Greenlights

by Matthew McConaughey

  I bent my knee and proposed to her on Jesus’s birthday, 2011.

  She said yes.

  But we didn’t set a date for the ceremony.

  you just live together you live for the present.

  you marry you live for the future.

  —Lili Fini Zanuck

  * * *

  Camila might have seemed totally unlike my mom, but in May 2012, five months after I proposed, she did to me exactly what my mom had done to my dad, just with an extra bonus. She handed me an invitation to my own wedding.

  “Sure,” I said, “all I need is a date.”

  Then she handed me another ultrasound.

  “I have our third child growing in my belly, hon, and I’m not walking the aisle on my wedding day with a bump showing.”

  We invited eighty-eight of our closest friends and family. We put forty-four tents in the yard to hold those eighty-eight friends captive for an entire three-day wedding weekend, and less than a month later, on June 9, 2012, Camila Araujo Alves became Camila Alves McConaughey.

  Brother Christian from the monastery presided over the Catholic ceremony, our local pastor Dave Haney did the introductory salutations, John Mellencamp played the Psalms, and a Candomblé priestess blessed us in African-Brazilian magic.

  My brother Rooster said to me after the wedding, “Little brother, if there is a heaven, I think you got it covered.”

  That night at the altar Camila looked me in the eyes and said, “I don’t want nothing, just all you got to give.”

  Me, I didn’t marry the woman of my dreams that night, I married the best one on Earth for me, and she’s a mermaid.

  Afraid no more and in pursuit of a new mystery, I committed to the commitment, and for the first time in my life felt I could tumble and not fall. I knew it would be harder because now, as husband and wife, there was more to work for. No longer chasing butterflies, Camila and I planted our garden so they could come to us.

  My mother could finally put away the Wite-Out. And Levi had one less question.

  Greenlight.

  * * *

  I’d met two men named Livingston in my lifetime. Both were men that I first noticed from a distance, similar to seeing Camila in the club that night. They were impressions. Both were upright, strong, and sturdy men who carried themselves with honor, constitution, and a manner of earned aristocracy. Lumberjacks by day, conductors of the philharmonic by night. Real Renaissance men, well versed in the art of livin. I got to know these two men quite well over time and upon closer inspection, the two of them turned out to be the very definition of my first impression.

  I wanted to meet a third.

  So, at 7:43 a.m., December 28, 2012, Livingston Alves McConaughey was born.

  Greenlight.

  I was as fulfilled in my life as I’d ever been. Married, with three children like my father, I was finding inspiration everywhere, but now in truths, not ideas. Unimpressed with my success, I was involved in it, wanting what I needed and needing what I wanted. The more successful I became, the more sober I got; I liked my company so much I didn’t want to interrupt it.

  * * *

  I received an offer for a lead role in an eight-part limited series for HBO called True Detective. The script by Nic Pizzolatto was so white-hot on the page I could feel the blood come off it. The fact that it was on the small screen didn’t make me hesitate because the story and characters had such clear and original identities. The role I was offered was that of Marty Hart. The role I wanted was Rustin Cohle, the greatest detective I’d ever met. I couldn’t wait to turn the page to see what came out of his mouth next. An island of a man who lived between the mortal respect of death and the immortal need for its deliverance. A man who, without sentiment, fiercely sought the truth no matter how much it burned. He made me sweat in my boots.

  “If I can be Rustin Cohle, I’m in,” I told them.

  After a couple of days of mulling over my notion, Nic; the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga; and the producers agreed to give me Mr. Rustin Cohle. My great friend Woody Harrelson came aboard to play Marty Hart. Thankfully, he hadn’t played any characters that bred copycat killers since the last time.

  * * *

  My family and I soon packed up and moved back to New Orleans for the six-month shoot.

  I’ve always had a soft spot for the Crescent City. Maybe because my dad was raised there and my family visited his mom and her sisters for the Blessing of the Fleets Shrimp Festival every year growing up. Maybe because I’d also filmed four of my last five movies there. Maybe because if you want to know if you’re in the good part of town or the bad, the locals’ rhythmic rationale will tell you,

  “Well, sir, there’s a little bad in the good parts, and a little good in the bad parts.”

  It’s always felt like home.

  Places are like people. They each have a particular identity. In all my travels around the globe I’ve written in my journal about the culture of a place, its identity. If a place and a people move me, I’ll write them a love letter. New Orleans is one of those places.

  Dear New Orleans,

  What a big, beautiful mess you are. A giant flashing yellow light—proceed with caution, but proceed.

  Not overly ambitious, you have a strong identity, and don’t look outside yourself for intrigue, evolution, or monikers of progress. Proud of who you are, you know your flavor, it’s your very own, and if people want to come taste it, you welcome them without solicitation.

