by Neil Daniels
McConaughey had read the script about three years before it was made. ‘So after I would finish a film I would always ask, “Well, what about this one next?”,’ he admitted to Caitlin Martis of The Film Stage. ‘But it never was really working out, but I would always keep it right there at the top of my desk. I thought it was an incredible original story. This guy and what he did: 7th grade education, big cowboy, bull-riding, electrician, hell-raising, womanizer, heterosexual gets HIV, 30 days to live and within 7 years becomes an absolute scientist of HIV.’
Woodroof’s sister was reportedly keen on the casting of McConaughey from the get-go, though she had initially expressed concern when Pitt and Gosling were attached to the role during previous attempts to develop the film. It’s McConaughey’s swagger and personality, his Southern drawl, which made him the perfect fit for the lead part.
Asked in 2013 by The Film Stage’s Caitlin Martis what would he do if he was told he had just thirty days to live, McConaughey responded this way: ‘I don’t know right now, but I’m sure when you read that on the script that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I thought what would Ron think of that? The first thing that Ron did and how he approached it was absolute denial. Number one [was] “No, I don’t have it, I can’t have it. You don’t know what the F you are talking about,” you know?’
McConaughey was totally dedicated to the part so much so that he lost 47 pounds going from 183 pounds down to 136, by eating small amounts of food; he didn’t starve himself. Leto, on the other hand, appeared to stop eating altogether – which left co-star Jennifer Garner worried about his health.
‘The surprise was how the energy that I lost from the neck down transferred to the neck up. I became clinically aware, almost hyper, I needed three hours less sleep a night,’ McConaughey admitted to the BBC’s Tim Masters. ‘I had an amazing amount of energy from the head up. That was something I didn’t know was going to happen.’
McConaughey had five ounces of fish twice a day, a cup of vegetables twice a day. He gave himself four months to lose weight during which time he met Woodroof’s family and friends and studied Woodroof’s diary, which he kept before he got HIV, and which was handed to him by Woodroof’s sister and daughter. The diary was the real hook for McConaughey because it chronicled everything in Woodroof’s life from the mundane to the deeply sensitive, such as jobs he’d won and lost, the women he was interested in, book ideas he had and personal secrets.
‘The diary was: “I got nothing to do. I got up again this morning, six o’clock, I had my coffee. I tucked my shirt in, pressed my pants, waited for my pager to go off, to get a call, get a little job done and nobody called. So damn it – I got to get high”,’ McConaughey explained to Lesley O’Toole of the Independent. ‘Seeing who he was before he got HIV really informed me because here is a guy who turned 30 days of life, as he was told, to seven more years. That was the first time when he had purpose in his life, ironically because he was having to fight for his life.’
McConaughey learned how to talk like Woodroof from listening to the tape transcripts; he also got a sense of who Woodroof was, or thought he was. He wanted to be like Al Pacino in Scarface. He was a smuggler and a dealer and became immersed in conspiracy theories, which he thought were aimed at him. Some of the cast and crew who hadn’t seen McConaughey during those four months were shocked by his stark weight loss. It was frightening. He looked ill.
He explained his state of health to Ramin Setoodeh of The Daily Beast: ‘My levels are fine. I’m as healthy as can be. My blood pressure, everything’s fine. The real health challenge is when you put it back on. It’s very easy to create a form of diabetes if you don’t do it right. You can’t just start eating cheeseburgers and ice cream. Your body will go into shock and it just won’t work.’
The weight loss also affected his mood – he’d go from cranky to hyper and it affected the people around him. People online were suddenly very worried about his dramatic drop in weight. For McConaughey it was as much of a spiritual journey as a physical one. The days seem longer because most humans obsess about food – what’s for dinner? Should I have a snack? He didn’t give up red wine, though.
‘The first time I ate a regular meal,’ McConaughey confessed to Susan Wloszczyna of Roger Ebert.com, ‘my body immediately remembered, “Oh, we live at 182.” So it wants to sprint back. And you just have to pull the reins and go ease off and eat more healthy. But the first time I ate a meal the size I used to eat at 182, it immediately remembered. I could feel it. My diet has changed. It’s not like it is before. On purpose.’
