"I Had To Leave Hollywood": Why Matthew McConaughey Considered Retirement Early In His Acting Career (2024)

Matthew McConaughey explains why he considered retirement early in his acting career and why he "had to leave Hollywood." After breaking through with a brief but memorable role in Richard Linklater's coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused, some of McConaughey's first successful lead roles came in the legal drama A Time to Kill, the sci-fi film Contact, and Steven Spielberg's historical drama Amistad. However, during the 2000s, McConaughey became known for romantic comedies, which caused him to take a two-year hiatus from acting, though he came back better than ever.

During a recent conversation with Interview Magazine, McConaughey reflected on why he considered retiring from acting early in his career. The actor, wanting to deviate from rom-coms, found it difficult to secure diverse roles and decided "to leave Hollywood for two years." During this hiatus, he was uncertain about his future, even considering different career paths. Despite this, he remained committed to his decision, even though he was unsure if his career could ever recover. Read McConaughey's full comments below:

I’ve usually zigged when I felt like Hollywood wanted me to zag. 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.

Dude, it was scary. I had long talks with my wife about needing to find a new vocation. "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." 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--k you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane. Later."

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It was scary. The days are long—the sense of insignificance. 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.

Why Matthew McConaughey Took A 2-Year Break From Acting

& How He Came Back Better Than Ever

As mentioned, McConaughey broke through with a supporting role in Dazed and Confused, and his first success as a leading man came in dramas during the 1990s – such as A Time to Kill, Contact, Amistad, and U-571. However, during the subsequent decade, McConaughey became known for rom-coms, starring in The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool's Gold, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – all of which solidified his status as a sex symbol and led to him being typecast as such.

It was during his rom-com years that McConaughey felt limited by those roles and wanted to explore different types of acting. However, he found it difficult to secure diverse roles, so he decided to take a break from acting for two years. When he returned, he started taking more serious roles again, starting with the legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer, and the following year, he started garnering critical acclaim for his performance as a stripper in Magic Mike and as a fugitive in Mud.

Another year later, McConaughey reached the pinnacle of his career with his role in Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodroof, a cowboy diagnosed with AIDS, which won him an Academy Award for Best Actor. The same year, he had another brief but memorable appearance in The Wolf of Wall Street. Matthew McConaughey's hot streak continued the following year with his role as Rust Cohle in True Detective season 1, earning him an Emmy nomination, and headlined Christopher Nolan's sci-fi blockbuster, Interstellar.

Source: Interview Magazine