Lived briefly in Australia following high school and adopted an Australian accent for awhile after returning to the USA.
Education: University of Texas at Austin (Film)
Graduated 1988 from Longview High School, Longview, Texas.
Brother of Rooster McConaughey.
Arrested in Oct 1999 in Austin, Texas for "resisting transportation" after first being under suspicion for marijuana possession.
Police responded to a disturbance call at Matthew's home in Austin, Tx. in October. When they arrived, the music was blaring and he was playing bongo drums in the nude. He was with an unknown man and police attempted to arrest him after spotting illegal drugs. He resisted arrest.
Was the first choice to play the lead in Titanic (1997).
Travelled around Peru after filming _Time To Kill, A (1996)_ .
Voted "Most Handsome" in his Senior year of high school.
Member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.
His father was at one time a professional football player for the Green Bay Packers
His favorite sport is golf.
He owns a 1,600-acre ranch in west Texas, which he purchased for $500,000.
His father died of a heart attack in August 1992.
His first professional acting job was in a beer commercial.
Fan of John Mellencamp's music. Was seen wearing a tee shirt from Mellencamp's "Whenever We Wanted" tour in A Time to Kill (1996).
Born on the same day as Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs.
Was on the sidelines of The Texas Longhorns during the 2005 Rose Bowl where the Longhorns beat Michigan 38-37
Was accompanied by Penélope Cruz to the Grammy Awards in 2005. The couple met on the set of Sahara (2005).
Served as the Grand Marshall for the Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida in February 2005.
He traveled around the United States for a month in his personal Airsteam trailer promoting his movie Sahara.
During a guest appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992), Leno surprised him with an old airline training tape he had acted in. McConaughey had no memory of being in the video.
Is of Irish descent
Despite being a native Texan, he's a big fan of the Washington Redskins NFL team.
People Magazine's 2005 Most Sexiest Man Alive
Matthew McConaughey Detailed Biography
Matthew McConaughey made his motion picture debut in Richard Linklater's acclaimed 1970s coming-of-age drama, Dazed And Confused, after a chance meeting with producer and casting director Don Philips, in a hotel bar in Austin where he was attending the University of Texas. His character of Wooderson, although written as a brief role, became one of the film's most memorable after Linklater encouraged the actor to improvise additional material (the initial three scenes became more than 300 lines).
After moving to Los Angeles, McConaughey shortly thereafter became a sensation with his riveting performance in Joel Schumacher's movie adaptation of John Grisham's first novel, A Time To Kill. The film, also starring Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson, surpassed the $100 million mark at the box office and earned the young actor rave reviews and overnight stardom.
McConaughey solidified his bankability with plum roles - working with great co-stars and A-list directors. He starred opposite Oscar winner Jodie Foster in Robert Zemeckis' Contact, and then segued to work with Steven Spielberg on the historical drama Amistad, starring opposite notable actors Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman and Djimon Hounsou. McConaughey also starred in EDtv for Universal Pictures, which co-starred Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson and Ellen DeGeneres.
The Texas native from Uvalde and Longview contemplated a career in law before tackling the entertainment field when he enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin. It was at the end of his sophomore year that he decided to make the switch to the school's film curriculum. After wrapping Linklater's film in 1992, McConaughey returned to the university to complete his degree. His senior year, he shot and directed a 12-minute short film centered in the world of Hispanic low riders entitled Chicano Chariots.
Before moving to Los Angeles, McConaughey won a starring role as Vilmer, the blood-thirsty tow truck driver in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, which co-starred fellow Texan Rene Zelwegger. Upon his arrival in Los Angeles, he quickly landed work in his first Hollywood audition Herbert Ross' Boys On The Side, playing a righteous Arizona cop and co-starring Whoopi Goldberg and Drew Barrymore.
He also landed a key role in Disney's Angels In the Outfield.
McConaughey also co-starred as Sheriff Buddy Deeds in John Sayles' widely-acclaimed Oscar-nominated drama Lone Star, portraying a heroic small town police officer. He also reunited with writer/director Richard Linklater in The Newton Boys, playing one of the four brothers in the true-life story of bank robbers who were notoriously successful in the 1920s.
McConaughey's production company, j.k. livin' (short for ‘just keep livin' which comes from one of the lines his character uses in Dazed And Confused), is developing several projects for Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount and Imagine Entertainment. The company executive produced the critically-acclaimed feature documentary Hands On A Hardbody, directed by fellow Texan Robb Bindler. The company also produced Making Sandwiches with Sandra Bullock's Fortis Films which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
