you know, we've been each other. But for that, for all of that work a day from the time we met the time we finished, he was Ray on on. I was wrong, and that was awesome. How much fun to go that deep and to stay in that character. It's like, you know, we could go play dress up for Halloween on one night a year, But when you get to go do something like that and play character and being a great story where you like, you know, you're committed to the character and you're seeing the world through their eyes and they're there part of you for that amount of time. Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing that. I will. Uh, next time I see him, I will recount that for him. Or maybe he's listening. I like that. You call them out. Um, all right. I want toe steer us toward the end of our conversation here from and specifically, first of all, very bizarre thing, which is just absolute honest to God. Truth. So you're talking about in the book about coming back into L. A Listening to l A woman from the doors and hold on one second? I'm listening on final. I'm listening to this on vinyl when I'm reading that section of the book. It was crazy. It was crazy. Crazy. So that was beautiful synchronicity. But, you know, again, this is another part. I don't know if that's coming home when you were going to l. A. I probably didn't seem like coming home, but e wanna I wanna try and sort of wrap up the idea of reconcile ing with so many things because we're all constantly reconcile and your records, you're coming back to L. A. And then there's a part of the book where your reconcile ing the passing of your father and you know, there is this a term that emerges in the book that I have come to know a significant for you, and it's just keep living for name your foundation. Um, you talked about it in reconcile ing the passing of your father. Have a vision of it. Um, you know, getting back to L. A. So many times when you've come through the drought, the six month route, there's this, um it's almost I don't know if it's a redemption. So I'm wondering if you can help us understand what Just keep living means to you or Sorry. Just keep living you intentionally the g off if I'm not mistaken. No G on the end of living because life's a verb. Yeah. So my father passed away actually making love to my mother on Monday morning has a heart attack. I get that call. How impossible. No, nothing killed my father. Well, it turns out my mother cared, so he I rushed back. I just started days confused My very first film I ever started. I was five days in the working on it, which I want to bring this up. There is certain to me that my dad was alive. I think it to see it. But he was alive. His life overlapped me, starting something that became more than a hobby became a career that I have some honor and okay, because there were so many times in the past. But please give me the skateboard gear. I really wanna be a skateboarder. No, I didn't for summer. I quit. You know what I mean? But for him to be alive when I started something that became more than a hobby, I've honored. So he moves on and I go back. We have the Irish wake. We sit around the late night tears in the kitchen. Find out some of those things. What you find out in passing that, you know, the messenger was actually different than the message, you know, and those things can make you sad. Those things can make you pissed off. But ultimately, I What happened to me is I realized Oh, no, that's okay. He At least he was trying. He was want me to be a little bit better than maybe than than he waas. Yeah, and I remember coming back to my family said, Look, you've got to get back, go back to work. It's what Dad would want you to do. You've been here for four days and mind you, this set of days abusive. Take as long as you want. But I drove back to from Houston to Austin Onda that night. We were on the set. I was on the football field. See, at the end of days, Confused and Richard Linklater, who had gotten to know a little bit now from working for a few weeks with him, were walking around the stadium and he knew my dad had just moved on, and he's a great listener and He's still a great friend and he said, We're just talking. He's letting me kinda aired out and just kind of came to me. I was like, You know what, man? I go, I think it's about living man, Because What do you mean? I go? Well, my dad's no longer physically here. He'll never physically be here, but things he taught me his spirit, the relationship I have with in the conversations that I've had with him that I could still keep having with him spiritually got to keep those alive. Just gotta keep living, man. And that planted for me. It came from somewhere else through me. And I said that actually threw it out in the scene that night. Um, in the movie. And since then, though, I've not found anywhere that the just keep living choice was not the best one toe have. I have not found anywhere where it didn't apply. Um, you know, it could mean different things to different people in every situation. To the agora phobic man. You can go ahead, walk out to the curb, get the mail, just keep living, man. Go ahead, take a little step further out there. to the absolute party, An extrovert that I was in high school. Just keep living actually meant no, actually, instead of going out party insider. Now let's go. Anybody builders house and watch a movie. Whoa, Really? So it could mean different things. And I bring it up the book about dirt, roads and autobahns. You know, for someone who's on the on the on the auto bond, all their all their life, the road less traveled to just keep living choice. Maybe to go take the dirt road. Well, if you're gore phobic or the person who's on the dirt road all the time, maybe you're just keep living choice. Your road less traveled. We go ahead. Go to, uh, go with the male or go to the grocery store or the independent