SmartLess: "Matthew McConaughey"

Listener, what are you doing? Are you driving? Are you walking? Are you jogging? Are you

banging around in a subway looking at weird people and now you're listening to a weird

person? Well, guess what? I'm sitting alone. I've got headphones on. And you know, we're

just in this weird space together while we're waiting for Sean and Will to get their crap

together and grab a microphone. Until then, I'm going to play a little music for you,

a little robot music. All right, here we go. Welcome to Smartless.

Will, you're back home. Will, you're back home. I'm back home. I'm feeling really good about it.

You don't sound good. You sound a little bored and tired and not into the sesh today. We're

having a sesh. We're having a pod sesh. Okay, listener, singular by this point. Thank you

for your support, listener, by the way. Yeah, we really appreciate you. We're really keeping

this boat afloat. Yeah. Jason dropped sesh on the group chat and the group text.

He knows seshi and then he went sesh and then he said it's super fun. It's a short and fun for

sesh. And we all know it. We all know sesh, but of course, the bit is that nobody's ever used sesh

or seshi. I know sesh has been used, but I'm think I'm first probably on earth with sesh.

You might be. Are we going to, are we talking about a new sweatshirt?

This is going to be on a Smartless with sesh. The stupid sesh, join the sesh.

That's a good idea. The stupidest short I have that I forget who gave it to me,

but I will not stop it is sesh. Oh sesh, always. I won't stop sesh either.

I love sesh. It is seshidious, sesh. Like sesh? Yeah, short for sesh. So,

somebody does something you go, sesh dog. Oh God. You used to get so mad at me for

shortening words. I just, I love typing it too sesh. Cause I will put the little,

what do you call it, hyphen there? Or no, no, the, what is it? The apostrophe.

The brain shuts down after 3.30 for me and we're now at 4.08.

Yeah. I mean, we are, we're pushing dangerously close to Gummyville.

Gummy time. I mean, we're right on the outskirts of Gummyville.

I don't do that for work, bro. I know, dude. I know.

I'm just, this is the end of my protein shake right there on the backside of a workout. I'm

fresh. This is me peaking. Oh God. This is your peak. I'm peaking. Look at the hair.

Speaking of peak, my happiness is about to peak and what is it a week and a half?

Yeah. Cause Sean's coming home. I'm so excited. I know. I feel the same way.

You know what we did today? We, we just packed boxes and we borrowed this old luggage carrier,

you know, like a bellhop uses to put the boxes on and walk them down the sidewalk to FedEx.

You did. Where did you get one of the little whole, one of the little.

There's one in the basement here in the building. Yeah. But I mean, the site of me and Scotty

pushing this thing, sweating our ass up down the sidewalk.

Yeah. It's like a, like a bad opening credits to a sitcom.

Did you? It totally is. It totally is.

Wait, where was it, Sean? Where's the FedEx office?

It's just a couple of things over. It's a couple of blocks over.

Well, Avenue or blocks? I like it. No, like blocks, like, but, but, but us,

we wheeled it inside the store. So we had the luggage carrier.

I used to do that when I lived downtown, when I lived downtown in the lower, in, in, in the West

Village, there was a FedEx right on Lee Roy street and I lived and I could come out of the back of

my building. Anyway, I would come a full, almost, you know, big, long block and I go across the

street with the thing into the FedEx. What kind of thing? Did you have like a little red wagon

or something like that? Or did you have the same thing, luggage cart from the building

that had, where you could put, you could hang stuff above the buildings, have them in New York.

You have to. I didn't know that. I didn't know we had one.

Oh man, you're going to get it there. Dude, you're going to love planet earth.

I know you've been up to your, your head's been up in space hoping it's real.

I asked for a dollar. Where are we at right now?

Sean, Sean, where are you? Where are we at right now with you, with alien?

Oh my God. Because it feels like it's really come alive this summer.

It's a hundred percent real. It's a hundred percent real.

From the government now. It's a hundred percent real.

Are you going to Congress or are you going to do any stuff like just going like, it's real,

you guys. Is Scotty watching C-Span in the back room right now?

And bring a gavel for no reason. Sean Hayes from television and film. Go ahead, Sean.

It's real, you guys. All right. That's all I got to say.

Guys and just a gavel. Everybody pay attention.

They're like, why do you have a gavel?

Just to out gavel them. But did you see the press conference like a month or two ago

where the guys like said basically, no, it was all over the news that they're real.

It didn't lead the news. It was kind of like in the last 30 seconds when they put kind of

uplifting shots of, no, no, this was like a big conquering diseases and stuff.

No, this is a big government press conference about we've heard some crazy stuff. I heard

some crazy stuff in the last week from a dude I know talking about aliens and their existence.

I don't want to get too deep of their name people, but it's like pretty crazy.

Oh, apparently they're here among us and all this sort of stuff.

Yeah, that's right. Yes. A similar. I didn't know which square you were pointing at.

That wasn't me, right? Don't say it out loud.

Hey guys, preach. I'm trying to protect the innocent dude. You know why? Because snitches

get stitches. Okay? We're filling a sweatshirt. And they also get preferable sentencing usually

because they've made some sort of an agreement with the prosecution and the government.

Which brings us to our guest, Mark Meadows. Which brings us to our guest, who is-

Let's do a sessy. Which brings us to our guest for today's sessy because our guest,

he is guilty of entertaining all of us a lot over the years.

Way to meet this old outlaw. He's an entertainment outlaw.

And he really is. When you see who it is, you're going to say yes, he is an entertainment outlaw

because he is kind of sometimes outside of the system a little bit. He does his own thing.

He kind of doesn't live here. He kind of lives with his family out in the middle of nowhere,

sort of not in the middle of nowhere. Still living at home, huh?

But he's still living at home with the family. But he doesn't just do the films and all that.

He's also, the last couple of years, this guy has been busy writing books and not just books,

like New York Times bestselling books. And he's done so many films.

We can't have him on again. So many great films that we're not going to talk about.

We're not talking about the films, but we can talk about the work and how it gets to this work.

But we are going to talk about his books, and we are going to talk about his foundation,

and then we are going to talk about his new book, Just Because, which I read,

which is for kids that comes out September 12, 2023. It's Texas' own Matthew McConaughey.

I have been here before, but I didn't stay on the show. Matthew, please jump right into your

experience the last time. Hang on, I'm prepared for this, Matthew. So Matthew was on Hang on

one second before we get to play back. Please don't have playback. Before we do, Matthew came on

the show a couple of years ago, and he was ready to go, and Jason was having some tech

difficulty shows. Did you notice this time pregame, how cost-sure he was about his technical

business, telling the back people, shut up, back off, I got this. Listen to where you were.

That's why I said I love that he's having tech problems today. Let's take a listen

to where he was last time, guys. Let's roll it. Let's listen. It sounds like he maybe cloned his

computer onto another computer, and it didn't install the drivers. It's a good time to check

that out right before we have a guest. Sean, take your headphones off. One more moment, please.

Oh, thank God. Thank you for asking me to do it. I know I've been waiting for someone,

man. Matthew. Matthew, thanks, man. God damn it. You okay to go till just before,

what is it, eight-year time? I've got something in one hour and nine, 10 minutes,

so let's go right up to that number. You got it. You got it. Perfect. Thanks, man. Thank you so much.

Sean, you're good. Hello, can you hear us? It's not, I don't see it here on the sound thing.

So let's cancel. Let's just reschedule this thing. I'm in a total fucking tailspin.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, buddy. Great. Who the fuck is that? Who is that?

Yeah. Great. That's helpful. Is that our guest? Is that our guest?

