(Los Angeles) “I’m not … until I am”: fagot of romantic comedies “made-in Hollywood” turned Oscar-winning and respected actor, the elusive Matthew McConaughey could well run for the post of governor of Texas, megaphone of the “outlaws”.
“It’s a possible path,” McConaughey said in an interview with AFP from his home in Austin.
The release of his autobiography Greenlights (Threshold) in France, urges him to lend himself to a media exercise that he likes. Which is good given the many lives he seems to have lived, at the age of 52, before perhaps leading a new, political one, at the antipodes of his artistic career.
McConaughey describes himself as “aggressively centrist”. “Not because it is the place of the great compromise, but because it is the place where it is necessary to be in relation to the left and the right. It is a daring niche, that of the outlaws. ”
Outlaw, the actor, who embodies an endearing in Mud, was actually arrested when the police arrested him for disturbing the peace and possession of drugs, while he was playing the naked bongo. One of the delicious anecdotes swarming in his book, where we also learn, that at the height of his glory, he momentarily fled Los Angeles to hike in the Amazon under ecstasy.
McConaughey has never hesitated to think outside the box. Even if it means putting his career in jeopardy when in 2008, the star of How To Lose A Guy in 10 days said stop to those romantic comedies that “emasculated” him.
“How to be useful? ”
“I wanted to get out. These films are made to be light, with Saturday afternoon characters. With my wife Camilla, we had just had our first child. My dream was to be a father. My life was taking on a deep meaning. My Saturday afternoons became Monday mornings, ”he explains.
McConaughey wants to win in dramatic films, his determination is unwavering. “I stuck to it, knowing the industry was like, ‘What the hell is it doing? ”. I made a hell of a bet. ”
For almost two years, it no longer turns. “I was starting to think I had made a one-way ticket out of Hollywood. My agent told me every week, “your name is no longer circulating”. ”
The comeback is spectacular with Magic mike in which he can finally ironize his plastic, a few memorable minutes in The wolf of Wall Street, an Oscar-winning performance for Dallas Buyers Club evoking AIDS, others equally impressive in Interstellar or in the series True Detective.
McConaughey actor is now taken seriously. But, never where expected, the one who is the pride of the city of Austin, Texas, could this time land a new role in the political life of his state.
“This is something to which I attach great importance,” insists the one whose foundation “Just Keep Livin” helps young high school students in difficulty. “Where, how can I be most useful? I am not afraid to take risks. But I really need to answer that question, ”says McConaughey, who has until December 13 to apply.
A prospect that packs some left circles, at odds with the current Republican governor Greg Abbott, whose very restrictive law against abortion is being challenged in the Supreme Court of the United States. A recent University of Texas poll suggests that McConaughey would fare better against Abbott than his potential Democratic opponent, Beto O’Rourke.
Assaulted at 18
“More than politics, I became interested in justice at a younger age”, underlines the one who reveals in Greenlights, literary object mixing memories and philosophy of life, having been sexually assaulted at 18, by a man, while he was “unconscious in the back of a van”.
“I speak about it briefly, on purpose. If I had told the whole story, it would have made the headlines. I did not victimize myself in relation to that, ”he eludes.
McConaughey doesn’t like to watch his films again. Corn Rebel generation who revealed it in 1993 is the one who makes him the most proud, because “if I did not know what I was doing, I had instincts which were right”.
His character of Wooderson in this film became cult thanks to the soliloquy: “Alright, alright, alright”. “It’s a little mysterious, because I’m off-screen when I say that. But it made him cool. I try to find musicality in each of my characters. The same goes for slapping on the chest (while humming) in the Wolf of Wall Street. I was doing relaxation before the take. Leonardo DiCaprio said to me “what if you do that in the scene? ”. Martin Scorsese was happy. ”
While filming, McConaughey feels “at liberty, as if I were on my favorite desert island”. But as soon as it is over, “it’s the great void”. “I still get the flu right after that. It is very emotionally trying. My relatives know that I will be fragile. Then slowly I get up. It’s Matthew McConaughey the father, the husband, at home… ”
And who is launching a campaign?