Actor friends may share hitman dad

Actors Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey have taken their bromance to the next level by revealing there is a chance they are, in fact, brothers.

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson may share the same father, the hitman Charles Harrelson. Picture: Matthew McConaughey/Instagram

Actors Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey have taken their bromance to the next level by revealing there is a chance they are, in fact, brothers.

The Hollywood stars, filming Brother from another Mother for Apple TV+, have questioned whether they have the same father, hitman Charles Harrelson.

“In Greece a few years ago, we’re sitting around talking about how close we are and our families,” McConaughey said on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast. “And my mum is there, and she says, ‘Woody, I knew your dad’. Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mum left after ‘knew’. It was a loaded K-N-E-W.

“We went on to unpack what this ‘knew’ meant and did some math and found out that (Harrelson’s) dad was on furlough at the same time that my mum and dad were in their second divorce.”

The Oscar-winning actor said they had unearthed receipts linked to places in West Texas in which “a gathering, or a meeting, or a ‘knew’ moment” might have occurred between McConaughey’s mother, Mary Kathlene McCabe, and Harrelson’s father.

Charles Harrelson was sentenced to life for the fatal shooting of judge John Wood Jr in San Antonio, Texas, in 1979. Woody regularly visited his father in jail before his death in 2007, aged 69.

Charles Harrelson was convicted of murder after the death of a judge.

Harrelson said at the time: “He is one of the most articulate, well-read, charming people I’ve ever known. Still, I’m just now gauging whether he merits my loyalty or friendship. I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father.”

The actors said they had yet to decide whether to take a DNA test. “Look, it’s a little easier for Woody to say, ‘Come on, let’s do (DNA tests)’, because what’s the skin in it for him?” McConaughey said.

“It’s a little harder for me because he’s asking me to take a chance to go, ‘Wait a minute, you’re trying to tell me my dad may not be my dad after 53 years of believing that?’. I got a little more skin in the game.”

In the new 10-part comedy series, McConaughey and Harrelson and their families attempt to live together on McConaughey’s ranch in Texas.

The two actors starred together in HBO’s crime drama True Detective in 2014 as Louisiana state police detectives.