The Appeal of Playing a Guy Who Lives with His Parents: “Well, I’ll say this. It was very important to me that we didn’t set up the whole reason that the parents want him out of the house, it was very important that that wasn’t set up on because they don’t like him there, because he’s a pain in the butt, because he’s a slacker, because he doesn’t contribute. It’s very important that he has a great relationship with his parents and he’s a good son. It’s very important that he has a great relationship with his two friends and he’s a great friend to them. He’s a good dude, but if you asked him, like he says, ‘Yeah, I’m at home. Rent’s paid, mom cooks, clothes are folded. Why screw this deal up?’ Very simply, that makes sense.”
McConaughey said one of the attractions to this project was that the character was not just some stereotypical guy who freeloads off his mom and dad. “I mean, it still plays into the phenomenon that’s happening now of kids older staying at home. But also in the writing, in the original script, the guy was given a reason, one of his reasons - it’s not what this story’s about - but one of the reasons he’s still home is he had a fiancee, he had a woman he loved that left this life. So that’s still the love in his heart. That’s why he hasn’t gone out in the last 15 years and made himself available, which is what he does do by the end of the film.
He says, ‘All right, I’m going to give it a shot. I like you, you like me, two’s better than one. Let’s give it a shot.’ Now if you do a story about that, that’s a heavy drama. I know people like that who have lost either their first and only wife or their first love and still haven’t gotten over it. This is not the story about that, but this is one of the things that was put in the story that I was like, ‘That’s dignified why this guy lives the way he does.’”
McConaughey believes there are many different reasons men – and women – are opting to not move out and instead stay with their parents up into their twenties. “Some I’ve met it’s for economics. In some cultures it’s just out of respect. Like in some Latin cultures you stay at home with mom and dad until you get married – and even some after you get married. You live at home with your wife. I know other people who moved out but as soon as they got married and moved into their own home, they moved next door.
Those things are fine. I don’t think it’s about right or wrong. It’s different for different people. Two weeks out of high school I was on a plane to Australia for a year, so I was ready to go off and go test myself and put myself in an unknown place and work it out. Some of it’s economics and some of them like this guy, ‘Hey, I get along with them. They get along with me. Mom’s a great cook. I like my bed. Rent’s paid. What’s not to like?’ On a very simple level. He’s not an ambitious guy that’s going, ‘No, I’ve got to be this later on. I’m a boat broker. What do I dream of? Sailing around the world one day. But I haven’t quite got the boat built yet and I’m not in any rush.’”
Matthew McConaughey Balances Being a Man’s Man and a Dreamboat: Let’s face it. Women absolutely love Matthew McConaughey in romantic comedies. But McConaughey’s also built up a substantial masculine fan base with starring roles in action films and dramas. How does he manage to straddle the line and not alienate either sex with his role choices? McConaughey said, “That’s a good question because the romantic comedies I don’t like are ones that I go in - and some women will like them - but I’ll go in, I’ll go, ‘Oh, geez, man. I mean, you completely got castrated in the thing. You got de-masculated in the whole thing.’
A lot of these romantic comedies are set up to be some sort of war of the sexes. That’s the fun of them. So if you do that, I believe it needs to be really balanced. A lot of them are written where they’re not balanced, where the man is sort of the foil. He’s pulled left, pulled right, and kind of pushed in a direction and sent on his way by the girl in the romantic comedy. I think it’s funnier and more true if you can go in, be a guy’s guy, not that you take everything literally and completely seriously and everything’s hardcore walk the line, but give the guy some juevos. It’s funnier to me I think. And then it doesn’t alienate anyone that way. So if they’re going on a date, and it’s the girl’s choice, the guy’s hopefully going to go and go, ‘All right, man. I dug that.’ Not that he necessarily stood up for the men, but saw a guy doing that and playing that light side but still being a man about it.”
Page 2: Matthew McConaughey Balancing Romantic Comedies and Action Dramas