  Your hours trickle by, Tuesdays and Saturdays more similar than anywhere else. Your seasons slide into one another. You’re the Big Easy…home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where a libation greets you on a Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night.

  Home of the front porch, not the back. This engineering feat provides so much of your sense of community and fellowship as you relax facing the street and your neighbors across it. Rather than retreating into the seclusion of the backyard, you engage with the goings-on of the world around you, on your front porch. Private properties hospitably trespass on each other and lend across borders where a 9:00 A.M. alarm clock is church bells, sirens, and a slow-moving eight-buck-an-hour carpenter nailing a windowpane two doors down.

  You don’t sweat details or misdemeanors, and since everybody’s getting away with something anyway, the rest just wanna be on the winning side. And if you can swing the swindle, good for you, because you love to gamble and rules are made to be broken, so don’t preach about them, abide. Peddlin worship and litigation, where else do the dead rest eye to eye with the livin?

  You’re a right-brain city. Don’t show up wearing your morals on your sleeve ’less you wanna get your arm burned. The humidity suppresses most reason so if you’re crossing a one-way street, it’s best to look both ways.

  Mother Nature rules, the natural law capital “Q” Queen reigns supreme, a science to the animals, an overbearing and inconsiderate bitch to us bipeds. But you forgive her, and quickly, cus you know any disdain with her wrath will reap more: bad luck, voodoo, karma. So you roll with it, meander rather, slowly forward, takin it all in stride, never sweating the details. Your art is in your overgrowth. Mother Nature wears the crown around here, her royalty rules, and unlike in England, she has both influence and power.

  You don’t use vacuum cleaners, no, you use brooms and rakes to manicure. Where it falls is where it lays, the swerve around the pothole, the duck beneath the branch, the poverty and the murder rate, all of it, just how it is and how it turned out. Like a gumbo, your medley’s in the mix.

  —June 7, 2013, New Orleans, La.

  * * *

  When True Detective aired, Camila and I watched it every Sunday night like everyone else. I obviously had the opportunity to see it all in one sitting prior to its release, but I chose to digest it as it was designed to be consumed: one hour every Sunday
night, followed by watercooler talk on Monday morning, with anticipation for the next episode. It was my favorite thing on TV. Still is.

  At the same time it was televised, I was on the road campaigning for awards season with Dallas Buyers Club. Looking back, I see that in many ways my role and work in True Detective was an MVP of my run for Best Actor in Dallas Buyers Club. It was a weekly crusade for me, the best advertisement money couldn’t buy. There I was, in your living rooms every Sunday night as Rustin Cohle, then the next day in your face as Ron Woodroof on the campaign trail.

  The Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit, and Screen Actors Guild all presented me with the Best Actor award for my performance as Ron Woodroof. Next up was the final ceremony of the year, the Academy Awards.

  I didn’t have a speech planned because I believed that truly would be bad karma, but I did have a short list of what I wanted to talk about if in fact the Academy did call my name.

  * * *

  They called my name.

  I won the Oscar for Best Actor.

  I was extremely honored to receive this award representing the pinnacle of excellence in my profession. It was also validation that my choices as an actor were translating as a highly competent craft. I was not half-assin it.

  Greenlight.

  There’s a difference between art and self-expression.

  All art is self-expression.

  All self-expression is not art.

  * * *

  I went on to make Interstellar with Chris Nolan, The Sea of Trees with Gus Van Sant, Free State of Jones with Gary Ross, Gold with Stephen Gaghan, White Boy Rick with Yann Demange, Serenity with Steven Knight, The Beach Bum with Harmony Korine, and The Gentlemen with Guy Ritchie. I also made a few movies for my kids, Kubo and the Two Strings with Travis Knight, and Sing and Sing 2 with Garth Jennings. I also became a successful car salesman as brand ambassador for Lincoln Motor Company as well as becoming the creative director for Wild Turkey bourbon.

  All, characters and creations I wanted to investigate, inhabit, and become.

  All, stories I found fascinating, original, and worth telling.

  All, experiences I would not trade.

  But, very few box office successes. Something was not translating. I was inviting the public but there were empty seats in the theater.

  Was it me? The subject matter? The films themselves? The distributors? Bad luck? Changing times?

  I don’t know for sure. Little of each and more of some, I suppose.

  * * *

  The box office failures didn’t dampen my love of acting. If anything they made me more feverishly committed to my craft. I loved performing. I loved creating. I loved getting lost in a character, then found. I loved going so deep as to see my man from the inside out. I loved the work, the process, the construction, the architecture of building and owning my man. I loved having a wife who never interrupted my belief that each role I played was the only, and last, role I’d ever play. I loved acting more than ever.

  So much so, I began to notice that the characters and films I was doing were feeling more vital than who I was and the story that was my life. In my career now, I was more than an entertainer, I was an actor, an artist. And that satisfied me. My career was full. Wild. Dangerous. Essential. Consequential. Lively. I laughed louder, cried harder, loved bigger, loathed deeper, and felt more in the characters I was playing in the movies than the man I was livin in my life.

