Stillness is not his style. Crammed into an armchair in an austere London hotel room, Matthew McConaughey’s lengthy legs are experiencing a parallel jive-related existence underneath the coffee table. “Anywhere, anytime is a good time to dance,” he opines. “It’s the second form, after making love, of exercise. It’s the original form of celebration. And everyone can do their own dance. You can tap yourself on the head for five straight minutes and that’s your dance if that’s what you hear.” It’s a rare moment of enthusiasm from the 30-year-old Texan, who appears to be saving his sunny-side-up for a rainier day than this one.
The McConaughey effect has been slow burning as a mosquito coil. It is four years since his performance as a campaigning lawyer in Joel Schumacher’s A Time to Kill propelled him onto the cover of four magazines, including Vanity Fair, within a single month in 1996. But subsequent ill-aligned castings in Amistad and Contact did not serve to secure his footing as young pretender, while his homely hedonism signalled neither edge nor ease cleanly enough. The twinkly precision he displayed in Ron Howard’s EDtv, as an every-bloke who stars in the access-all-hours show of his life, was unluckily adrift in the aftermath of The Truman Show.
The “new Newman” sobriquet may be ragged at the toes, but there remains a suspicion that McConaughey’s vivid and instinctual star quality could yet ignite Hollywood’s fickle tinder. Meanwhile, the man whose “innate integrity and elegance” so impressed Schumacher, remains keenly philosophical on the dynamic nexus between chance and self-determination.
“I think if you rely on Fate, it bites you in the butt. If you blow in the wind, you’re going to get dropped in the gutter. But responsibility is when you create your own weather. Whether it’s the people you hang out with, the places you choose to go, the things you choose to do, you have to be responsible to it, and the more responsible you are, the more Lady Luck, she shines on you. It’s circular. It keeps coming back and regurgitates.”
McConaughey’s latest screen offering is the hot oil and deep water U-571. Heavy on incidental orchestrals and light on historical exactitude, it tells the ripping yarn of a daring US navy mission during the second world war to capture a secret Nazi coding device from a German U-boat. McConaughey plays an ambitious but compassionate officer who, following the demise of his captain, discovers that commanding his depleted crew demands tough decisions and tougher to deliver dialogue. And it reminds the viewer why there are so few great submarine movies.
He is certainly at one with the masculine imperative of the role. “I liked being the guy who took action; I was happy to see the dexterity of Andrew Tyler, to give an order here, receive information here, while doing this job there. I liked the dance.” His character was the kind of leader he would like to be. “I’ve been asked a lot whether I would want to serve my country. For the right reason, the right cause, it would be an honour. And, yes, I would like to be the one in command.
“I think that I’m equipped as well as anyone. I trust myself to make the right decision at a time like that, objectively. I’m not a tyrant, I’m not follyful, I think I’m very fair-minded, and I’m not the guy who will lock up under pressure,” he expounds, with the amiable certainty of a 16-year-old on a Sega. He is blurry on the question of historical accuracy. U-571 would appear to be based upon the first capture of an Enigma machine at sea by the British Navy, six months before America entered the war, and the film includes a mollifying dedication to “all the Allied sailors who captured Enigma machines”.
But there is only a responsibility to historical truths if a film presents itself as a biography or documentary, he argues. “A lot of people go to films for the legitimate reason of escaping somewhere. We’re storytellers, they’re yarns.”
McConaughey is, for all intents and purposes, a babe; though it is hard to fathom in his present begrudging slump. His perfectly pumped muscle groups seem to be in the right order, as a forlorn flower wilts atop his jacket pocket like a forgotten friend. The blond curls are slicked into submission, and his eyes wash over one with all the engagement and urgency of day-old bath water getting past a drain blockage. His soft, low drawl, at least, is charming.
He admits to being “pretty ambitious”. Whether U-571 will augment his possibilities remains moot, but it has taken more in its first week in the US than EDtv made throughout its release. One cultivates an indifference for the box office, he says. “I learnt that lesson with EDtv – that movie was backed, marketed, had all kinds of money on it, and it just bombed. I thought we had a home run. On the opening weekend of U-571, I’d done everything I could, I was happy that people agreed, but it didn’t improve the quality of my day.”
He is equivocal about the notion of passion for acting. “Would I survive without it? Sure. Is it my end all? No. But it is my vocation, my occupation, it’s what I grow through, and where I experiment. To what extent I’m giving back to the world through it I don’t know, but it’s my avenue of communication.” His favourite art, he adds, is the art of living.
He’s currently working on several projects of his own, including a biopic of his childhood hero, Evel Knievel. But rather poignantly, his first movie – the 70s-set high school stoner romp Dazed and Confused, which he made in 1993 – remains his favourite. “There’s nothing like the first time,” he says wistfully, “and I learned it the right way. I worked with great people, learnt to improvise. It was so pure, and really innocent. It worked.”
Meanwhile, one might hazard that he’ll keep on moving any which way he can, though probably with curtains shut. McConaughey was arrested last year while playing the bongos naked in his living room, and spent the night in police custody, although all charges, including that of possession of marijuana, were subsequently dropped.
He continues to play the bongos, both clothed and unclothed, and enjoys any music with bass and percussion. “I play my stomach and chest a lot. Depending on how much air I leave in my stomach and how high I go on my chest it makes four different drums.” (No, he won’t do it to order, although he does offer a weedy whistle instead.) He is ambivalent about cannabis legalisation. “It’s been proven to be harmless if used responsibly. But I’ve seen people smoke themselves into such complacency. You’ve got to do something with your day.”
As he talks, he is fiddling with what at first glance looks like an unravelled tampon. But as he is about to insist that his strength as an actor lies in “the ability to be the man’s man” one must charitably assume it’s something for cleaning guns. He is from the south after all.
The youngest of three brothers, McConaughey was raised on Methodism and manners in Uvalde, Texas. He originally went to the state university in Austin to study law, before switching to film studies after a year. He continues to reside there and, though mildly wary of the good ole boy persona, his truths are so homespun one can still see the thumbprints.
“I get asked, so are you a cowboy? Well, yeah, I’m a cowboy. I don’t wear boots or a cowboy hat, but I hop in my car and go on cross-country road trips with myself all the time.”
Spontaneity remains paramount. “I’m the guy who may give you a better present on Tuesday than on your birthday. I don’t like being programmed. If I see something that reminds me of you, I’m gonna get it and give it to you tomorrow. It reminds me of that Willie Nelson lyric, ‘I’d rather give you a puppy than diamonds and gold’.” A good reason to leave town on a Monday night, then.
U-571 opens this Friday. Look out for Shaun de Waal’s review in ZA@Play on Friday.