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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/19\/style\/matthew-mcconaughey-woody-harrelson-brothers.html?emc=edit_nn_20260922&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226865",
    "parsed_content": "They\u2019re Bros. But Are They Brothers?Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on decades of friendship \u2014 and the DNA test they won\u2019t be taking.Credit...Dana Scruggs For The New York TimesThey\u2019re Bros. But Are They Brothers?Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on decades of friendship \u2014 and the DNA test they won\u2019t be taking.Credit...Dana Scruggs For The New York TimesSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTListen \u00b7 28:18 min Share full articleBy Maureen DowdMaureen Dowd spoke with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on a Greek island, but did not join them in enjoying anything stronger than a Greek cheese plate.Published Sept. 19, 2026Updated Sept. 21, 2026Leer en espa\u00f1olSitting across from Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, as they smile impishly and rib each other, I am reminded of an ashtray I have.It offers this wisdom: \u201cThe trouble with trouble is, it starts out as fun.\u201dWe are having fun, snacking on Mediterranean food in the Mediterranean, sitting beside luxury villas on the azure Aegean, on a small Greek island where McConaughey and Harrelson have vacationed together for the last 10 years. Their families are eating at a lunch buffet inside, with a vegan side for Harrelson and a meat side for McConaughey. They have brought me a small cheese plate, which Harrelson avoids.\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t happen in a million years,\u201d he said, glaring at the Brie.The two stars are known as a great hang. In fact, that is the premise of their new TV show. But unlike other legendary star friendships \u2014 Redford & Newman, Clooney & Pitt \u2014 there\u2019s an edge of Texas kooky. You just know if you hang with them long enough, you\u2019re going to get into some trouble.Right now, they are telling such a wild story \u2014 one that originated at the very picnic table we are sitting at \u2014 that you must view it through the lens of what McConaughey calls \u201cexistential outlaw logic.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIt is a meta tale that proves the truth in McConaughey\u2019s much parodied but very effective Lincoln ads, where he drove around looking moody and spouted profundities like \u201cSometimes you got to go back to actually move forward.\u201dIn the late \u201990s, McConaughey and Harrelson got to know each other playing brothers in \u201cEdTV,\u201d the prescient Ron Howard movie about a young man (McConaughey) who found fame and misfortune by allowing his life to be filmed. The movie brothers had their own wacky chicken dance.Over the years, the two blond, blue-eyed, athletic, unconventional, opinionated, Tequila-loving Texans became such close friends, with such an easy tactile relationship, they were like brothers.ImageMatthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson seem oblivious to the typical thicket of Hollywood envy, and are genuine cheerleaders for each other.Credit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesAnd now, in a new buddy comedy on Apple TV and in life, the stars are exploring whether Matthew\u2019s mom might have had a Lone Star dalliance with Woody\u2019s dad, and whether they are, in fact, for real, brothers. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe show, called \u201cBrothers,\u201d is fiction, though they use their real names and the fiction is inspired by real life. TV Woody and his family travel from their home in Malibu, Calif., in a trippy psychedelic bus to visit the McConaugheys at their ranch in Austin, Texas \u2014 and the hunt to determine parentage ensues. Woody is driving the sleuthing \u2014 like a true detective.\u201cI\u2019d love it if he was my brother, honestly,\u201d the 65-year-old Harrelson said, with that same easy gaptoothed grin that charmed audiences when he played a bartender in \u201cCheers.\u201dMcConaughey pushed back. \u201cI\u2019m not doing a DNA test,\u201d the 56-year-old said firmly.Harrelson pressed on: \u201cI would do it because I know it\u2019s true.\u201dMcConaughey disagreed, arguing that his mother, a flamboyant Steel Magnolia named Kay McConaughey and known as MaMac, was just stirring things up.McConaughey is hesitant to definitively answer the question because he feels that if they actually were brothers, it\u2019s like saying, \u201cOh, your dad\u2019s not your dad that you thought your dad was for 50 years.\u201d He turned to Harrelson and said: \u201cFor you, it\u2019s easy. You gain a brother.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHarrelson shot back, \u201cYou gain a father, just different from what you had in mind.