Let me tell you what I've heard here over the last 30 minutes. We got a reboot here. My daughter's

iPad got cloned, and then it got, it got like right before the dog peed on. So I got a reboot

one more time. Wait a minute. It's buffering. Wait, let me reinstall. No, I'm installing.

It's going to restart. We got a failure. I need security check. Oh, shit. We got a virus.

Let me reschedule this whole show one more time. Shit. You know, you guys start without me. Fuck

that. Everyone be patient. Oh, shit. I'm in a total fucking tailspin. Dude. Oh, shit. Matthew, man.

That's fantastic. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. All of that. Why, you still had a sandwich in your head?

It's not been really entertaining, but not as entertaining as watching fucking Bateman

I'm in a tailspin.

I don't know what's going on.

Pause it. Pause it. Pause it because we can play the whole thing. Okay. So now we're back in.

Bateman was just glitching. He was glitching. And what we didn't know is, Sean, none of us knew,

Bateman, when Bateman finally rage quit, as we say in the video gaming world,

he finally rage quit and he was gone. And then Matthew rips his camera off and he starts laughing

and Sean's going, Matthew, I didn't know it was you. And McConaughey's got, he's written it all

down. Yes, he wrote it all down. I'm a court reporter. He was reading.

Okay. So all that stuff was, that was, all that stuff was you was doing, you were doing me with

stuff I'd just said. That was you. That was you. That's just mortifying. And you were going on and

on and you went so long. I was like, this is, this is getting funnier and funnier and funnier.

The worst part is me hearing somebody laughing, thinking it's Will or Sean and going, who did

that? That's not helpful. And then I just slammed my laptop shut, took my ball and went home.

You remember this. So it doesn't happen often. It's not one of my prouder moments.

I mean, you just come back from golf. I'm guessing you didn't, you didn't play well.

No, it's a safe bet. In fact, it had never happened before. And it has not happened since.

We've had, we've had a couple of times where a guest has had a technical glitch and we haven't

been able to do it, but we've never had it like in that situation before. And that was, it went

from being, we felt so bad because you're waiting for so long. And so we felt bad.

Then there's a point, we can listen to this now too. There was a point where Sean and I

start doing sing for real. Do you remember that? We started doing, just to entertain ourselves

and hopefully you while Jason's in a full meltdown. Full tilt. So angry. And I think,

did I, I think, I think maybe you had told me it was a big guess. So don't fuck around kind of

the thing. I just knew I was blowing it. Blowing it. Wasn't I on my daughter's computer or

something? It wasn't at the problem or anything like that. And I'm dumb. Well, you were just

winging it. You were on your daughter's computer. I'm dumb and hot headed. It's a great combo.

You were tardy, dumb and hot headed. Tardy too. Well, listen, Matthew, I mean,

the fact that you've come back after that absolute wipe out, I can't thank you enough.

I mean, you're the greatest. Thank you for being here. It's so great. You're an absolute

kingpin for coming back, which is just the best. And I have been waiting and I've been talking to

Bennett and Rob and Michael Terry and all the guys preparing for this moment. We were so excited

to get the audio queued up. We all went through to find the peak moment, which was Matthew reading

out all this stuff. And then I found out afterwards that it was you. And I was, God damn it.

And the fact that it was you laughing and that I had actually inadvertently yelled at you

and slammed the laptop on you. It was great. High quality entertainment.

It was. But it was a pretty tough Sashi, I will say. It was a pretty tough Sashi.

It was a message Sashi. So, Matthew, but I mentioned in the intro, and this is one of the

things, like I said, you are an Academy Award winning actor. I know, I was going to say insert

applause, but we'll just do it, which is so rad and so well deserved. And you've done so much

great stuff over the years. But what's really amazing is in the last couple of years, as I

mentioned, you have been writing books. So you wrote Green Lights, huge success. And now you've

written this kids book, which as I mentioned, the thing that I read, and I thought I really

think and I read a lot of kids books because I have basically, you know, I have three kids and

a stepson. And a fourth grade intelligence. I read them just because I don't have kids.

It took me two weeks to read it. But I read it today, and like I say, I read a lot of kids

books. I think it's fantastic, man. Thank you. I really, I really, really enjoyed it. And I mean

that. And you guys don't know this, but so Matthew wrote it. Well, you can tell them in your own

words what the sort of the genesis was of this book. Yeah. Well, so, you know, kids, right?

You start thinking about how to parent them all the time, man. They come on with different

questions. You're going, Oh, geez. You know, that moment when they ask you those questions,

you know, like, Oh, this is a doozy. I better have a badass answer because what I say right now is

going to shape the way they see the world tomorrow. And sometimes you're up for it. Sometimes you

got to go get another cup of coffee, you know? Anyway, I, I'm always thinking about that stuff.

So I had this dream one night and I wake up at 2 30. And it was a, it was a, it was a Bob Dylan

ditty, man. It was just because I threw the dart does not mean that it's stuck. And just because

you got skills don't mean there is no luck. And so I just started at the hook was just because,

and I get up at 2 30 and I jammed down all these couplets until six 30 in the morning. I got about

a hundred couplets. I didn't go back to bed because it's nice to sleep on some of those midnight,

those two 30 in the morning inspirations to see if they still hold, right? So I get up at 10 o'clock

next morning, look at, I was like, Oh, this is pretty groovy. This could be fun. It's a nice,

fun, diddy song. And as I looked through it, I was like, you know what, there's pieces in here,

about 25 couplets that'd be good for, good for kiddos that would, that are like about things

that I've been trying to talk to my kids about questions they've been coming to me with. And

so I put those together, send them to my book agent. He goes, this would be a great kids book.

You should share it. And that's what just because that's so cool. That's so cool. How old are your

kids? 10, 13, 15, 10, 13, 14. Right. So they're coming into a different set of questions now that

they might not even admit they need answers to. And yeah, it's it's a whole different set.

What's great about it is, is it is kind of, it really highlights the contradictions

in life, right? Like, and I love that. And for a kid, this is what I love so much. Like,

you know, he just said it, but you know, it starts off with, just because they throw the dart,

they threw the dart, doesn't mean that it's stuck. Just because I got skills doesn't mean there is

no luck. Just because they let you down doesn't mean you got to get low. Just because they're

clumsy doesn't mean they have no flow. And it's just all this stuff. And the, and the illustration

too, your illustrator, whom I really great illustrations, like really helps you tell this

story in this really cool way. And I think as a kid, there's so many great lessons. There's one

where like the kid, it talks about, I'm going to find this one because this, this is one of my

favorites that I love. There was some such a sort of great message. Just because I lie doesn't mean

that I'm a liar. And it's a, you see this older brother, the little girls hit the baseball through

a window. And the, and the next thing the older brother is taking the, the blame for it, protecting

the little sister. And it says, just because I lie doesn't mean that I'm a liar. And it was kind of a

cool lesson. Yeah. Yeah. That's sometimes a good time to take a white lie. You know what I mean?

And the other thing that came from is, and you know, somebody does something, you tell me,

Will, if you tell me a lie right now, and I go, man, you're effing liar. And you go, ah, man,

no, I was trying to get away with this. Sorry, McConaughey, blah, blah. And you don't continue

to lie to me. I was wrong in casting the whole blanket over your character, but it's very different

to call someone a liar than to go, man, you lied to me. Cause you call someone, especially kiddos,

man, you call someone or adults, so you call them a liar or whatever. You blanket them with

anything in a proper, not a liar. Right. They get defensive, bro. Those are fighting words,

and you're going, Hey, man, you're, you're casting it on my character. You say, Hey, man, I don't

like that specific time you did to me. You did me wrong. Don't lie to me again. Yeah. All right.

