Matthew McConaughey is known formHollywood, and apparently he comes by it honestly.
up about his upbringing on the video podcast Good Trouble with pro tennis player Nick Kyrgios. McConaughey famously grew up in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, but his father decided to move the family to Longview in hopes of benefiting from the oil boom.
“We were middle class. We got by, I think; it was tough. My dad was trying to keep from going even bankrupt at times,” McConaughey said. “But he went from truck driver to running a gas station to being a pipe salesman, and we started to roll a little bit.”
“Mama had a white Cadillac and a mink coat, you know what I mean?” McConaughey said, adding his parents also had a rebellious streak. “My mom was the school teacher who would actually come home and go, ‘Check it out, here’s the answers to the test.’ She’d be like, ‘This is a stupid curriculum. Don’t even read it; here they are.'”
“So they were good trouble?” Kyrgios asked.
“They were real good trouble, man. They were outlaws,” McConaughey agreed. “We were a resilient family.”
McConaughey has talked before about how his mom is a fan of experiential learning and applying lessons outside the classroom. The Wedding Planner actor has learned a few lessons on his own, like the need to say no to high-paying jobs if you want to stop being the “rom-com dude.” Moving from Malibu to Texas was another signal he was going to do things his own way.
“The devil’s in the infinite yeses, not the no’s,” McConaughey says on the podcast, for a moment sounding as philosophical as his old True Detective character. “Especially if you have some level of success and access, no becomes more important than yes.”