film nerd may need to go check out a blockbuster from time to time just to have a look. See, a blockbuster person may need to go check out an Eisenstein film, you know what I mean? So it's, um, it literally it means make the life affirming choice. Um, but I'm also a believer in what is that quality of the choice has to come because I do not believe that the life affirming choice for me means Oh, what's the quantity? The most amount. The house is the best. Just keep living choices. Not necessarily to one who lives the longest. I'm not really numbers. And like, Oh, I made it this far. This sort of infatuation that we have with Mawr and longer, better I don't I don't quite buy it. I don't purchase it. Um, but what is the qualitative choice? What is in the hints comes out of the title of green lights. You know, we they just keep living choices. Not every green light, because a lot of green lights out there. Battery power. They'll get you off right now, but they're going to demand go out in a week. So what are the solar powered green lights we can choose? That's the just living choice. The ones that are gonna shine on for the rest of our future. Be kind to our future Selves and maybe hopefully keep shouting after we're gone. The things we can leave for our kids or for the next generations that's just keep living that's keeping things alive. That's there's a way, you know, there's There's so much life is is a living being or even relationships are impermanent physically but spiritually they and what are those? Yeah. What were those lights in our life that we can have an exit or solar power that we can leave behind? Not shadows, but rays of rays of light that you go Uh huh. Those were just those Those were still living It's a verb. It's not a noun. Life is a verb. Architectures of verb We are in constant architecture and construction Every day we do not reach the toddle moment. We do not get the spot we go I got it figured out. Be bullshit, you dio I just keep living choice for me is how can I be personally as a man, as a person? A little bit Maybe gonna be a little bit better every day I think humans Aaron aspiration Individually, I think America is an aspiration. We're all chasing yet and we never getting there. And if we could just go Oh, what's really cool is that we get to keep chasing. We get to get in the race if they committed to the chase and that's as good as it gets. Oh, awesome, because that means it's never over. It's continually alive. It will always live. Just keep living. It's just a fantastic, um, truly is heartfelt and insightful and simple. Those were, you know, goes back to that mastery is when things become simple again. And, uh, I want to thank you for taking that time. Thank Camilla for letting you take that time you come up with is a fantastic metaphor. Um, we're talking about life, but of course, after overtly recommend your book toe, anyone who's listening or watching it's really something. It's different than any memoir I've ever read, and I want to give you, Ah, artists, artists, just a debt of gratitude for writing. And I think it's gonna affect a lot of people. It's been a very last question. Is you started this journey off by telling your father that you didn't want to be a lawyer, and right now there are so many people who are doing something they won't put on the planet to do when they're doing it for someone else. And so leave listeners and watchers with bit of advice on how to how to take that step. That they now they know they should be taking, but they're not. Okay, well, first off, I want to preface. This was saying, Look, I think if everybody did on Lee what they love to do, the unemployment rate will be sky high. Good. There. Now. Okay. But as far as finding those things that are that we do love to do. And I do believe you could learn to love something, you could be good at something and actually learn to love it. Because the act of being good at something and doing it becoming better we could learn to love that I have in certain aspects of my life. But as faras, I want to be a lawyer. But now it wasn't sleeping with that chase my bliss, and who was more truly myself became a storyteller and doing what I'm doing today. If we can, early on the earlier we can say we can define and understand our innate abilities, we're gonna find those. Those aren't easy to find. But we can define our innate ability. Then say Okay, Do I have a means to educate and work my back my tail off to evolve that innate ability And can it be something in this capitalist society that I can supply that will be in demand? Because I need to pay my rent? That's the you know, if you condone biology video, if you can match your innate abilities with something you're willing and have the opportunity to work for to create a product, whether it's a piece of matter or ourselves were spoken word that is in demand. If you want to make a living to him, that's the spot spoken. Thanks again. So much for being on this show, man. I really appreciate your time and congratulations. Uh, storied career, Um, in particular your most recent piece of art. Your book, Green lights. Um, thanks for being on this show, but I got a lot more. I wanna talk to you about what we have todo We'll play that. No, no, no, no, no. A. It was awesome. Thanks so much again for being so friendly. Who's listening watching, uh, stay tuned for another episode. Please give a shout out to Matthew out on social. Let him know that you heard this show right? Reviews do what you can to support him. He's, uh, obviously needs no introduction, but I'm sure if his book continue to do well, it would make him happy. And I know it would bring a lot of joy and insight to so many people who read it. So lets help spread the word and signing off until the next time again. Thanks again, Matthew, for being the show. Appreciate it. But absolute enjoy chase until next.