Other forms of method-type acting for the role included, allegedly, staying indoors at his Texas ranch for months, thus avoiding sunlight to look paler. He avoided socialising to find different ways to entertain himself and become smarter. When he dropped below 150 pounds his eyesight began to fail and he looked weak. He’s body would seize up and his arms and legs were sore after doing just five push-ups. His legs locked after running only 30 feet. His co-star Leto also lost weight, 30 pounds in fact, and stopped eating altogether to lose weight quicker.
McConaughey also absorbed himself in AIDS and HIV medical journals, concentrating on the period 1981 to 1988. He read for an hour a day and hid from his kids so he could focus on learning. Woodroof had found an inner strength that he didn’t know he had before he contracted the virus and McConaughey channelled that into his performance. Woodroof grew into a more understanding person even though he was not an educated man and enjoyed being a cowboy. He was educated to the equivalent of a Year 8 student and loved his Cadillac and gold watches. It was the simple things in life that he favoured, only for his life to be abruptly turned upside down.
Woodroof found loopholes in the law, which worked to help his cause. ‘He was living paycheck to paycheck, week to week,’ McConaughey said of Woodroof to Deadline’s Christy Grosz. ‘I saw a guy who was lonely – this was before he had HIV – I saw a guy who wanted to get out. The ironic thing is when he got HIV, he found something to really fight for. His sister said this five times: “He never finishes anything.” So he found the one thing he could finish (in) getting sick.’
The director and actor did discuss if they were going too far in turning Woodroof into such a nasty character. They worried that the audience wouldn’t be able to emphasise with such a man. McConaughey, however, felt they were doing the right thing with the character. That’s who Woodroof was. Everyone is different, everyone handles things differently. They had a human approach to the material.
‘…I’ve got a nice relationship with his daughter and his sister, and they were wide open,’ McConaughey said to I Am Rogue’s Jami Philbrick. ‘They were so gracious in letting me into his life and their life. And they were very honest. They weren’t trying to ever sugar-coat who this guy was, that never came out of their mouth. “But he was such a nice guy.” They’re like, “No, he was a son-of-a-bitch, but we loved him. You couldn’t help but love him. He’d steal your car, but you couldn’t help but just love him’cause of it’cause it’s kind of just who he was.” And that was a real approach with attacking this guy’s blasphemic sort of P.O.V.’
The film also stars Denis O’Hare as Dr Sevard, Steve Zahn as Tucker, Michael O’Neill (Richard Barkley), Dallas Roberts (David Wayne), Griffin Dunne (Dr Vass) and Kevin Rankin (T.J.).
The film’s production schedule was continuously delayed over concerns with the script from the producers and cast, but principal photography finally started in New Orleans in mid-2012. Jennifer Garner, who plays Dr Eve Saks, said that it took only twenty-five to thirty days to shoot the film. It was shot in natural light and the actors were allowed very few takes. McConaughey’s performance and dedication to the part won him great praise from his co-stars. He’d moved out of his comfort zone and was on a mission to prove to people how well he could act. He’d started a new journey since The Lincoln Lawyer and he was on a roll, taking unconventional roles (at least for him) and surprising people with each performance.
Garner was keen to work with her Ghosts of Girlfriends Past co-star once again and that was part of the reason she wanted to do Dallas Buyers Club. She had been almost in awe of his dedication to acting, his charisma, drive and crazy work ethic when they’d worked together previously, and she was intrigued to know what he’d be like several years later. She likes him as a person and as an actor and respects him immensely. Garner was both proud and honoured to be part of the film.
McConaughey immersed himself totally in the project: he revised the script, offered scene changes and gave notes in the editing room. He was, at times, as arrogant and difficult as the character he was portraying, but it was all for the purposes of making a better film. ‘To see Matthew talk,’ Vallée told The Daily Telegraph’s Tom Shone, ‘to see him act, it’s a movement. But I must say that behind the acting it was Matthew’s humanity that made the difference. This guy has something in the face, this energy, this way of talking that within ten minutes has you caring for him. The first audience we screened it for I could feel it, I was in the room, 250 people. I could feel the crowd behind him. The acting is something but the guy – the guy has such visceral humanity.’