That's a different thing. We can come together on that and repair. You can go, I'm sorry. I can go,

I accept your apology. We move on. Yeah. Now, if someone continues to bullshit and lie to you

over and over, then you go, well, once shame on you, twice shame on me. I guess you are a liar.

That's a character trait, but usually we blanket somebody with a, with a term, a noun. You're a

liar. That person's a liar. They got to wear that Scarlet Lutter. Where do you sit with all

that stuff? Are you, are you someone like, like, like myself, like if somebody does something like

that to me, I will call them on it, but as soon as they apologize, I will forgive. I probably won't

forget, but not at a grudge level, but like, are like, I'll trust someone until they give me a

reason not to. But there are other people. Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I got a couple of it in there about

just because I forgive you does not mean that I still trust. Yeah. And that's, that's true.

That's got to be rebuilt. I go in trust first too. Yeah. I go in with a very high trust level

early. Some people go, you're going in with too high of a trust level. But look, if,

if someone, if someone comes in and is able to say, Hey man, sorry, I bogied, you know, my bad.

And I, and I, and I sincerely believe I, I'm, I love going. Forgiveness is not only great for

that person. It's amnesty for us who's doing the forgiving. Right. You know, we, I got a couple

that in here that says just because, what is it? Just because I let go does not mean that I quit

climbing. Right. Someone asked, kid asked me about that. And I was like, well, that's kind of like

forgiveness. Letting go is forgiven, right? Yeah. Yeah. And does that mean you're not evolving?

Does that mean you're not ascending? No. Most of the times that mean you are ascending.

You are maturing. That the great, the great illustration with that, if I remember correctly,

is it's a, it's a girl on a skateboard. She lets go, goes down. And then in the next picture,

she's kind of rising up on the roof. It's cool. Yeah. Are there, are there people in your life

that you, I mean, the guys will know why I'm asking this. Are there people in your life that

you still have a hard time forgiving? You know, because, yeah, I know. You guess who, you guess

who the first person is? I don't know. Oh, yourself. That's a lot of what this book's about,

man. All these things we talk about doing to others. Man, we got to include going, hey,

how about yourself? We got to have the proper amount of leniency. Well, yeah. I mean, a writer

writes what a writer knows, right? I mean, so all this stuff came from you. You had these thoughts,

you had these feelings and that brought it out in words. Yeah. That's so cool.

And now a word from our sponsor.

And then frame bridge custom frames your piece using the highest quality materials and ships it

to your door for free. Isn't that cool? It's like all the way. The best gift to ever get is a frame

with a photo in it. So you don't have to do any of the work. And that's what I like to do. I ordered

an alto frame and I gave it to, as a gift, a closing night gift to somebody on Broadway. And

then I actually ordered also the black walnut frame, which is now in my office in Los Angeles,

but it's a picture of me and Scotty outside the theater when we were in New York. They're beautiful.

They blend in with any furniture. They're gorgeous. It's really, really cool. Frame bridge pricing

is fair and transparent. Pricing is based simply upon the size of your piece. And you know exactly

what you'll pay upfront. And now they have 19 retail stores in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia,

DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Chicago and Atlanta. So you can get one to one expert design advice

and see the collection in person. Visit frame bridge.com or a local frame bridge store to

get started and custom frame just about anything. SmartList is sponsored by ADT. Now ADT professionally

installs Google Nest products. So your home is safe and smart. You can check in on your home and

manage your security system from virtually anywhere with Nest cams and the Nest doorbell.

You can even get intelligent alerts. So you receive notifications on what matters most.

Google Nest cams can tell the difference between a person, an animal, a vehicle,

or with the Nest doorbell even a package. Isn't that cool? And with Nest Aware as part of your

monthly ADT service, you get 30 days of event, video history, and even smarter notifications

like when a familiar or unfamiliar face is seen. Plus when every second counts,

you can trust ADT's 24 seven professional monitoring. You can view video of an alarm event

and verify or cancel an alarm with just a tap. When the most trusted name in home security

adds the intelligence of Google, you've got a home with no worries. Go to ADT.com today or call

1-800-ADT-ASAP. Google Nest Cam, Nest Doorbell, and Nest Aware are trademarks of Google LLC.

Thanks to Viori Clothing for supporting the show. Viori makes premium performance apparel inspired

by the active coastal California lifestyle, an integration of fitness, surf, sport, and art.

Everything is designed to work out in, but doesn't look or feel like it.

We've been fans of Viori for a long time, as you guys well know. So we're excited to tell you about

one of their newest products, the Men's Core Jogger. It's everything you love about the Core Short,

the same moisture wicking stretch woven fabric and interior boxer brief liner for the ultimate

and go anywhere comfort, now in a jogger. I have to tell you, I got a new jogger from Viori,

went to the gym. Now I'm back in my routine right now that I'm back in Los Angeles from doing Broadway.

Now I'm back in my tune, going to the gym. I wore my jogger pants to the gym to work out in,

came home, had like 15 minutes so I didn't shower anything to go out to dinner, left them on,

left the joggers on, went out to dinner. No judgment from anybody. And guess who was the most

comfortable at the table? Me. Viori is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they're

offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing

on the planet at Viori.com slash smartlist. That's a V-U-O-R-I dot com slash smart list.

Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you'll also enjoy free shipping

on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns. Go to Viori.com slash smartlist and discover the

versatility of Viori clothing. And now back to the show. Yeah, I was thinking about what you're

saying about casting someone with, they lie to you and then cast him as a liar. And kind of,

for me, it falls in the same category as when people say, you know, I'm the kind of person who,

I always say, hang on a second, we're all the kind of person who anything on any given day,

you don't get to just own that lane. On this day, you did that. But on the next day, you might do

this. And so I kind of reject that a little bit. And I think that we are all capable of making

mistakes. And we're all capable of redemption. And we're all capable of a lot of things, don't you?

Yeah, I do. And look, and look, those, those pretext context, you know, it's a little bit

like that. Okay, well, now I'm being honest, you're like, Oh, shit, were you lying the rest of the

time? Right. You know, you pretext these things with, it was like, don't, I don't need the supposition.

Don't set me up. I get it. I'm on par with you, man. Come in straight. You know, let's, let's,

let's be straight. Frank speaking, yes and no. We all know that maybe's are in the middle.

And it's contradicting. And yeah, you may bogey today, you may birdie tomorrow,

you may do it, do it, do it well today and then eff it up tomorrow. So we come in on that flat line.

It's a little bit easier to get along without the pretext of now, let me set this up, what I'm

trying to say. Well, you know, I've always, you know, I remember we were walking back from dinner

that night, about five years ago in South of France, a Woody's thing. And you said to me,

you go, Arnett, we don't know each other. He goes, Arnett, we got a lot of friends in common

who say that you and I should be friends. And I was like, let's go. I was like, let's go. And I

love that about you. And you're, and you're so, I love your confidence. And I love, every time I

hear you speak, you've got, I don't know, there's like this kind of like, I want to say wisdom,

but I don't want it to sound too hokey. You've got this thing about you, where you talk about

how you feel in a way that I find is very disarming. And I love it. It's a super power. I

think to talk about the way you, and be vulnerable. Yes. On Instagram, I'll watch your stuff. And I'm

like, where, I mean, you're like, you know, an Oprah type of like, you know, you have this

gift. But it's a vulnerability, I think. And right. I think that that, don't you think so,

Sean? I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Vulnerability. But when we talk about

that a lot too, but just like what you said, Will, and to Matthew about your wisdom is like,

where do you get, how, what happened in your life that gave you this kind of self-awareness

enough to look inside yourself and share then, be able to communicate and have the tools to

communicate to other people, your philosophies and life values and all those things, which I just

absorb. Oh, I don't know. It's a good question, man. I mean, thank you. Let me give you one of,

one of many answers here. And I wrote this the other day. And this may be a bit of when you're

talking, it's a way to talk about vulnerability in a fun way. And I wrote this, I said, like,

we are all brilliant dramatic actors when we realize we're in a comedy.

