Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey are treating their new Apple TV comedy the same way they’ve treated three decades of friendship: with a running joke about whether they’re secretly related.
The pair sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to unpack their Emmys stint and the premiere of “Brothers,” an eight-episode series built around a real rumor that has followed them since McConaughey’s mother suggested she knew Harrelson’s father around the time McConaughey was conceived. Both actors play fictionalized versions of themselves in the show, created by McConaughey and Harrelson with David West Read and showrunner Lee Eisenberg. Holland Taylor plays McConaughey’s mother, and the actors’ own wives and children were recast for the production.
At the Emmys earlier this month, Harrelson interrupted the ceremony to stand alongside McConaughey after winning his second statuette, for “Widow’s Bay,” turning what could have been a routine acceptance into a bit that doubled as a preview of the new show. Asked whether they had already discussed a second season, Harrelson said he hadn’t given it a thought and doubted McConaughey had either, adding that another season would depend on how audiences respond to the first.
McConaughey needled him back, comparing the idea of planning a follow-up season before the debut had aired to writing an acceptance speech before winning the award, a jab that led into a back-and-forth over whether McConaughey had prepared remarks in advance of his 2014 Oscar win for “Dallas Buyers Club.” He insisted he hadn’t.
Eisenberg, who took over as showrunner after the project paused production in mid-2025, has said he goes back and forth on whether he believes the half-brother theory himself, noting that childhood photos of the two men look uncannily alike. Harrelson has said he wants the actors to settle the question with a DNA test, but McConaughey has so far declined, joking that he’ll probably come around to it eventually.
“Brothers” premiered Tuesday on Apple TV, arriving more than three years after the streamer first ordered the series in 2023, when Apple TV still carried a “+” in its name and the studio behind the show operated under a different corporate banner.