\u201dI asked McConaughey if his reluctance stems from the fact that Harrelson\u2019s father was a convicted contract killer \u2014 charming and ice-cold \u2014 who died in prison.McConaughey, who played a hit man in the movie \u201cKiller Joe\u201d shook his head.\u201cNo, I don\u2019t really care about that,\u201d he said.Harrelson dryly interjected, \u201cHe\u2019s thinking to himself, \u2018Everybody has to make a living.\u2019\u201dImage\u201cUltimately, these guys are two of the greatest hangs of all time,\u201d said Lee Eisenberg, the \u201cBrothers\u201d showrunner, \u201cand I wanted to make a really great hangout show.\u201dCredit...Apple TVThe two men have taken a break from their daily marathon of athletic competitions \u2014 swimming, tennis, kiteboarding, sailing \u2014 to drink matching matchas, which Woody calls \u201cbad boys\u201d \u2014 and chat about their new paean to bromance.It arrives at a moment when male friendship seems endangered.Men\u2019s social circles are shrinking, and young men are lonelier than they have been in generations. The writer Tyler Austin Harper noted in a recent Atlantic article how male friendships have been demonized in recent years, accused of perpetuating toxic masculinity and implicit homophobia. These friendships are dismissed as stunted and shallow if they are based on activities and lack the personal disclosure and emotion that drive many women\u2019s friendships.But in Woody-and-Matthew world, male friendship seems easy, cool, fun and good for business. I tell the men that, in writing about movie stars, I have encountered a lot of schadenfreude and insecurity. Actors sometimes refuse to talk about their co-stars, if they\u2019re not the main subject of the story. Even Joanne Woodward declined to give an interview about her husband, Paul Newman, for a New York Times Magazine piece because the story was about him, not her.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHarrelson and McConaughey seem happily oblivious to the typical thicket of Hollywood envy. They are genuine cheerleaders, rooting for the other to get the best jobs and give the best performances, feeling it will raise their game, too. \u201cIron sharpens iron,\u201d Harrelson said. They play sports, but they deepen that connection with a constant stream of conversation about their emotions \u2014 enough for the two Austin residents to fill a Jane Austen novel. And, perhaps most importantly, they give free rein to their inner boys, even as they discuss what responsibilities they have as men.VideoCreditCredit...Dana Scruggs For The New York Times\u2018Keep the Game Going\u2019\u201cWoody\u2019s a guy who shows up at your house unannounced and barefoot, which is just weird and adorable,\u201d said Bill Maher, who is another of Harrelson\u2019s serial bromances. The two own a cannabis dispensary in West Hollywood called The Woods. \u201cHe wants you to come out and play, just like we\u2019re 14 and this is New Jersey in 1972.\u201dHarrelson acknowledges that women generally have a different style of friendship than he and McConaughey do.He said he often played poker at the home of Willie Nelson, his neighbor in Hawaii. (Harrelson spends most of his time at his home outside Austin and has an off-grid home in Maui.) He dropped by one evening, he said, when \u201ca bunch of the ladies\u201d were playing. \u201cThese gals would be just talking, telling stories,\u201d he recalled. \u201cTen minutes go by and then they\u2019d play a hand. Another long conversation, stories. I\u2019m thinking, \u2018We would never do this.\u2019 It\u2019s like: \u2018Deal it, man. Deal it.\u2019\u201dMcConaughey nodded: \u201cKeep the game going.\u201dHarrelson continued: \u201cWith us, there\u2019s a serious attentiveness to the game, whereas with them, the game was totally peripheral. I thought, \u2018Wow, I love the way they do this.\u2019 We never adopted it.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMcConaughey said he and Harrelson would start with an activity, like aerobic pingpong, where everything is inbounds, or a contest to see who can swim to a boat and back faster \u2014 \u201cWhoever cries uncle first is the loser,\u201d McConaughey said \u2014 and then that blossoms into what he called the \u201cpersonal, business and spiritual.\u201dThere\u2019s a reason Harrelson calls McConaughey \u201cthe philosopher.\u201d McConaughey said that from the time he was a teenager, starting the diaries and writing the poetry that led to his best sellers, \u201cGreenlights\u201d and \u201cPoems & Prayers,\u201d he has grappled with \u201cthe bigger picture.\u201d\u201cConsequences and delayed gratification and how to make choices,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do you engineer satisfaction? Is it just luck?\u201dHow do they feel about the panic in Hollywood over artificial intelligence?