It's All Right

As Hollywood quakes, the concept of the leading man is undergoing a seismic shift

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I watch Matthew McConaughey’s screen test for Dazed and Confused. There is something so comforting about it; maybe it’s McConaughey’s shaggy bowl cut, which droops over his sleepy eyes in messy, flaxen curlicues. Maybe it’s his light-wash denim and novelty Headbangers Ball tee, which has come back around to look as fresh as a new drop from Supreme. Maybe it’s his oozing Texas accent, not so much a drawl as a sprawl; his vowels go on for miles. Maybe it’s his dimples, two meteorite crash sites in his cheeks. I have watched this video hundreds of times, trying to pinpoint the moment when McConaughey becomes a star. I think it’s somewhere toward the end, as he casually leans against a wall, one hand in his front jean pocket. Everyone else in the test looks nervous, desperate for Richard Linklater’s directorial approval. McConaughey looks like he is stoned in a sauna. He’s so epically relaxed that his chill radiates through the screen, through time. Watching him is better than Lunesta; all I have to do to feel the sedative effects is to meditate on being a 23-year-old man in the 90s, on the verge of my big break.

As I’ve not been sleeping, I’ve been working on a theory about male celebrity over the past 25 years: to understand it, you must first understand McConaughey. His trajectory contains all the highs and lows of what we have demanded from our screen idols, and in its new feature form, it points toward the future.