Matthew McConaughey on His Acting Return and the Legacy of ‘True Detective’

Matthew McConaughey has spoken about his return to acting and his thoughts on the legacy of True Detective, the HBO anthology series that helped redefine his career. Speaking with Variety, the actor reflected on his role in the first season and his decision to step back into the spotlight after a six-year hiatus.

McConaughey described True Detective Season 1 as an unmatched television experience. “My favorite season—and I feel like I can say this objectively—is Season 1,” he said. “I happen to be in that one, so I thought that was incredible television and a great series. I watched it weekly, like everyone else, on Sunday night, and that was an event for me. And I got to sit back and enjoy that. I loved the water cooler talk on Monday morning. Even though I made it, I sort of forgot what was going to happen next. It was one of the great events in TV.”

Since its 2014 debut, True Detective has continued with three more seasons, with the most recent, True Detective: North Country, starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis. McConaughey confirmed he had watched it, offering measured praise: “I watched, I saw it. Yeah, there’s a lot about it that I appreciated.”

McConaughey also linked his performance in True Detective to the momentum behind his Dallas Buyers Club Oscar campaign, believing that the show played a role in his win for Best Actor. “During the Dallas Buyers Club run, I had True Detective in your living room every week. To talk about this freely, True Detective was the best campaigner for Dallas Buyers Club there was,” he said.

Beyond revisiting past work, McConaughey is making headlines for his return to acting with The Rivals of Amziah King, which premiered at SXSW. The film, directed by Andrew Patterson, follows a honey operation owner in Oklahoma and his foster child. Patterson had originally developed the project as a mini-series before reworking it into a feature-length film, and he always envisioned McConaughey in the lead role.

“It’s not where I grew up, but I know of these kind of people and these places and these kinds of characters that live in the middle of the country,” McConaughey said. “This group of people in southeast Oklahoma where the film takes place know the Constitution, they know the rules they are living by, and they’re not looking for or getting approval from the rest of the world. I understand them.”

Reflecting on his return to set, McConaughey admitted to feeling some nerves on the first day. His right eye swollen from a bee sting, he walked onto the set and asked the crew, “Is anybody else nervous except for me?” After a brief pause, he reassured them with his signature charm: “Alright, alright, alright, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one.”

McConaughey credited his time away from acting with giving him a fresh perspective. “I remembered a couple of things: One, how much I truly enjoy performing. Two, I remembered, hey, McConaughey, you’re pretty damn good at this. And three, I remembered that acting is a vacation for me, and what I mean by vacation is that when I’m performing, it’s my singular focus,” he said. “When I walk out the door in the morning, my wife says, ‘Go kick some ass. I got the kiddos. We’re good.’ That’s vacation. Because I’m not multitasking. I’m not compartmentalizing. I’m fully focused on finding the truth of my character.”

For director Patterson, casting McConaughey was an easy decision. “I wanted an actor with the type of personality where he could just hang out with them for hours,” he said. “It had to be somebody so disarming, who would just do their thing inside this world I was trying to evoke, and who could be comedic in a dramatic movie. There aren’t many people like that.”

The film also introduces Angelina LookingGlass, who plays Kateri, Amziah’s long-lost foster daughter. She was selected after an extensive nationwide search, with more than 200 Indigenous actors auditioning for the role. “Angelina had the most infectious smile, but she can turn it on a dime and just stare a hole through a person,” Patterson said. “We knew the second she read with Matthew that the part was hers.”

McConaughey was equally impressed with his co-star. “She only knows how to do what so many of us actors forget to do when we learn to quote, unquote, act, which is listen and respond honestly to the truth of a situation,” he said. “That’s it. That’s the secret. An actor doesn’t want to get caught acting. Every actor worth their salt knows what I’m talking about.”

McConaughey believes that stepping away from acting to write his memoir, Greenlights, improved his craft. “The memoir was extremely honest and it forced me to be honest with myself,” he said. “It cleared up things you’ve been thinking about for 35 years. And it makes you realize that’s kind of who you are, Matthew. Let’s admit that and shake hands. Bravo. That gave me even more trust in myself, because, you know, there was less to maybe hide about myself. I had shared it. So that’s made it easier for me to be honest as an actor.”

Tags: Matthew McConaughey True Detective