Austin, please join us in wishing local legend, jack-of-all-trades, and Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey a happy 55th birthday. We want to celebrate him by honoring his life with 55 facts — one for every year of life. We did the same thing for Willie Nelson , so we figured it was about time to talk about one of the biggest celebrities in town.
McConaughey was born on November 4, 1969, in Uvalde, Texas. His family moved to Longview, Texas, in 1980, where he attended Longview High School . He has two older brothers: Michael, aka “Rooster,” and Patrick, who was adopted.
After graduating from high school, McConaughey spent a year abroad in Australia through his local Rotary Club. His Australian host family originally told him they lived on the outskirts of Sydney, but when he arrived, the host family revealed their house was in Warnervale — over an hour away from Sydney. McConaughey enrolled at UT Austin in the fall of 1989 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television-Film in the spring of 1993.
He began directing and appearing in small, short films while in college. McConaughey met casting director and producer Don Phillips — who would later introduce him to director Richard Linklater — at a hotel bar in 1992. Linklater originally thought McConaughey was too clean-cut for the part of David Wooderson, so he asked him to grow out his mustache .
Party at the moontower, anyone? Gif via Giphy McConaughey’s most iconic “Dazed and Confused” line.