Matthew McConaughey memoir "Greenlights" is motivational bumper sticker material
McConaughey drives traffic and a calm mind for Lincoln
Imagine the meta moment in the midst of the pandemic summer season, when Matthew McConaughey stares straight into the camera lens on a Zoom call and says, “It’s gonna to be alright, alright, alright.”
Trippy, funny, and nostalgic, yes — but so comforting. Matthew McConaughey is a natural motivational speaker. The Zoom conversation between a neuroscientist, an expert from Calm, a Lincoln director, Goop’s creative officer, and McConaughey covered everything from mindfulness to meditation. The future of wellness is a topic in tune with the times, but also marked the lead up to McConaughey’s memoir, Greenlights, in stores Oct. 20.
“Alright,” the simple alliterative line is one that made him famous in his 1993 film debut Dazed and Confused an improvised triplicate he delivered from the driver’s seat of Melba Toast, a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle as the smarmy moustached Wooderson in Richard Linklater’s ode to being a Texas teen the summer of 1976.
“I enjoy driving. That simple act of being in the middle of a simple motor skill.”
McConaughey repeated his trademark line on stage at the 2015 Academy Awards, as he accepted the leading actor award for Dallas Buyers Club. It was one of several roles that he transformed into life-hardened characters, not often captured on Hollywood screens.
Another pivotal role was The Lincoln Lawyer, a 2011 movie that I watched in preparation for this story, in which he plays a sharky criminal defense attorney who mostly works from the back of a black Town Car with the license plate “Ntguilty”, a foreshadowing of his commercial work as Lincoln’s most famous brand ambassador.
The occasion of the panel marked the collaboration between two brands that McConaughey has touched with his comfortable drawl and sense of timing — Lincoln and the Calm. (Lincoln now offers Calm perks to its customers, including a one-year subscription through the Lincoln Way app.) McConaughey began narrating Calm stories back in 2018. One friend told me that when her newborn had trouble falling asleep her go-to was Matthew’s bedtime stories on the Calm app to help him settle down.
McConaughey looked well, and at peace. He wore a kurta the color of a lemon meringue pie and wire-framed glasses. Bushy green trees and blue sky framed his virtual background. He was quick to offer up his advice for getting by to the other panelists.
He shared how he too was hunkered down with his family, and soaking in the time for building new hobbies with his kids, and yes, cooking more. “But I think overall, we're feeling pretty good,” he says. “We have our days, and we have to allow our days. I want to say this to everyone out there with families. Not every day is easy. You're all around each other tighter. People have moods. The kids get cabin fever. I get cabin fever. People snap a little bit and it's OK. Again: go back to that forgiveness, that "It's OK," you know? I mean, this has gone on for a while and it'll go on for a while more.”
McConaughey is an actor, but he’s just as comfortable serving as guide, leading people where they need to go. He and his wife Camila started the just keep livin foundation, to help at-risk high school students “make healthier mind, body, and spirit choices.” Last year he, became a professor of practice at the University of Texas in the Department of Radio-Television-Film, as well as Minister of Culture for the University of Texas and the City of Austin, where he still lives.
So when he shares his philosophy on how to survive a pandemic, I leaned in close to listen. “I think we need to get ready for, in our mind anyway, hope for the best, but prepare for a longer journey here. We're not out of this tomorrow. We're not out of this next week. We're not out of it by the end of the year. We may honestly have a three-year process here,” he says. “We're waiting on science to catch up. And even when science catches up, that doesn't mean it's over. So, lean into this and the beauties that technology can bring us right now with this.”
He’s big on imposing daily structure to his family’s routine, what he repeatedly refers to as ritual. “If you create your rituals in a bit of a structure, in a schedule for yourself, all that stress becomes nothing, because it's laid down in front of you and it's easier to see and navigate.”
Ahh, Navigate, as in Navigator, the big soothing SUV made by Lincoln, as my subconscious makes the connection to McConaughey the shaman and McConaughey, the pitchman. He’s on message, without even trying, in his matter-of-fact style. It’s this effect that have made his series of commercials with Lincoln Motor Company so damn compelling. Soothing? Corny? Hilarious? Unforgettable? Genuine? All of this. It’s probably why Lincoln executives profess their appreciation for how he has uplifted the brand. It’s a badge he proudly wears, and supports with endless driving metaphors.
