Part of this story is a bit old, as it happened at the Independent Spirit Awards, which are held the night before the Oscars every year, presumably so that the Spirits can be easily overshadowed and get as little press coverage as possible. I missed this at the time, but Matthew McConaughey was on Fresh Air with Terry Gross this week, to promote Mud, which opens this weekend. Gross played a clip of McConaughey’s turn as a presenter at the Spirit awards, where he introduced best picture nominee Bernie, in which he had a supporting role, as did his mother, Kay. When he was onstage talking about Bernie, he told this story:

Since Bernie, and her time onscreen, she corners every producer that she can find on any set that I’m on or otherwise, and pitches her great idea. Of remaking The Graduate. With HER playing Anne Bancroft role. And guess who’s gonna be the Dustin Hoffman role? Me. No shit! This is my mother. Dead serious. And she might have good money-making idea, but it is kinda weird. Incestuous and everything. And if you ask her, and I’ve even said it, I go “Mom, you don’t get how that’s odd?” And her answer’s the same every time, “Oh get over it, I’ve seen it, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Count me in. It’d be the first film we could crowdfund on both Kickstarter AND F*ckstarter. Again, that part of the story isn’t new, but the awesome weirdness of the McConaughey family is as compelling as the zen bongo master himself. You may remember that Kay McConaughey, now 81, is the same woman who self-published an autobiography in 2008, in which she claimed that her late husband died while they were having sex, and that she insisted that his body be removed from the house naked.

“I was just so proud to show off my big old Jim McConaughey — and his gift.”

Corpse boners, dude. For real. But that’s not the last McConaughey Family story from the show:

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Pictured: early negotiations.

Last week I told you about how Christopher Nolan was courting Matthew McConaughey for his upcoming sci-fi epic, Interstellar. It was said at the time that most actors don’t turn down Chris Nolan these days, and now comes word that McConaughey has responded “Buckle up, sugar, this ain’t my first barbecue.” Of course I’m paraphrasing here.

McConaughey said the much-talked-about deal is done in a phone interview this morning from New Orleans, where he is currently filming the upcoming HBO crime series “True Detective” with Woody Harrelson.

Mother of God, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on the same set? That’s enough chill vibes and shirtlessness to send Willie Nelson’s tour bus to the sun!

Nolan’s projects are notoriously secretive, and McConaughey revealed no details other than to say “I’m confirming” that he had accepted the role.
There’s no other casting news about the project. The script, by Nolan’s brother and regular collaborator Jonathan, is said to involve “time travel and alternate dimensions and sees a group of explorers travel through a wormhole.” [StarTribune]

I hope McConaughey plays the fresh meat, so-let-me-get-this-straight character that all good sci-fi movies need to help explain the plot. “I love goin’ through wormholes, man. See, that’s the thang about wormholes – y’all get thousands of years older, and ah just staaaay the same age, alright alright alright.”

I swear to God, if he gets another Oscar snub for his shirtless, acoustic rendition of “Ladybots of Tampraxus B-004″ I’m going to throw flaming trash cans off the roof of my building.

Hearing Matthew McConaughey talk about his career at the McConaughey panel at SXSW, you couldn’t shake the perception that success came pretty quickly and easily for him, on account of him being such a handsome, chilled-out good ol’ boy. After rough couple of years where he took too many easy paychecks for crappy rom-coms (his Kate Hudson Period), McConaughey is back on a hot streak (despite his historic Oscar snub), so it figures that the biggest director in town wants to work with him. According to Deadline, Christopher Nolan has offered McConaughey the lead in his planned sci-fi epic, Interstellar. McConaughey hasn’t accepted yet, and Deadline points out that actors rarely say no to Chris Nolan, but who knows? You never know when McConaughey might want to take a year off from acting to go to St. Barth’s and drop acid and play naked bongos with spider monkeys or something, change his whole perspective on shit.

Interstellar was originally set up in 2006 by Steven Spielberg, when Paramount owned DreamWorks, and after Spielberg became intrigued by Caltech physicist and relativity expert Kip S. Thorne and his scientific theory that wormholes exist and can be used for time travel. It was Spielberg who set Jonah Nolan to write the script, which made it easy for Christopher Nolan to come aboard after Spielberg left the project. After all, the Nolan siblings have a collaborative track record, with Jonah hatching the short story that became Christopher’s first hit Memento, and following that with two Batfilms and The Prestige. Christopher Nolan signed on in January to write a script that merged an original idea of his with the script that Jonah wrote. The ambition is a film that will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the farthest borders of our scientific understanding.

I’d love to see a film where Matthew McConaughey plays a ramblin’ spaceman, piloting his flat-bed spaceship with his dog in the back all over space and time, making good times and chill buds, never staying in one place long enough to get attached.

ALIEN LIFE FORM: Greetings, Earthling. Welcome to Melron-4.

MCCONAUGHEY: Oh hey, I remember you, man. I think I got that hoodie I borrowed in the truck.

In the past I’ve done these photo diary posts for Comic-Con and Sundance, so I thought, why not do another one for SXSW? That’s way easier than coming up with something new! And for you, it’ll be just like you’re here, but without any of the good parts. So anyway, here goes. Above, you can see the placard for the Vimeo Theater panel entitled, “A Conversation with Matthew McConaughey,” which didn’t turn out quite as amazing as I’d hoped, mainly due to a distinct lack of shirtlessness or talk of borrowed hoodies. But it was still unmissable for obvious reasons. We’ll get to all that in a second, but in the meantime – is this not some of the most intriguing signage ever?! Controversial, but I say yes.

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This week on the Frotcast, I bloop in from SXSW, and Bret bloops in from New York, and we talk about SXSW movies – Spring Breakers, Upstream Color, Loves Her Gun, Mr. Angel – the Matthew McConaughey panel, Texas brisket vs. Central California tri tip, Bret tells us about his tiny, tiny apartment, and what it was like to get tweeted at by Susan Sarandon. Lady doesn’t like tacos. I don’t know what the f*ck is wrong with her. Enjoy.

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