Yeah. Yeah. The comedy, like it allows us, we were talking, allows you to forgive and allows

you to be an ass. It allows you to go over the top and says, Oh, I went too far that time. Come on

back. Got a second chance. It allows you to go. This is not so precious. It allows you to not go.

Well, you know, I want to tell you sometimes I do this, as you were saying, Will, it's like,

we're in it. We're in it. We get it. Come on, man. Okay. Bogey, you screwed up. Now try it again.

The comedy of life allows me, I think for certain truths or to hear them or pick something out that

someone says, I love listening to people. I've traveled. I love that too. And I pick up things

that people say. To the extent you feel comfortable talking about it, like, what was childhood like?

What was like upbringing? Like, do you think all of these, this time in your life where you are

sharing all of these great thoughts and ideas now have come to a fruition because of stuff that

happened to you as a childhood or were you raised in a certain way or? Man, I don't know. I mean,

look, I've always been an existential dude. I'm always been intrigued with, oh, if I can just

get a little closer to figuring out the riddle, the big riddle. What are we doing here? Is there a

God? What's happening? What really matters? What doesn't? That entertains me. You do find a way in

which to steer a lot of your performances, a lot of your characters into places of really solid,

grounding kind of foundations. There's a deep humanity to all the characters you play and some

you can tell is not on the page, but you find that place in you and you share that through

the character and then to the audience and it's always, it always goes down easy. I don't think

you ever ask the audience to buy something that you're selling that is inauthentic. I appreciate

that. Yeah, for sure. You know how that is. We don't want to be watching performance having to do

the math. We all love to be manipulated. We just don't like to be confused. Yeah, but you find a

place to keep it inside your scope, your boundaries, your person. To build on Sean's question, do you

think that's always been there? Was it something, I'm sure as we get older and wiser, it gets better

and better, our ability to be human, but were one of your parents kind of like that? Yeah,

that's what I was going to say. Did somebody model that for you? Look, I come from a family of hams.

That's for damn sure. I mean, I'm probably third and out of five. My two brothers, mom and dad,

third and I would be a bronze medal winner as far as when it comes to wanting and willingness and

performing. Yeah, really? Yeah. I mean, dad was maybe fourth now that I'm talking about it. Dad

was an absolute host of a ham. My mom was always talking about existential logic. I got her story

in the book of green lights where she told me to sign my name under this Ann Ashford poem.

And I said, but I didn't write it. She was, but you understand it and it means something to you.

I said, yeah, she goes within the shares. I signed my name under it and I won the seventh grade

poetry contest. Early AI. Early AI plagiarism. But I mean, so she was always like no TV. Why mom?

Because I'm not going to let you sit in here and watch somebody do something you can go out and

find out if you can do it for yourself. It was like, bam. Okay. So you were just pushed on to say

it's to be the subject. That I will say inadvertently or indirectly was set me up for doing what I do

is you are always forced to be the subject. Go find out. Go find out. It's live. You get one take.

Go. Don't ask. Don't watch. Do it. Come back with a scar. Let me know. Yeah. I love that. And then

the comedy side of that is what tickles my family. Bruce is a lot of people. We were like,

we went comedy quick. Yeah. So there was no risk of embarrassment or shame or making a clown of

yourself. It was, you got to pull your pants down to get their attention, right? You got to. And if

you came in on any kind of high horse or a little arrogant or a little thought you were the shit,

my family just penetrated you to the ground until you cried uncle. And as soon as you cried uncle,

they'd all lift you up and throw you in there and be like, yeah. What's your favorite drink?

What's your favorite meal? Let's cook it for you. Yeah. Yeah. Same. That was like a test. You

know, I remember, I have three older brothers. They would treat me. They, I remember one time they

pinned me down and forced me to shave because I was just like a 12 or 13 years old. I was just

getting a little peach fuzz on my upper lip and they're like, we're going to, we're going to teach

you how to shave. What? And they pinned me down in the family room and got a razor and they just

covered me and they shaved my face. Yes. So bizarre. That's cute. Right to passage, initiations,

you know. Yeah. It's crazy. But now let me, let me ask you because, you know, I don't know if you

ever felt this way to be the second you were on your rise to becoming Matthew McConaughey as we

know him and this big massive global superstar. Was there ever a moment where, because you're so

outgoing and you're so willing to share every thought and feeling now, which is great. Was there

a moment where you didn't and when you didn't, what was the switch that made you go, you know what,

fuck it. I'm not going to be mysterious anymore. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to

just share everything who I am. Sure. Look, I mean, I'm still measured about what I share. I just

have my minds quicker to notice as it's coming out of my mouth. Do I do, who I could say that right

now that I know would be in bold print. And as it's coming out of my mouth, I catch myself.

Let me dovetail that a hair. Now that took years of getting there. Did I notice, do I also notice

that there is real value in demand for celebrities, movie stars to not be around until that Friday

night when your movie comes out? Yes. Is there value to having two tinted blacks of

urban's when you leave and the paparazzi follow because they don't know which one you're in

and you sneak in the back and you're not seen? Yes. Is there value to wearing the same thing out

every single day so every paparazzi shot looks like it was the same day so they lose back? Yes.

Is it value to go, where is he? I don't know where they are. I can only go spend time with them

when they come out in a movie in the theater. Yes. I just tried that for a little bit. Very

short of my time. I was like, bullshit, this is too much work. Yeah. I was just going to say it

sounds exhausting. I started to notice, especially when I had kids, I was like, man, I started to

notice if you're going to live by that code that I just brought up, you start to let your fame wag

your life. Meaning there's, I always said, that's what just keep living to bow. What are we doing?

I got rights as a citizen, a mammal before I have rights or rights taken away from me as

any kind of celebrity. So for instance, we're in New York, my son's four years old,

fire truck pulled, the girl was doing my makeups, husband doing, runs, he's a fire chief at the

fire department. She goes, hey, my son says, I'd love to see a fire truck. She goes, oh, let me

call my husband, he'll swing by. He swings by the Greenwich Hotel right there, I mean Central,

this is when the paparazzi are all around, pulls up front, a son's like, I want to go see the fire

truck. Well, I know if I go down there, it's going to be a paparazzi big shooter, but I'm also like,

my son wants to see his first fire truck. That's got to take precedent, right? If I tell him, no,

not right now, I feel like a heel, I feel like a coward, I feel like a wuss, what am I doing? I got

to go down and get in the middle of it. You got to see the fire truck. Later on, I had to explain

why was everyone watching him, why was it the big deal, but you got to see the fire truck. I've

chose to say, let me go on with my life, let me make choices that make my life first before I'm

going to curtail those to like, oh, I want to be obscure. Sean had a similar moment, I was with

him a couple of years ago, and we were on, and we were on, Sean was, he gave me a ride on the G5,

and he was, and he said, we're going to have, and they came out with the, with the G-nickel, and

they came out with the lobster, and he said, I got lobster, and I said, you're damn right,

you did, I'm good for you. So we started eating the lobster, and then he looked over and he realized

that I was videotaping him. I did, I ate lobster.