  I said to myself, You flipped the script, McConaughey, tipped the scale to the other side.

  I was more alive in my movies than in my life.

  The stories in my profession seemed more vibrant than the story I was livin.

  Impressions in the mirror.

  Time to make a change.

  So I made a plan.

  Why pray?

  A time to take inventory.

  To take a look from high and wide at our self, our loved ones, our mortality.

  A time to smile upon our blessings,

  to humble our selfish yearnings,

  to embrace those we know are in need with our compassion,

  and see them in our mind’s eye as their most true selves,

  a snapshot, down memory lane,

  of those we know and care for,

  when they were most themselves.

  Not happiest or proudest,

  not saddest or most reflective,

  but that image of them when we see, without advertisement or desire,

  their light shine within,

  and finally see ourselves the same,

  before we say amen.

  When we are who we are, and no one else.

  * * *

  Time to get rid of the filters. Make my life my favorite movie. Live my favorite character. Write my own script. Direct my own story. Be my biography. Make my own documentary, on me. Nonfiction. Live, not recorded. Time to catch that hero I’ve been chasing, see if the sun will melt the wax that holds my wings or if the heat is just a mirage. Live my legacy now. Quit acting like me. Be me.

  So I gathered thirty-five years of my writings on the last fifty and took them to desolate places to seek their prudence, hear their story, and take inventory on my investment: me.

  I spent two weeks alone in the desert where I was conceived, two more on the river where I learned to swim, another two in a cabin nestled in the piney woods of East Texas, three more in a motel room on the Mexican border, and two more locked up in a New York City apartment.

  In each place I looked myself in the eye. All fifty years of me. It was a scary proposition. Alone with the one person responsible for all of it. The one person I can’t get rid of. I wasn’t sure I’d like what I saw. I knew it could get bloody.

  And it did.

  I laughed. I cried. I wrestled. I wowed.

  I also had the best time with the best company I’ve ever had in my life.

  friends

  While we’re here,

  where we believe more than know,

  we enjoy succeeding.

  We don’t have to look over our shoulders

  when we keep our own counsel,

  writing our book,

  the star of our story,

  traveling toward immortal finish lines,

  where we make friends

  with ourselves.

  * * *

  So, here I am, fifty years in, looking back to look forward.

  What’s it all about? What’s my thesis? My coda? My summation? My final remarks? What have I learned? What do I know?

  As an armchair anthropologist, folk philosopher, and truth-seeking street poet, I’ve followed celestial suggestions, made associations, heard many voices, and dealt with reality by literally chasing down my dreams.

  I have rented, had flings, hobbies, affairs, and chased butterflies to who knows where, all stops, no stays on my résumé’s road to where I am today. I have found possessions, laws, relationships, careers, a wife and family, and dropped nonnegotiable anchors when I did. When I watered their gardens, they sprang to life, and learned lessons went from planning to performance, from knowing to doing, from acting to being. That’s when the butterflies started coming to my garden.

  I wrote this book so I could have a written record to hold myself accountable to. I wrote this book so you can hold me to task and remind me of what I forget. I circled back to prior times; lessons learned, repeated, and revisited. I noticed that the realizations arrived quickly, the learning took time, and the livin was the hardest part. I found myself right where I left me.

  My first twenty years were where I learned the value of values. Through discipline and deep affection, I learned respect, accountability, creativity, courage, perseverance, fairness, service, good humor, and a spirit of adventure in ways that some p
eople might consider abusive, but I remember as tough love, and I wouldn’t give back one ass whupping I ever got for the value of the values my parents impressed upon me. I thank them for that.

  My twenties and thirties were contradictory decades, years when I eliminated conditions and truths that went against my grain. The value in this conservative era was that it safeguarded me from fatal character debits early in life. It was a time when I was often more concerned with not running red lights than I was with investing in the greenlights. I did what I wanted, I learned to live. I survived.

  My forties were a much more affirming decade, years when I started to play offense with truths I had learned and put them into action. An era where I doubled down on what fed me. The value of this liberal age was that it illuminated my most life-endorsing character assets. It was a time when I not only cruised through more greenlights because I had eliminated more red and yellow ones, but a time when I created more greenlights to travel through. A time when past reds and yellows finally turned green, as old hardships revealed themselves as good fortune, a time when the greenlights beamed brighter because I gave them more power to shine. I did what I needed, I lived to learn. I thrived.

  As I approach the next chapter of truths to cross, the only thing I know for sure is that I will recalibrate again, and that my family will be at the core when I do. As a father, I often contradict myself, and I know I could do a better job of practicing what I preach, but I’ve also learned that if the message is true, don’t forget it, and forgive the messenger, even if he does.