McConaughey deserves every 'sexiest' man poll he's ever won, and no doubt the fact his Surfer, Dude wardrobe consists of just shorts will draw in the ladies. The film, directed by first-time feature film director Robb Bindler, follows McConaughey as a popular surfer who has to decide whether to remain true to his roots or sign on/sell out to an uptight corporate guy looking to use him for a cyber surf video game and as a participant on a surf-themed reality TV show.
Interview with Matthew McConaughey and Robb Bindler
You usually get a few scenes without a shirt in your movies, but in this one you never wear a shirt at all...
Matthew McConaughey: "Thank goodness."
Robb Bindler: "His tan is uneven and we wanted him to even out his tan."
Matthew McConaughey: "That was great fun and everything. Robb was going, 'You got to wear black and white shorts because it’s a callback to this guy Greg Noll, a surfer,' and the black and white shorts are sort of like Addingtons in prison, you know, in the drought of the summer. And I said, 'No shoes, man,' because the guy's connected to the earth. 'What about a shirt?' And Robb goes, 'How about this, man, no shirt the entire way.'"
Not even for the business meetings he attends.
Matthew McConaughey: "That's what was good; that's what's so funny. And this guy goes to the office, you know, he goes to the office and talks to the suits. Oh, it was great. To be able to make it and be able to play a surfer, one, that makes sense in that V-necks and the surfing don’t really work. But number two, shoot it in Malibu California during the summer. I was the easiest, most fun wardrobe I've ever had. So simple."
Robb Bindler: "And we had budget constraints."
Matthew McConaughey: "Budget constraints, and as a producer I have to be fiscally responsible so we pulled back on them. We had to watch every dime."
Robb Bindler: "We freed-up some money for goats, more goats."
Matthew McConaughey: "Me not wearing a t-shirt allowed us to have eight more goats."
That was quite a sacrifice.
Matthew McConaughey: "Production value."
I was wondering if those were your goats.
Matthew McConaughey: "I own about 20 of those goats, but the other 280, no. We had to call up certain friends and wranglers that had them around. He found this company Goats R Us who…"
Is that seriously the name of the company, Goats R Us?
Matthew McConaughey: "Really, Goats R Us who, they hire out their goats to come like clean and mow your field, so it’s a real deal. And they’ll eat anything – they’ll eat a tin can, they’ll eat a leaf, they even climb those trees. Did you know that?"
No.
Matthew McConaughey: "They actually, like in the poster, they climb trees."
Robb Bindler: "During droughts."
Matthew McConaughey: "If there's a drought, the last greenery is at the top of the tree, so they’ll climb a tree and eat limb to limb all the way to the top."
How does a goat climb a tree?
Matthew McConaughey: "We've got no idea, but they do it."
They have nothing to grab on with.
Robb Bindler: "They're very good climbers. They’ll climb on top of barns. They’ll climb everywhere. Especially in Madagascar."
Matthew McConaughey: "It’s true."
Robb Bindler: "Check it out. It's all fact."
How did the two of meet?
Matthew McConaughey: "We hooked up in 1985, where was it?"
Robb Bindler: "It was history of art class, high school."
And that was the beginning of the friendship?
Matthew McConaughey: "That was the beginning of the friendship. He was already doing a lot of writing and a big movie buff. I wasn't, and we became friends then and we started swapping out our weekends. On Friday night, he’d go out with me and we’d go party and on Saturday night I’d go to his place and we’d get some grub and then watch a movie. And so he started introducing me to films."
Why did it take so long for you to actually do a project together?
Matthew McConaughey: "He finally got a hold of something and had a hand in writing something that didn’t cost 40 million bucks, so we got something that was production-wise we could make it for six million bucks. So it became doable, really. We were looking for something for a while and we still have two of his scripts that he’s written that are just much higher budgets. And so it was tough to get, even at six million dollars, it was tough to get this one financed."
Really?
Matthew McConaughey: "Yes."
Robb Bindler: "It’s a different movie. It’s fun."
Matthew McConaughey: "You know, because it’s an alternative movie. It’s not mainstream Hollywood fare. It’s not what you would expect."
But you're a bankable star.
Matthew McConaughey: "Well that helped get us the six million. But still, even so you would think it would be maybe easy. It wasn’t at all, no."
And you had a short shooting schedule.
Matthew McConaughey: "28 days."
That's crazy.
Matthew McConaughey: "It was crazy."
Was that just because of budget constraints?
Matthew McConaughey: "That's budget, budget, budget. I mean if we had 40 days we could have used every one of them. But you go 28 days, you're running and gunning guerilla style. You don’t have any of the perks. On a 28 day shoot, when you show up on the set in the morning and after you get a scene you don’t go back to your trailer. Everyone stays there because we've got to turn around and get the camera moving. It was a lot like being on a film school, a student film almost."