Isn't that one of the great, that's one of, that's one of the caveats of fame and access,

or any kind of success, is you, you say yes to things, because a lot of times I'm like,

I never had the option to say yes or no, you didn't write the answers yes, and you got to ask

yourself when they go, do you want lobster on the G5 trip? And you go like, I don't know,

that's a little lobster for me. You got to ask yourself first, do I like lobster? Yeah, exactly.

Well, on, hey, on that, Matthew, with, you know, you seem so genuinely authentic, honest, we used the

word vulnerable earlier, and it's something that I try to strive for too. I know Sean and Will do

as well, and sometimes I feel like what we do for a living is at odds with that, with that,

that quest, in that, like the definition of what we do is, you know, we're professional liars,

we're pretending to be somebody other than us. What's your level of comfort with that?

Can you reconcile those two things? How have you been able to do that?

Dude, I'm going to go with Bob Dylan on that one. This whole thing about, oh,

I got to get to the truth of who I am. Dylan goes the opposite, man, we are who we create,

whatever we create, we're all creations, you know? So I would also go to the extent that

as much as you said, Bateman, we're inhabiting someone else. Yeah. Tell me how you feel about

this, but ultimately, we're being that part of ourselves. Yeah, my version of that person, yeah.

And so, you know, in that way, acting and performing is an absolute vacation.

And an expansion of who we are, really, because you're exploring sort of the edges of it.

It's like the old Marantz equalizer, you turn up the 500 and HKZ part of yourself,

you turn down, if it's a Saturday night character, you turn down responsibility,

and you turn down these other things. If it's a Monday morning character and you're an astronaut,

you turn up responsibility, and you turn up conscientiousness, and you lower the half-hazard

size. And then you go, yeah. And then it's just trust in living in there and go and trust me,

I've had plenty of roles that I got in that I'm like, when this movie's over, am I going to come

out of this? Because if I continue this, I'm going to jail, you know what I mean, or whatever it is,

you know? Or I'm going to be a buddy dud, you know? And, you know.

Right. With all these incredible insights that you have, like who, I'm just watching you talk

and listening to everywhere and hanging on everywhere. Who do you, who gets your juices going,

just having, shooting the shit, having a great conversation with?

I've got those conversations with the kids as they get older, at least I'm finding,

I've got a 16-year-old and an 11-year-old daughters, the conversations get even better.

Like I'm having some of my closest conversations with who I am with my girls now. That's great.

I'm starting to have that too. You notice that transition, we go from just being a father to

being a father and a friend. And then as soon as you slip into that a bit of the friend, you can

kind of be like, yeah, let me know. And they can slide, and they're not worried about the consequence,

or if I give the wrong answer, I'm in trouble. You're kind of like, yeah, let me know. And

let me tell you how that was with me. You know, we've had the first kiss discussions.

And you know, we're nervous and how you do it. And I'm like, let me tell you about my first man,

Nature Trail. His name was Amy, went out. I was really excited. And that old, that old,

forget what movie it was where the lip gets caught on the braces. I did. And they bled all over.

And we bumped noses. I didn't know whether to go left or right. And I doubled juked and I flinched.

And it was, it was not good, man. And so then I get my son laughing. And he's like, I'm like,

yeah, trust me, they don't have to try and be perfect, you know, on this thing, just take your

time, blah, blah, blah. I just had the same conversation. I've had it with my sons and I

did my pick my son up. He was on this trip. And so his mom and I, she was like, I was like,

yeah, I'll go pick him up. I went picked him up the airport. We had like a four hour drive home.

And it was great because I don't know if you guys noticed what I love driving with my kids

is that they're, you're both looking forward and they tend to share more when we drive.

Yep. On a long drive. Oh, really? Why is that? Because they don't have to,

they don't feel you looking at them because you're looking at the road.

That's why I don't like, that's why I prefer phone calls. So FaceTime. I feel like phone calls are

a little bit more honest than FaceTime. I get that. I get that. Hey, you could argue that's why

some people have actually, I've formed some relationships doing over COVID doing Zoom meet

that I like more from the distance than I did in person. Yeah, exactly. That makes sense.

But I do find that those connections, JB, like you were saying, that those connections with the kids

in that, I don't know, remind you, I think I told you guys, I had one of the greatest conversations

with my son, one of my sons. I won't say who because I want to embarrass him, but he said to me a

couple of years ago, we were sitting there spending, I could tell he was kind of down.

It was a Sunday afternoon, we went around, we're sitting there and he was on the ground

and he was headed in his hand and I go, what's going on buddy? He goes, I just don't know where I,

he looks up and he goes, I just don't know where I fit in. And the fact that he was able to be

honest with me in that moment, and we ended up having this incredible conversation. And it was

one of the great, I don't know where it ranked for him in his short life, but in my longer life,

it's one of the greatest conversations I've ever had. That's right. I love that.

You know, I got a good friend in Austin, his name is Bart Nags. He's raised a few girls

successfully out of his house. And he and I were talking just a few months ago,

as my kids are hitting teens, and he's like, dude, there's just one thing you want to do,

whatever you can to maintain through these teen years. I go, what? He goes, access.

To let him be honest like that and to be able to go, I don't know where I fit in.

Yeah. You know, well, and it's true to pick it out on those spots where it's not,

we're going to sit down and talk, look me in the eye. No, where it's a little more informal to

like, we're driving, we're doing something or taking a walk. You do find out more, but

to maintain some access to keep some honesty, you know, in these years, I'm hoping to do.

Yeah. And I feel like that's, that's the, that's the friendship part of the relationship. But then

I feel, I worry sometimes, well, am I sacrificing what could be more useful to them, which is

parenting at the expense of, you know, sacrificing the friendship is like, so I battle with that

sometimes or trying to keep the access door open by being super friends. Yeah. But sometimes

that's not helpful to them, you know, because they've got friends, but they've only got one dad, one

mom. That's a, that's a, that's a tough line to walk, man. Right. I mean, I think, I think the

kids have such a great bullshit meter. They're born with it. And we, we, we wear it out as, as

we get older, whatever, people, other people, society, whatever wears it out. And I think that

what kids, I find in my experience, I'm not going to, I'm not preaching anything, but my experience

is that if you are honest with your kids in that way, and you're authentic, we were talking about

Matthew, about you being authentic. If you can be authentic in those moments, they get it and they

can feel you being authentic. If you're not trying to get something from them, but you're just trying

to relate to them. Yeah. Right. A relationship is just two people relating. And if you can relate

to them, they'll, they'll be honest with you. They'll share, they'll give you that access as long as

you stay, you stay in that zone. Just keep it authentic. That's it. I think that's the key, I think.

It sure helps. I mean, look, it's, you know, I don't know about y'all. I was, I was raised.

Camille and I have much longer conversations with our kids than my parents had with me.

I mean, my parents, you could talk about it. And I was the question, I was the why,

but how, but why, but why? Mom would entertain that a little bit, but very quickly within a few

minutes, it became, because I said so. Right. And I'm your parent. And that was it. Conversation over.

