Matthew McConaughey’s Australian accent is terrible in new movie Sing

MATTHEW McConaughey has defended his role playing a koala in a new animated movie, despite his lack of accent.

Are you offended by this?

WITH so many Aussie actors dominating the big screen in Hollywood, casting Matthew McConaughey as the voice of one of Australia’s most beloved and iconic symbols — the koala — in the upcoming animated movie Sing, is a curious choice.

Some might even find it a little offensive.

Suggesting this to McConaughey at the Toronto Film Festival where the Oscar-winning actor is promoting the movie, he declares to news.com.au, “Australians are not offended that I played a koala bear! Australians don’t get offended by things like that!”

“You guys are no-frills. I lived over there for a year, I’ve made three films there, and I know Australians well enough to know they’re not offended,” he says, shaking his head.

He continues, a little defensively.

“I worked 11 different odd jobs the year I lived in Australia.”

You be the judge ...

McConaughey was an exchange student in 1988 when he was 18 years old and lived on the Central Coast where he attended Gorokan High School.

“I was a barrister’s assistant, I was a boat marine service mechanic, I was an assistant golf pro, and I worked at the ANZ Bank.”

Even with McConaughey’s considerable charms, it begs the question, were the Hemsworths busy? I ask director Garth Jennings how he chose McConaughey for the role.

“I have loads of Australian relatives who are also asking me the same question, ‘Why isn’t that koala an Australian?’” says Jennings.

“But from the outset I didn’t want to get bogged down with where animals come from. I wanted them to be human caricatures, and actually, they show very few animal traits in the movie. As I got into that area of where animals originated from, I got into all kinds of narrative problems and it became about what I didn’t want the film to be about.

“It was more about finding personality. So I wanted this tiny ball of fluff to have the biggest, most infectious enthusiasm that you could imagine and I wanted that from Matthew.”

The cast includes Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, and Seth MacFarlane, and follows the story of a koala, Buster Moon, an entrepreneur trying to stop his theatre from being shut down.

In doing so, he orchestrates a singing contest in the town to raise money.

McConaughey’s alter ego, Buster Moon, hits rock bottom, something he says he knows something about.

“I’ve had events in my life where I felt like it was rock bottom. The passing of my father, some other close friends, but I think for me what has instinctively helped me in my life is that once I’m faced with the inevitable, I get relative pretty quickly,” he said.

“That means once I understand there’s nothing I can do about a situation, I’m pretty quick at going, ‘OK, what is the way out of this?’”

McConaughey’s solid upbringing has helped him keep perspective. The youngest of three boys, his mother is a former kindergarten teacher and his father ran an oil pipe supply business.

“One of the great things my mum said to us when we’d say we were upset about something is, ‘You sound like the boy griping about having no shoes. I’m going to introduce you to the boy with no feet’. So that was her way of making us get relative real quick. We’d think we were at the bottom but of course that wasn’t the case.”

Far from the bottom, in fact, McConaughey has floated to the top of the A-list with a reported net worth of $US75 million. And in his personal life he is happily married to Brazilian model Camila Alves, 34, since 2012, with whom he is raising their children: Levi, 8, Vida, 6, and Livingston, 3, in Austin, Texas.

‘Australians are not offended that I played a koala bear,’ McConaughey said.

Actor Matthew McConaughey and wife Camila Alves attend the Sing premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Picture: Mike Windle

Although he is one of Hollywood’s biggest earners, he regards his metaphysical assets as equally valuable.

“Often our weaknesses are our strengths in an odd way. I can be selfish but that can be quite healthy at times. I’m vain, too, but I also look at vanity and where it’s gotten me, [creating] healthier outcomes than if I hadn’t been vain.”

Clearly, his vanity has helped him look considerably younger than his 46 years.

“I think my outlook keeps me young. If something’s not going well for me, I’m pretty quickly reminded when I sit down and think of friends, like a really great friend in Africa where there’s a civil war, that will sober me up real quickly if I’m feeling bad,” he says.

“I’m pretty happy to wake up each day.”

Continue the conversation with Michele Manelis on Twitter @MicheleManelis