When my question pops up after the panel discussion, he answers. “What do people ask you most about the Lincoln brand?”
photo courtesy of Lincoln Motor Company
“The common questions, you know, "You drive Lincoln?" he says. “Like, ‘Oh yeah, that's the only thing I drive, only thing I've been driving. Even before I was working with Lincoln Motor Company I had Lincolns. And then every time I'll be in my Lincoln wherever I go, that’s sort of when people go ‘I knew it! I knew you drove a Lincoln, McConaughey! Of course you're in the Lincoln!’ And I'm like, ‘Damn right I am."
Lincoln announced the partnership in 2014. The the Oscar winner showed up like a modern day clean-living Marlborough Man, and the commercials have become a hit series of their own, even made into parodies — probably most famously by Jim Carrey on SNL.
“The relationship has been wonderful. It’s sort of worked out to where I became synonymous with Lincoln,” he says. “Lincoln became synonymous with me. And that's an example of a great relationship. When an ambassador or a face can become synonymous with the brand and vice versa.”
For his last Lincoln commercial in 2019, McConaughey appeared in the boot of a Lincoln Aviator, ice fishing in a wintery Icelandic panorama. “So, the most recent questions (are) like, "I didn't know you were an ice fisherman?" he says. “I've never been ice fishing before, just so I get that on record. But a lot of people come up like, "I didn't know you were an ice fisherman?" I am like, ‘Oh yeah. All my life. Always been an ice fisherman.’"
It’s never quite clear where McConaughey when he is doling out aphorisms with genuine conviction or finding the humor in his own delivery. Its this dead-pan self-awareness of how his natural style comes off that keeps his audience watching.
He answers my follow up question about what he likes about cars when in a way that could be scripted from one of the commercials.
“I enjoy driving. That simple act of being in the middle of a simple motor skill,” he says. “Your right foot is on the gas. To a certain extent you don't think about it. You don't. When's the last time you looked at the speedometer? But you're doing 55 or 56 or 54, you're right around it. You're not thinking about staying in your lane, but you are. Those simple physical motor skills that become easy and sort of subconscious to free my creative mind. I don't really want a car to do more for me than — I don't want it doing too much for me. I still like driving my car and that's what I get from Lincoln. I get the luxury, but I get the practicality. I still get the relaxation and enjoyment of driving a vehicle that is acute to what I'm asking it.”
He has long kept a diary to mull over his material. Now that work has grown into the memoir Greenlights due to be released on Oct. 20. Dave Itzkoff writes in the New York Times, “Sometimes McConaughey dispenses wisdom in miniature pearls, like the beloved bumper stickers he has reproduced throughout the book that sport pithy phrases like “Educate before you indict,” “I am good at what I love, I don’t love all that I’m good at” and “If you’re high enough, the sun’s always shining.”
McConaughey described the writing process for the book. “You know I've been keeping a diary for 36 years and a couple of years ago, myself and my wife gave me a kick in the backside to say, "You've been talking about sitting down with those 36 years and seeing what it is for a while. Now's the time. Get out of here. So, I went away to the desert by myself for about what turned out to be 12 days to see what it was and found a really reliable theme that sort of came out of it: green lights. And I notice that many red lights, you know, and yellow lights that I had in my life earlier, with time turn green.”
He explains how the theme covers the loss of his father, the lessons he learned from him, and how he dealt with the grief. He says his theory on stop lights is relevant to the current situation. “We're in the middle of a big yellow light, and some people are in the middle of red lights right now. It makes me think about this: Can we foresee a day, if we handle ourselves right now, that we can look back at this very awkward and tragic year of 2020, and go: "That actually was one of our most hard fought, finest hours"? That was the beginning of a foundational change, individually, and worldwide. This time can even be a green light.”
And perhaps during this time of fraught anxieties, McConaughey’s voice is the one we didn’t know we needed for this era. Or maybe, it’s that McConaughey’s measured delivery is impactful in any era, for any age. (He also plays the dreamer Buster Moon in the animated film, Sing, who never runs out of inspirational material.) The audiobook version may be the new soundtrack for a long drive, as McConaughey actor-turned-motivational speaker makes people feel better.