‘And he was all the things that I think we portrayed him to be. He was that bastard. He was selfish. He wanted to make money,’ McConaughey told I Am Rogue’s Jami Philbrick. ‘He wasn’t running around trying to crusade for the cause, he wanted to be Scarface, man. What he had always wanted before he had HIV. He wanted money. He wasn’t making any, and he didn’t really have a purpose before he got HIV, which is a sad truth. And he found something to fight for.’
The film originally premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. ‘We were a little bit concerned and scared at the seriousness of the subject matter and the dramatic content of the film. We went, we’ve got to make people laugh,’ said director Vallée to USA Today’s Andrea Mandell on the film’s reception.
McConaughey received a standing ovation at the ceremony and won high praise from the attendees. He learned a great deal from making the film, but primarily that if you want something doing right you have to do it yourself. He is a great fan of self-preservation and of learning from experience. Every day is a new venture that brings with it new experiences that sometimes require bold decisions to be taken. Sometimes you fail, but it’s those failures that can often lead to bigger and better experiences. You learn from your failures to make yourself a better person.
Dallas Buyers Club gained wide critical acclaim after it was released in US cinemas in November 2013 and in the UK the following February. With a budget of just $5 million the film had grossed over $32 million at the box office by early 2014. The film communicated well with people and it translated marvellously to the big screen. There was a personal connection with audiences. Critics noted comparisons with the 1993 AIDS film Philadelphia where Denzel Washington was taught lessons in tolerance from Tom Hanks. That critically lauded film revitalised Tom Hanks’ career; he’d been the star of mostly lightweight comedies and spoofs throughout the 1990s and, much like McConaughey, had barely caught the attention of critics. Hanks’ portrayal of an AIDS victim won him an Oscar and set a new course for his career.
Mark Kermode wrote in The Observer: ‘While McConaughey’s dramatic weight loss may make attention-grabbing headlines, there’s much more to his performance than the mere shedding of 30-odd pounds. Continuing the reinvention (dubbed the ‘McConaissance’) which has seen him lay the ghost of grizzly rom-coms such as Failure to Launch with harder-edged roles in Magic Mike and Killer Joe, McConaughey is utterly convincing as the ravaged rodeo redneck who is given thirty days to live after being diagnosed with AIDS, but who stubbornly refuses to lie down and die.’
The Independent’s Geoffrey MacNab wrote: ‘Like other former juvenile leads who’ve appeared in too many romantic comedies, McConaughey has been consistently underestimated as an actor. Here, he gives an astonishing performance that combines sleaziness and venality with grace and pathos.’
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Tim Robey enthused: ‘McConaughey’s recent run of acclaimed, full-throttle turns in left-field indies (Mud, Killer Joe, Magic Mike) has finally culminated here in a performance which Academy voters have been powerless to keep off their shortlist, and for which it’s increasingly hard to imagine him not winning. The role feels at once crisply tailored to McConaughey’s established gifts, and unlike anything we’ve seen him do before. His air of physical decrepitude is totally convincing, but it’s the fear in his acting that counts – the film’s most striking effect is watching this legendarily blasé star face up to mortality.’
‘…I’ve got to tell you I’ve been witnessing the most spectacular, amazing, touching acting performance of my humble career so far,’ raved Vallée to Adam Sachs of Details. ‘He had to create a new way of walking and being and not having this confidence of being handsome and seductive. I think people will see something different here, really a new Matthew McConaughey. I think he wanted something new in his life, and you can see that in the choices he’s made in the last two or three years.’
How did Woodroof’s family react to the finished film and its overwhelming reception? ‘We told them – this is not word for word what Ron did, but if I can capture his spirit and his rage and his will to survive…’ McConaughey explained to Stylist’s Susan Riley. ‘They understood that. It must have been superbly overwhelming [to watch] – this was their son, brother and father; his whole life put into two hours – but they reacted very favourably.’