It's that thing. You could, because some conversations that you started at 8 p.m. and

you're going to try to explain, you look up and it's 11. And then it's midnight. And you're going,

you're wearing me out here, man. It's like, because I said so, man, because I'm 53 and I'm your dad,

and you're 10, go to bed. You know what I mean? Who's the, who's the disciplinarian between you

and Camille? Who's, who's the, who's the parent? Who's the friend? Or do you guys switch off real

good? We try to watch the old good cop, bad cop stuff. I mean, look, I got, I got, I got one

daughter and I'm guilty of probably being a little more on the lean side with the daughter. You

know, there's only the only relationship that the honeymoon never ends, you know? Right. So,

but I mean, it's, it's Camille's more day to day moment to moment. I'm a little more like

guys, gang, we've, you've been stretching now on a little bit. I'm starting, the little things

are adding up. I'm going to step in here and I'll go in and be general. And all of a sudden,

I'm the general and they're like, oh, right. And it's like, no, this is how it's going down

right now. And I've had to talk with them. This one's a great one. When, and this has helped with

my boys is going, you know, if I let you get away with that with your mother,

what is that teaching you to allow your son to do to the woman you're going to fall

in love with? Right. You know, and then to go cut even deeper and more direct is

boys, that's my wife. Right. What kind of husband am I teaching you to be if I let you get away

with that? Right. Do they hear that? That one actually cut into places where they understood it

in ways that I thought it was going to be too above their head. Right. But I called it personal.

I said, this is, this is the woman that I fell in love with that I've married and we got together

and made y'all man. And if I'm letting you get away with that, let you disrespect her.

Yeah. What kind of husband am I teaching you to be? Yeah. And they were like, whoa,

it became sort of a bit of a, you know, with the boys, it became a little bit of a,

oh, that's my responsibility as your son. Yeah. But it's kind of fun that like now they're old

enough now to really intellectualize that kind of thing and finish that sentence, you know,

that you started for them, you know, that's, yeah. We'll be right back.

Smartlist gets support from Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and

cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps you lower your bills

all in one place. Most people think they're spending $80 on their subscriptions when in

reality the number is closer to $200. When you're signed up for so many things like streaming

services where you used to watch one show or free trials for delivery you don't use,

it's so easy to lose track of what you're paying for. With Rocket Money, you can easily cancel

the ones you don't want with just the press of a button. No more long hold times or annoying emails

with customer service. Rocket Money does all the work for you. Rocket Money can even negotiate to

lower your bills for you by up to 20%. All you have to do is take a picture of your bill and

Rocket Money takes care of the rest. Stop wasting money on things you don't use.

Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com

slash smartlist. That's rocketmoney.com slash smartlist. Rocketmoney.com slash smartlist.

Smartlist gets support from Helix. It's so nice to be back in my own bed sleeping on my

Helix Dusk Lux mattress. It's the best sleep I've ever had. The Helix lineup offers 20 unique

mattresses including the award-winning Lux collection, the newly released Helix Elite

collection, a mattress designed for big and tall sleepers, and even a mattress made just for kids.

Let's talk about the new high-end Helix Elite collection. It includes six different mattress

models, each tailored for specific sleep positions and firmness preferences. Nervous about buying a

mattress online? Don't be. The Helix sleep quiz takes into account your individual sleep preferences

to match you and your partner with the perfect mattress for you. And your personalized mattress

is shipped straight to your door free of charge plus Helix mattresses all come with a 10 or 15-year

warranty depending on the model. Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows

for our listeners. Go to helixleep.com slash smartlist. This is their best offer yet and it

won't last long with Helix Better Sleep Starts Now.

Smartlist is supported by Audible. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app.

You'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover. Audible offers an

incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre. You'll find guided wellness programs,

theatrical performances, comedy, and exclusive Audible originals from top celebrities, renowned

experts, and exciting new voices in audio. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month

to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. The Audible

app makes it easy to listen anytime, anywhere while traveling, working out, walking, doing chores.

You decide. So I've been checking out Atomic Habits by James Clear. I love his last name,

it's so apropos. It's a great, great audiobook. It'll teach you exactly how to form good habits,

break bad ones, and master kind of like the tiny behaviors that lead to amazing, amazing results.

I really, really highly recommend it. You know, we always joke about on the podcast how we don't

read, but listening to an audiobook seems to be more time efficient for us. And I really,

really enjoy actually listening to books. It's fantastic. I'm reading again with my ears. New

members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smartlist or text smartlist to

500 500. That's audible.com slash smartlist or text smartlist to 500 500 to try Audible free

for 30 days, audible.com slash smartlist. All right, back to the show. So wait, Matthew, you were,

I asked you this like five minutes ago, but you were almost, you were thinking about it. I don't

want to put you in a spot so you don't have to answer if you don't want, but you know, you have

so much to share and to teach and through, through your just incredible brain, who is your guru?

Who do you have somebody in your life that you're like, God, you know what? I got to listen to this

guy or you have the greatest conversations where you actually walk away learning something because

like I said, I learned from you all the time just watching your Instagram.

Like I don't have a certain person I have in the last

five years started to seek out elder mentors. Yeah. In a way that I didn't before. Yeah,

that's what I mean. And look, ironically, I was writing about it last night. I mean, I'm losing

my mentors. They're dying over this last four years. I don't know how it's been for y'all, but

I've had some elder friends that were, that were right there. They slowed down, but they were right

there holding it. But boy, that last all of a sudden the drop is steep and they're gone.

Has that, has that triggered for you something? And I'm not, I'm not prying for an answer on the,

on the specifics, but at least for me, you know, for all four of us, we're, we're, we're closer

to death than we are to birth. And, and at some point, especially if you're semi-intelligent,

like I think the four of us are, you do start to think about, well, what are some of the things I

want to, when that moment of clarity comes where you're like, okay, here I am in the last week,

you know, I'm, I'm, I'm in hospice or whatever the hell it is, you know, when everyone gets the

end of their life, what are the some of the things I'm going to wish I can say, yes, I did that.

Yes, I did that. Are you starting to, are you starting to think about some of those things?

Or am I, am I being the, the, the kind of adult I wanted to be? Am I, I started doing that about,

about, about six years ago. It was part of the reason I think I wrote the book Green Lights.

I started to get the courage enough to project to my deathbed, to my eulogy and go, what's it

going to be, man? Where's your head and heart and spirit going to be? What's your legacy going

to be? How are you going to look back? What are people going to say? How are you going to be

introduced after you're gone? Right. And we think that's morose. No. But if it's inevitable, how

can it be morose? Because it's going to happen to everybody, right? So to look at it. And if

anything, it's given me more of a charge to go, okay, well, let's make this shit count.

Yeah. But most people with your success would, would be, yeah, I did, I did it.

I think they're going to live forever.

They just kicked the can down the road. I won't, I won't say who this is, but somebody

super duper successful. I was talking to the other day and, and I was asking him about his,

his health regimen. And he was like, yeah, you know what, here's the deal. I don't know what

your religious belief is, but I believe that we all kind of come around, you know, we do, we do

multiple laps. You know, we're always working on things, you know, reincarnation, whatever the

hell it is. But he says, I like this lap. And I started laughing because this guy's like,

enormously successful. He says, I just don't want this to end. Like, I'll have it a really good time.

And I want to eat. Yeah. By the way, spending time with, with all those like, when anytime you,

you get around any kind of those like sort of billionaire types or whatever.

The one thing I noticed that they all talk about is their mortality and their fucking health.

It's it. It's all the time, because it's the one thing they can't buy. They're like,

they can improve it. Look at, I've got these mountains of cash, but I can't buy immortality.

Fucking like, no man, no dude, you're going to die just like everybody fucking else. The other

thing is I also know is we, I, you know, these guys know my, my good buddy died a few months ago

childhood pal and it's kind of really, it's made me ask a lot of questions in the last few months.

And the one thing I realized is like, we all know the deal. The deal is we're all going to die.

We just take a can down the road. We trick ourselves. And what happens to go, hey, so

and so died. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think was going to happen? Unbelievable.

