Matthew McConaughey’s memoir Greenlights reveals lessons from a life of wild abandon
The lessons actor Matthew McConaughey draws from his life are either self-evident, fallacious or incoherent. Then there’s the poetry...
I met Texan actor Matthew McConaughey in New York during the launch of his Wild Turkey commercials in 2016. He appeared hyper-real, as if he’d been deep-etched onto a lacklustre mural of weary caricatures of journalists and PR people. He seemed to glow in the dark.
I was given 10 minutes “alone” with McConaughey and two executives from Wild Turkey. I asked half a dozen innocuous questions, two of which McConaughey alarmingly referred to the Wild Turkey guys.
McConaughey talked mainly about his gap year in Warnervale, NSW. He was gracious and seductive, and I came away with the strong impression he didn’t actually drink Wild Turkey.
When I wrote up the interview, I gently suggested McConaughey might be happier spruiking for the NFL, as he sounded more engaged when talking about football.
Once the story was published, I received a call from a baffled and wounded PR, who asked if I’d resented the short time I’d spent with the star. I hadn’t, but I’d thought I was expected to report and comment on the event rather than simply publicise it.
I was wrong, and I suspect I’ve made the same mistake with McConaughey’s instructional memoir, Greenlights. It probably isn’t the sort of book that is supposed to be reviewed – just promoted. But here goes …
Greenlights is interesting because McConaughey’s art is sometimes transcendent. His performance as the tortured Detective Rustin Cohle in the first season of True Detective was sublime (although his co-star, Woody Harrelson, might’ve made a more credible ambassador for Wild Turkey – there I go again!). McConaughey won an Oscar for his role as Ron Woodroof in the Dallas Buyers Club. He can be a brilliant actor, and any insight into his manic genius for mirroring and mimicry is only to be welcomed.
However, despite its intentions and pretensions, Greenlights has no worth as a self-help book. There’s no point in parsing McConaughey’s ruminations about “catching greenlights” (which “can also be disguised as yellow and red lights”). The lessons McConaughey draws from his life are either self-evident, fallacious or incoherent, and it was spinelessly cruel of the editor to allow the author to publish his own poetry.
But McConaughey is not a risible writer, and he can tell a joke, although he has van Gogh’s left ear for dialogue.
For example, he recounts the following exchange with an Australian in Warnervale.
“Mate, what are you bloody hell doing?” McConaughey is asked.
“I’m just out for a run,” he replies.
“Well, get your ass inside,” says the Australian, “we’re under a tornado warning.”
Uh?
The chapter about McConaughey’s year in Warnervale is the funniest in the book. He is jaw-droppingly nasty about his host family and remembers masturbating every night in their bath while reading Byron’s poetry and listening to U2.
He can speak of this without shame because McConaughey is, by his own proud admission, “That Guy”.
Early in the book, he writes about a truck he owned in high school:
“I had a megaphone in the front grille, and in the school parking lot in the mornings, I’d crouch down in the cab and say through the speaker, ‘Look at the jeans Cathy Cook’s got on today, lookin’ goooooood!’
“Everyone loved it. Everyone laughed. Especially Cathy Cook.
“I was that guy. I was the fun guy. I engaged.”
It reads like he is setting himself up, but he never cuts himself down – he seriously believes That Guy was a good thing to be. And therein lies the enduring value of Greenlights. Whatever else That Guy does, he does not, generally speaking, write a memoir.
So, what goes on in That Guy’s head?
Well, pretty much what you’d expect. That Guy is thankful for all the whippings and whuppings he received from his parents, because they taught him values. He loves bumper stickers (I’m not making this up). He changes his life path when he reads Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World, which includes “the time-tested wisdom of the ancients distilled into 10 simple scrolls”. His patriotism is shaped by John Mellencamp’s song “Pink Houses”. He loves wrestling. He is a “great nickname giver” (of course). And, after many journeys of self-discovery, he finds himself right where he left himself.
But you knew all that already, didn’t you?
When, against all odds, That Guy becomes world famous, he is subject to periodic existential crises. Since his net worth is greater than the GDP of Tuvalu, he can solve them in whatever way takes his fancy.
His most genuinely impressive feat involves a journey to Mali in West Africa to find one of his favourite musicians, Ali Farka Touré. McConaughey somehow ends up in an impromptu wrestling match with a local village champion. The fight is judged a draw and the champion takes McConaughey’s hand and walks him 22km to the next village.
McConaughey provides some absorbing detail about his family (his mother and father were divorced twice and married three times – to each other) and his filmmaking. He is perhaps the only man in history to have followed his wet dreams, and he deserves respect for that, but you’ll have to read the book to understand.
He has lots of sex and quite a lot of drugs. He is arrested for playing the bongos naked while stoned at 2.30am. He smokes dope, takes ecstasy and stays awake for an entire weekend (wink, wink). He drinks beer, wine, margaritas and tequila on the rocks. But, throughout his adventures, he never, ever has a bourbon, Wild Turkey or otherwise.
Just sayin’.
Greenlights
Headline, 304pp, $32.99
Mark Dapin is a journalist and author
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