Yahoo Lifestyle Matthew McConaughey Said His 2000s Rom-Com Era Left Him Wanting To Quit Acting For Good
With an Oscar to his name, Matthew McConaughey has had quite the acting career. However, many still love him for his iconic romantic comedies.
After making his acting debut in the 1990s, Matthew spent the 2000s starring in an incredible run of rom-coms, including The Wedding Planner (2001) with Jennifer Lopez, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) with Kate Hudson, and Failure to Launch (2006) alongside Sarah Jessica Parker.
His roles in those movies brought him global fame and success. However, in a new interview, the 54-year-old revealed that period left him questioning whether he even wanted to act anymore.
“I’ve usually zigged when I felt like Hollywood wanted me to zag,” he said during a recent conversation with Glen Powell for Interview magazine. “When I had my rom-com years, there was only so much bandwidth I could give to those, and those were some solid hits for me. But I wanted to try some other stuff.”
Matthew said he was finding it hard to break away from the rom-com bubble, so he decided to “leave Hollywood for two years.”
While Matthew didn't specify exactly when this was, he did take a two-year break after the release of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Jennifer Garner in 2009.
Looking back, the dad-of-three described this as a “scary” time in his life. He even recalled having discussions with his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, about embarking on a whole new career path.
“I had long talks with my wife about needing to find a new vocation. ‘I think I’m going to teach high school classes. I think I’m going to study to be a conductor. I think I’m going to go be a wildlife guide,’” he remembered.
“I honestly thought, ‘I stepped out of Hollywood. I got out of my lane.’ The lane Hollywood said I should stay in, and Hollywood’s like, ‘Well, fuck you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane. Later.’ It was scary,” he added. “The days are long — the sense of insignificance. But I made up my mind that that’s what I needed to do, so I wasn’t going to pull the parachute and quit the mission I was on. But it was scary, because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of the desert.”
As we now know, Matthew eventually returned to Hollywood in 2011 and, after taking on more serious roles, embarked on a period known as “The McConaissance.”
Between 2011 and 2014, Matthew delivered a string of highly acclaimed performances in titles such as The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe, Mud, and Magic Mike. The era arguably peaked when he won an Oscar for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club in 2014 — the same year he starred in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and earned an Emmy nomination for HBO’s True Detective.
Last year, Matthew told Chelsea Handler that he personally coined the term “McConaissance” to help rebrand the new act of his career, comparing it to an “album cover” or “song title.”
“Oh jeez, it was some self-marketing,” he said, revealing that he made up the phrase on a red carpet in 2013 after a reporter suggested his new career era needed a name.
“Yeah, I was talking to this guy a minute ago and he actually called it the McConaissance,” Matthew recalled telling the reporter. “I threw it out there and he goes, ‘The McConaissance, I love that! You like that?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, sounds good, man.’ So I snuck it in there and the son of a bitch, it stuck. So I made that up.”
You can read Matthew and Glen’s full conversation for Interview magazine here.
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