Matthew McConaughey is one of Hollywood’s established A-list actors.
But he was faced with a tough decision about his career in the movie business.
And Matthew McConaughey made this scary confession about retiring from Hollywood.
Matthew McConaughey almost left Hollywood to be a wildlife guide after being typecast
Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey burst onto the scene in the 1993 high school comedy, Dazed and Confused.
He became a star with serious roles like 1996’s A Time to Kill and the 1997 science fiction drama Contact.
The 2000s marked an abrupt change in the type of roles that McConaughey played.
Starting with the 2001’s The Wedding Planner, he became typecast as a romantic comedy lead.
But McConaughey was ready to walk away from Hollywood after he starred opposite actress Jennifer Garner in the 2009 romantic comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
He told fellow actor Glen Powell for a piece in Interview magazine that he took two years off from acting after that role and thought about leaving the movie business.
“I’ve usually zigged when I felt like Hollywood wanted me to zag,” McConaughey said. “When I had my rom-com years, there was only so much bandwidth I could give to those, and those were some solid hits for me. But I wanted to try some other stuff. Of course, I wasn’t getting it, so I had to leave Hollywood for two years.”
McConaughey called his hiatus “scary” and said that he explored switching careers.
“I had long talks with my wife about needing to find a new vocation,” McConaughey explained. “‘I think I’m going to teach high school classes. I think I’m going to study to be a conductor. I think I’m going to go be a wildlife guide.’”
Matthew McConaughey returns to Hollywood and finds a new direction
McConaughey eventually realized that he needed to return to acting and blaze a new path forward.
“It was scary. The days are long — the sense of insignificance,” McConaughey said. “But I made up my mind that that’s what I needed to do, so I wasn’t going to pull the parachute and quit the mission I was on. But it was scary because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of the desert.”
Powell noted that there are plenty of stories in Hollywood history who stepped back and were never able to regain their former glory when they tried to return.
“I honestly thought, ‘I stepped out of Hollywood. I got out of my lane.’ The lane Hollywood said I should stay in, and Hollywood’s like, ‘Well, f*** you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane. Later,’” McConaughey stated.
McConaughey found his way out of the desert and away from romantic comedies when he chose his next role.
He returned to acting in the 2011 legal thriller, The Lincoln Lawyer.
That set him up for a career renaissance that saw him earn the Academy Award for Best Actor in the 2013 drama, Dallas Buyers Club, and the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his turn in the 2014 HBO crime drama, True Detective.
He later added acclaimed performances in Interstellar and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Matthew McConaughey was able to come back from his self-imposed hiatus and become a bigger star than ever.
