Just Keep Livin'

In the new year, Matthew McConaughey is looking beyond the pandemic—and movies—toward a much bigger picture. Could politics be his next frame?

- JESSE WILL

THE OTHER NIGHT, Matthew McConaughey dragged a couple of Djembe drums out. Pulled out some congas, too. “Didn’t have anything the next day until, like, noon,” says the actor. “Went late, another cocktail, sure.” After the Magic Mike actor beat the drums—and the quarantine blues—for a bit, he says, he dialed up the volume of his speakers—“concert size,” emphasis on the Z—played some tunes, and danced until sweat soaked the floor.

“Got my cardi-ooo, heh, heh, heh…I woke up the next morning with my hands completely swollen. I’m on a proper-tee where I ain’t waking the neighbors…and I’m pretty sure no one called the cops.”

So…you are not alone, reader. McConaughey is also going through it, dancing through the darkness, trying to make the best of a pandemic year when just keep livin’ —the actor’s most treasured piece of advice, seems of fresh, literal import. As in…try not to die.

And that is just what the actor is doing, posting up with his multigenerational family — three kids, his wife, Camilla, and his 88-year-old mother, Kay, on an eight-acre spread on a hilltop outside of Austin, Texas. Tonight, he’s on the other end of a Zoom call, fingers stretching a rubber band, legs kicked up, eyes peering through a pair of clear frames. Scheming, sipping his Longbranch whiskey, intonating.

Tonight the 51-year-old Oscar winner is celebrating a first: He’s now the author of a New York Times