He died. He didn't live to a thousand. Yeah. You know,

Joan Rivers said, like just a few months before she died, she's like,

I'm 86 when I die. Nobody's going to go so soon. Right.

But wait, I want to hit a hundred so bad. Oh God, I really, I've just got a numbers game,

just pure ego. That's the number. I really want to get to a hundred. I do feel like this

generation will do that more commonly than the last. Yeah. I feel like we've got a good shot.

Well, with your diet of nuts and cardboard, your innards look like they're a hundred. Don't worry.

I could use you to pack my clothes here in New York. But, but with your success, don't you,

I'm just going back to what you said about like, you know, what's, what's my legacy?

When I'm going to leave behind, what do I, you know, but my God, the body of work is,

is mind blowing. It's really awesome. Any actor, you know, it's the top of the heap.

So it's, what else is there to accomplish in your mind that would make you feel like,

now I have enough to leave behind, now I have a legacy, now I have something for people to

introduce me as, as you say. Well, I mean, my negotiables are different forms of art,

but my non-negotiables are those three kids I was talking about. I hope that when they are out

of the house and as they become adults and, and after I'm gone, that they'll be able to list me,

that the three of them will be able to list me as best friend on one hand, one of their five

top best friends. That's great. That would, that's a dream of mine. That's awesome. You know, and

that gets into that, that friendship thing we were talking about, but I can't go full bore on that

yet. I still do have to be a parent. I still do have to give myself credit and go, I'm a father

for a reason. I'm 53. We have, if we don't know better, what's evolution for at the same time,

trying to be that friend and hope I'm on their, on their hand. Yeah. It also, for me at least,

it kind of demands that I, I live my life in a way that they can maintain respect for me,

which translates to friendship usually. I mean, you know, or I put another way, I'm not really

close friends with anybody that I don't deeply respect. Right. So it's, it's a good safeguard

against, you know, letting your life run off the rails. If you're, if you're really trying to hold

the respect and, and, and friendship of people you care about. And then I'm trying to double down

on whatever respect I've earned and gained. I'm trying to double down on that. I mean,

you know, there's, look, let's be honest, there's the baseline of who pays a rent,

who puts the food on the table. Yeah. Who's giving you a chance to get an education?

Who, who, who's up in the middle of the night taking care of you when you're sick? Who's,

Yeah. Cause I'm tired of it. Right. I'm tired of it. And they have to know that that's not just like,

I'm over it. This isn't just one way street. This is, and, and then we talked to them a lot about

how did we get what success that we've had. We talk about when in the right way. We talk about,

has there been luck along the way? You damn right. Has there been trying to do it well,

trying to get, be as competent at a craft as I could be, their mother as well. Yes, there has.

But what's that saying about luck? Luck is, is, is the result of preparation and, and discipline

or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I, I talked to my son yesterday about this idea.

I was saying, he was talking about cool kids in school and stuff. And I said, man, just do,

do what makes you feel happy. I said, if you can be, and he's, he started painting a lot in

the last year and a half. And I said, do that. If you can live a life where you get to be creative

and you can do that on a daily basis, that's what you do. You'd be so lucky. You'll be so happy

in your life, no matter what the sort of the outcome is. And I go, and if you want to know what

success is, and I always say this to them, if you want to know what success is, and I pull up my

phone and I show them the video of Sean eating lobster on a G5. I go, this is success.

Can I peel it for you? Yeah. Wait a second. Wait a second. We've, we've taxed you so much,

but I want to ask you one thing. Cause I keep, I want to get into your, this, the green light

initiative or the, the foundation that you and your wife started and what you guys are doing.

It's so fucking cool. Tell the guys a little bit about what it is. Check this out, man. This,

this is pretty cool. And it's low hanging fruit. Yeah. But you know what I say about low hanging

fruit, still fruit. Pick it. That's still fruit. You know? So first bill, bipartisan

and safety communities act has passed just over a year ago, right? To safety and schools. First

one passed in 30 years. So billions of dollars of federal money are there to safe and schools,

mental health counselors, and even physically safe and schools like metal detectors, panic

buttons, et cetera. Our congressman in Texas, who down there in Uvalde, where that, where the

shooting was where I went, went to Camilla and I went down, comes to me four months after

and says, Matthew, I got 119 school districts, eight. I think it's eight have applied for a grant

and zero have been awarded. Like what? We find out another out of 13,800 school districts in America

for this very popular grant for, from the Department of Justice to safety and schools,

405 applications. Total. 235 awarded grants. The math doesn't add up. You're like, what's going on?

We started studying this. I was amazed at how many school districts don't even know that the

grants are there to apply for. Number two, the ones that do know are superintendents who are

in the ones that need it in high poverty rate schools. The superintendent is the bus driver

and the PE teacher. He or she doesn't have the damn time or the expertise to write out one of

these 50-page grants. And I understand it. I can't even fill out a customs form with that

scratch and shit out. And they're complicated. They're really complicated. So they're like,

I'm not even going to write the grant. There's also people that are like, that's federal money.

And that money's blue right now and I'm red, so I don't want that money. I'm like,

guys, the money ain't blue or red. It's fucking green. You spend it. It's there. And the government

wants you to spend it. They want you to get awarded it. So the billions of dollars are there.

Then we find out that it's used it or lose it. And year 2026, if these billions of dollars are

not allocated, it'll be reallocated somewhere else. And we'll look back at this bipartisan

safety communities act, which has already done some good, but we'll look back and go,

so much of that bill was symbolic and bravo to us. First one passed in 28 years and what do we do

with it? Right. So we started this green lights grant initiative to help follow through as private

citizens working with the public government to say, Hey, let's cut through that red tape.

165 of the highest poverty rate schools in America are main target. We will have a full grant

writing service for those schools to file a grant that will most likely get awarded by the government

to save from their schools. That's great. So you write the grant for them.

We have a grant right. You can write it for them. The second tier is we have,

we have a website now that walks you through. So the second tier of poverty schools

can go on and we have someone who will help you write the grant. And then the third place is just

for the schools that are more fluent, but it just helps you get through the red tape process in a

very simple way. So it's sort of a, I call it a civics class of supply and demand. I mean, it's

no civics is not sexy. You know, as I'm saying, this is not, there's nothing glamorous about this

initiative, but it's useful and it's constructive. And it just needs to be, it just needs to be there.

And I, we had no idea how much the government's like, yes, we want to spend the money. We just

have to feel the need. We have to feel F E E L the need. And we're helping schools go better over

here going, we need, but how do I show you we need you? Well, we're going to help you fill out

this grant that shows them that you need it. And then they can, what's it called again?

Greenlight grant initiative. And can people go to a site and help out or how are you guys funded?

You can go, we're still going around for looking for funding now. You know, one of the challenges

has been people, a lot of people come up and wanted to fund, but they specifically wanted it to go

towards their city or their state, which is a very interesting thing. I mean, talk about, you know,

this is a non political issue because it's a bipartisan bill. It was passed. You still have

people that go, well, I just want to put it in my backyard. It's a national campaign. If you go on

the site, there are places where we can, we let you know, you can help. There are places where we

take donations to help. It'll tell you what the, how much that donation, what it would pay for.

18 to 25 G pays for a full grant writer to write. We have this grant writing firm

that can do it by scale and lower their prices to do it by scale.

Seems like it would make sense for the government to just peel off a tiny sliver of that huge

allocation to fund a service to lubricate it, you know, like you guys are doing.

Yes. I mean, they admit that there's too much. The R's and the D's admit this should not be

this complicated. As we know, the government needs some help in running their business.