There’s a connection between some of the recent roles he’s chosen – they’re not only independent films but the characters he plays are also anti-heroes. The films have an identity, too. They’re character-driven films which excel in directing, acting and writing. They’re also the works of auteurs. Sure, not everyone liked Magic Mike and not everyone ‘got’ The Paperboy but each film has a distinct identity.
‘What’s the biggest compliment, is if I read a review,’ McConaughey explained to Vulture’s Jennifer Vineyard, ‘and it’s exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That’s really cool. That’s the biggest signifier of closing the gaps. If I’ve written in a diary about a character, “This is who this guy is,” and then I read a review two years later and they write almost word for word what I wrote about that character before I ever did it… Then I go [claps], “Now we’re on to something! It translated!” Now the gap was tighter, the gap between who I am, what I’m doing, and how I’m perceived.’
*****
McConaughey was introduced to Skype during the making of Dallas Buyers Club. He began to have a better understanding of technology. He is less intimidated by it now but he has also refused to allow technology to control his life, as many of us have with social media and smartphones. McConaughey switched off voicemail on his phone – if he’s not there, he’s not there. Simple. McConaughey is more interested in being sociable in person. He’s seen enough socially awkward people to know that technology doesn’t always do you good as a person. He was impressed by the Spike Jonze film Her which tells the story of a man who develops a relationship with a computer operating system. There are too many people in the world, in the West especially, whose best relationships are with their phones or computers. McConaughey prefers real people. He rarely, if ever, goes online on his iPhone. He uses the device as a tool to write down ideas. He prefers to sit back and watch sports. College football is where he gets his kicks. It’s real drama to him. He also enjoys a good round of golf. He likes baseball too, but football is his true sports passion.
Around this time McConaughey also recorded a public service announcement in Austin for LBJ Presidential Legacy. He launched his own clothesline in 2013 after partnering with the Canadian clothing maker Grand National Apparel for the launch of his sportswear collection, JKL, an extension of his company j.k. livin. The company had ventured into casual clothing – with sweatbands, hoodies, golf shirts and koozies – in September 2008, when it was originally s
old online. McConaughey had been wearing the prototype clothes for a year before the online launch so the j.k. livin logo was often seen on such popular gossip websites as Pink Is The New Blog and Perez Hilton. Sadly, the tabloids were more interested in learning that he was just wearing a t-shirt rather than the fact that he was modelling his soon-to-be-launched clothesline. One line of T-shirts had the catch phrase ‘Alright, alright, alright’ from the 1993 cult film Dazed and Confused printed on them.
With ten per cent of all sales going to charity, the menswear line was launched in the US retail store Dillard’s in March 2013. ‘I want to be behind this, not in front of it. I’m the author, not the face or the definition,’ he said to Women’s Wear Daily (WWD). ‘I personally don’t like to wear clothing that is named for somebody or has someone’s likeness all over it. Even if my name were on, I don’t know that I’d want to wear it.’
Celebrity clothing reflects who the celebrity is and their interests, and McConaughey isn’t the first high-profile name to venture into fashion. It’s like a statement of intent. J-Lo, Bono and Justin Timberlake, as well as Britney Spears, P Diddy, and members of Mötley Crüe, Run-D.M.C., and blink-182 have their own clothesline. McConaughey’s brand has an authenticity to it. He was inspired by his father, a man who wore casual clothes. He carries j.k. livin stickers with him wherever he goes.
McConaughey consulted fashion experts and designers before starting his line. It took him around sixty T-shirts before he found the right one. He was also heavily involved in the marketing of his brand. It was a gradual process and his clothes were sold solely online until they reached retail in 2013 with an extended collection of menswear. The line includes clothes for the casual man – khaki pants, shorts, jeans, T-shirts and swimwear. It links to his love of surfing, swimming, cycling (he’s buddies with Lance Armstrong don’t forget) and hiking. A portion of the proceeds for JLK goes to his charity, the j.k. livin Foundation, which involves itself with four schools in California and Texas, developing after-school exercise and nutrition programs for less well-off kids.