Greenlights

To say that Matthew McConaughey is an interesting character is probably an understatement. As an Academy Award-winning actor with notable performances including Dallas Buyers Club, Interstellar and A Time to Kill, his list of successful performances is too long to mention. He is also a devoted family man, businessman with interests in bourbon and Major League Soccer and an active philanthropist. With his new memoir of sorts, Greenlights, he can also add author to that list.

I first heard about Greenlights after re-watching Interstellar nearly two weeks ago. After reflecting on the awesome performance that McConaughey delivered, I wanted to dive deeper into his upbringing and early career to see what has made him who he is. During my search I spotted a recent Joe Rogan interview with the actor in which he was promoting the book in question. After listening to the interview, I knew it would be worth reading.

Greenlights as a title is a fairly intriguing one. It’s how McConaughey views success and it encapsulates the precursors to that success. Like traffic lights, we can’t get a greenlight without the yellow and red. Good things come from greenlights and sometimes they are easy to catch, other times we miss them completely. One thing that McConaughey makes clear is that if we keep persisting, we will hit them and maybe many in succession. The idea of greenlights is something of a philosophy, a framework for how to think about life. 

The book itself is composed of stories and reflections that McConaughey has accumulated over a period of 35 years as an avid keeper of diaries and journals. Greenlights starts with the author talking about his early upbringing and family life in Texas. McConaughey’s relationship with his parents and siblings was strong, especially with his father. The young McConaughey was popular in school, getting good grades and was set to become a lawyer, he had a plan. After the gap year in Australia that he talks about in detail, McConaughey reflected and changed course with the help of a certain book. 

Greenlights follows the actor through film school, his first major acting role that became something more through his own hustle and the death of his father which had a tremendous impact on him. After this, McConaughey promised himself to become, “less impressed, more involved” something that really stood out to me as a solid piece of advice. I think a lot of us spend time admiring others when we could focus more on improving ourselves and being the best that we can be. The book moves to McConaughey’s breakout success in A Time to Kill and the inevitable fame that followed. He writes openly about the dangers posed by a life of temptation and excess that a career in Hollywood can produce. McConaughey recalls his extended trips to faraway places like the Amazon to, in his own words, “recalibrate”, reflect and keep his feet on the ground.

The author shares the story of how he met his wife and her integral role in his success as an actor and a family man. Around that time McConaughey rose rapidly through Hollywood as a successful romantic comedy actor. As he reflects in the book, it certainly made him wealthy but ultimately unsatisfied. He chose to initiate what he describes as a “forced winter”, an acting hiatus where he declined any roles that would not help him evolve as a complete actor. The red light turned green and the “McConaissance” ensued leading to the actor’s Oscar winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club.

It’s clear from Greenlights that McConaughey is all about improving and moving forward no matter what, that’s what catching those greenlights is all about. The book is honest and full of wisdom from someone who has had ups and downs and seen it all. Greenlights is a book that I have loved reading, McConaughey’s openness to share his story with not only his words, but also personal photographs means that you don’t just read about the man’s journey through life, you also see it. Ultimately, the book reminded me that those in the spotlight are just like us. They have fears, worries, dreams and they certainly don’t have it all. As Greenlights tells us, that’s okay we aren’t supposed to. McConaughey lets us know that the only thing that really matters is that we “just keep livin”.

You can find a copy of Greenlights: Raucous stories and outlaw wisdom from the Academy Award-winning actor here.