And this is an example of a private sector going, hey, we're not going to do it for you, but let's

help you out. Well, they should donate to your site then. You know, the federal government should

make a little donation there and help it run. We have a solid bipartisan advisory board from

Murphy to Cornyn to many others. And they want, and they'd say, if we could get to 165 of the

highest-risk schools and get them grants written and get them awarded, that would be a real,

the Department of Education said that would be a massive game changer. And then the idea is that

down the road, you don't need to have a full grant writer write these things out, that the

process will be much more streamlined, that, you know, maybe AI down the road can help fill out

these grants. And you don't have to pay a certain person. We've also gone out, if anyone out there

is listening, is a grant writer and wants to do some pro bono work, please. Any retired teachers out

there. Give them your home phone number. Home phone numbers coming up on screen right now.

No, but that's a great way to do it. There are any grant writers out there and please do

reach out to, they can go to greenlightsgrantinitiative.org. You spend all this time, you do all this

stuff and you do all this amazing stuff and giving back in this, we're not just giving back, I mean,

really taking an initiative and helping, Sean, by the way, where was that lobster from on the G5?

So that was a main lobster. It was, yeah, up north. I'm just to the right. Yeah, good for you.

Anyway, Matthew, you do so much good work out there in the world.

He doesn't do oysters because oysters only have pearls. He does diamonds.

He does them real good. You know what, here's a little peek, here's a little peek into my

personality. When you said someone writes the grants or they help write them, I felt like a

weight off my shoulder, like, oh, it's another thing I don't have to do. So that's just my

personality. I was like, oh God, am I gonna have to write a grant or something? So, but listen, so

this is going to, you don't have to talk about this. We can cut it. It's an old topic.

But any fun theater stories.

Did you ever forget a line on stage, Matthew?

No, but wait, no, it's an old topic and forgive me. Again, we can cut it. But the only reason

I'm bringing it up is because it has been a fantasy of mine. Is there, I know you say,

Bongo's naked? No, I have that meme. It's on repeat. But the Texas thing, will you ever revisit

even the idea of Texas is better yet running for the president of this country or anything in

politics at all? It would be amazing. Look, it's not something I want to visit now because of what

I said earlier. I'm raising three children right now and it's a great adventure doing that. I want

to see that through. My only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was his dad since I was eight years

old. I want to see that through. And I have to measure, as I've given great measurement to it,

where can I be most useful? And I want to enjoy myself. Hard work doesn't scare me. But man,

I'm an artist. I'm a storyteller. I'm a folk singer. You know what I mean? Now, is those

parts of me what could be useful in a political position of leadership to be a CEO of a state

or a country? Maybe. But some things to, you know, I'm raising my three kids right now is a hard

but fair fight. Going into politics right now is a hard and unfair fight. I'm trying to win,

let me go win my priority non-negotiable fair fight first and then let me out back and have it.

And forgive me for asking. I just think you'd be incredible.

I don't mind. I don't mind at all. It's a great answer. It is a great answer.

And I think we kind of made a little bit of news. So in 10 years, you got a 10 year old,

eight years really, you'll be on the ticket somewhere. So there we have it.

Can I just say something before, because I've said this to him personally, okay,

but I want to bring it up to y'all because y'all are probably closer with him and you'll know what

I'm talking about. But the man in the bottom right corner who is so technically adept today.

I'm so, I've always loved him, loved him in comedy, but I was so happy to see him get into drama.

Yeah. Because does anyone have a better delayed blink than Jason Bateman?

He's got the best, Bateman's got the best delayed blink in the business.

That's great. That's great. I brought, I introduced a half blink to a character about

a year ago. I did it for somebody the other night at some party. I totally,

I totally forgotten about it. It's like this really affected kind of,

well, winks, winks are super douchey anyway, but I took it up a notch for a half wink.

So the lids don't actually close. It's just sort of like a, a little like a squint.

Oh, it's fucking terrible. I also keep forgetting to put, to incorporate close-eyed talking

with a character. That's also super douchey. You know, when someone closes their eyes when

they talk, no, you know what? You just don't understand what I'm saying.

That's a good one. But thank you. Thank you.

A lot of people close them slow, but then they get nervous on the rebound and open them quick.

You close them slow and I think you open them slower and it's right between,

I got to hang on every word and he's, he's absolutely fucking with me at me.

I think, I think a lot of it's ZX too, isn't it?

It's a lot of ZX and then I'm also in the editing room. So I'm hitting freeze frames all the time

just to elongate the eye close. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh my God. Well, Matthew, we're over. We're eight minutes over.

Yeah, you're generous. Thanks for being here.

Listen, man. Yeah. Thank you for coming back, our first returning guest.

For giving me another shot with my hothead. I appreciate you.

Yeah, we only made it through pre-production last time. Glad to make your production with you this time.

What an absolute treat, man. It's so great to have you.

Love you so much. Yeah, you're such a great.

Appreciate it, guys. Appreciate it.

And all the success in your book, it comes out just because.

Just because?

September 12th. Am I right about that?

I think that's right.

I've got the script. I don't have it over there. I'll be out there and talking about it.

September 12th, September 12th, September 12th, just because.

Matthew McConaughey, man.

You're the man.

You are the man.

Man, appreciate it.

Okay, pal.

Thank you, man.

See you, pal.

Thank you, buddy.

Thank you so much.

Bless up.

Bye, buddy.

Oh, love him.

Real good.

I tell you what, I like that Matt McConaughey.

Yeah, I could talk to him.

It's not Matt.

It's Matthew.

It's Matthew.

It's Matthew.

I know.

Yeah.

I made that mistake once.

I felt terrible about it.

I know it's not.

I know it.

He talked to him for a long time.

Well, what a guy.

Really, truly, he is an absolute original.

He does not waver.

He does and says what he wants.

His roles have been all over the place

from the sort of the easiest go down

sort of popcorn kind of films to the most challenging

artistic films, small budget things.

And then also just like, I love that he lives

super down home there in Texas.

But then he also lives a very flamboyant

and elite lifestyle as well.

He's just, it figures out a way to manage it all.

Yeah.

Anyway, he's, but what he's been able to do

in starting out is kind of a matinee idol

and sort of hanging in there, not forcing people

to appreciate or respect his acting chops.

You know, like he didn't cram some Shakespeare

thing down our throat right after some rom-com.

Like he's taken his time.

By the way, what I like also is he talks about,

he just shows, he's like, for the most part,

he just shows up on Friday night.

That's where you can see him on a Friday night

when the movie opens and he's not out there

going talking about his process in this way

that's self aggrandizing.

He just does it.

He just does it.

But you know what I loved?

I loved when he said, he's so great at everything he does

that even when he was saying, he was signing off,

he even, it was even cool the way he waved.

Mm, good.

Good bye.

Bye, it's not really a creative one.

I don't know.

It's literally saying bye.

Sean always wants to get out so early.

Sean's always acts like there's like a cab running out

with the meter running outside.

Like he's just kind of down.

Maybe there is.

Maybe there is.

There probably is.

It's Broadway is right outside.

All right.

Hey, listen.

Listener.

Listener, we love you.

Bye.

Go, bye.

We love you, listen.

We're just going to do the very same.

Bye-bye, love you, bye-bye.

Smart, lost.

Smart, lost.

SmartList is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted

by Bennett Barbicot, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjurf.

Smart, lost.

Our next episode will be out in a week

wherever you listen to podcasts

or you can listen to it right now early on Amazon Music

or early and add free by subscribing to Wondery Plus

in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.