\u201cThis moral cry from the artist about calling it the immoral trespass on artists, I understand the cry, but that\u2019s not going to stop what\u2019s coming,\u201d McConaughey said. \u201cToo much money to be made, too efficient, too productive. It\u2019s already happening. \u201cIf you want Woody to just show up, as in \u2018Cheers,\u2019 on this table dancing at your party tonight, you\u2019ll be able to have him. But that ought to go through him. He can say \u2018I\u2019ll do that and here\u2019s my price.\u2019\u201dMcConaughey has a brown leather notebook with him and writes down fresh thoughts or words that he hears for the first time. He also fills up the Notes app on his phone. When I use the word \u201cabstemious,\u201d he writes it down and later humorously slips it in the conversation.ImageMcConaughey and Harrelson first crossed paths while competing for a part. \u201cEighty percent of our conversations are about how to be better men,\u201d McConaughey said of their friendship.Credit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesMcConaughey\u2019s character in \u201cTrue Detective\u201d was always spouting big thoughts, like \u201cTime is a flat circle,\u201d and the actor has that trait as well.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cHe doesn\u2019t do well with small talk,\u201d Harrelson said. \u201cHe thinks big. He likes to embark on discoveries in the philosophical sphere. He always asks these hypotheticals that make you think.\u201dBoth have a soulful streak. McConaughey once wanted to be a monk, and Harrelson wanted to be a minister.\u201cEighty percent of our conversations are about how to be better men, how to be better husbands, how to be better fathers, how to be better citizens, how to be better friends, what\u2019s bugging us, where we failed,\u201d McConaughey said. One time, he recalled, Harrelson shared \u201ca doozy\u201d of a personal crisis.\u201cI\u2019m crying with him and we\u2019re sitting there, and we\u2019re head-to-head, holding on to each other, man, in my trailer,\u201d McConaughey said.Finally, he asked Harrelson how he managed to move past crises like \u201cwater off a duck\u2019s back.\u201d\u201cThrough his tears, he sat there and looked at me,\u201d McConaughey recalled. \u201cHe goes, \u2018Man, I just forget about it.\u2019\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe two men trade advice on which questions of mine they might want to answer, and which they\u2019d rather not. McConaughey intervenes when I ask Harrelson about his previous criticism of President Trump, telling his friend, \u201cHey, buddy, I just wanted to say, you can leave it right there if you want to leave it.\u201d\u201cI\u2019ll leave it right there,\u201d Harrelson agreed.\u201cI\u2019d love it if he was my brother, honestly,\u201d Harrelson said of McConaughey, his friend of nearly three decades.Credit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesThe Question of Shared DNAWhen it comes to actually solving the issue of whether they\u2019re biological brothers, McConaughey wants to leave it right there.He said he just didn\u2019t want to lose the father he grew up with, known as Big Jim, a larger-than-life oil pipe supplier in Texas.Harrelson was only 7 when his father, Charles Harrelson, left the family, but the actor reconnected with his father later, when the elder Harrelson went to prison for life in the 1980s for murdering a federal judge on behalf of a drug dealer awaiting trial. At one point, he even claimed he had killed President John F. Kennedy. (Harrelson once suggested his father might have been a C.I.A. operative.) Charles Harrelson died in 2007.In the fictionalized version of this saga, Woody\u2019s father is still alive but has a criminal background. The son complains that all he has to remember his father by are a couple of mug shots.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cThe shining star of the show,\u201d according to Harrelson, is the indomitable Holland Taylor, who plays MaMac, the ball-of-fire bouffant matriarch of the McConaughey clan. Taylor plays her as a Texas babe who likes morning coffee with a splash of Kahlua and vodka, and is game to rip Harrelson\u2019s bong.She tries to wriggle out of her confession to Harrelson\u2019s character about a liaison with his father by saying, \u201cIt was just a silly thing that some old drunk woman said to a stoned old guy.\u201dThe real Kay McConaughey is still a pistol at 94. In an email exchange, she told me, \u201cI wish I had played the role myself.\u201d About Taylor, MaMac noted, \u201cThey may have her as me, but she is not me.\u201dImageKay McConaughey, Matthew\u2019s mother, with him in 2012. \u201cI have a lot of confidence in myself,\u201d she said. \u201cAt 94, I still have it and never lost it.\u201dCredit...Michael Buckner\/Getty ImagesMcConaughey said that whenever his mother came to his sets or red carpet openings, she was always buttonholing filmmakers, pressing them to do a new version of \u201cThe Graduate\u201d with her son in the Dustin Hoffman role and herself in the Anne Bancroft \u201cMrs. Robinson\u201d role \u2014 with no concern about the Oedipal issues involved.\u201cYes, I would like to play Mrs. Robinson, but it\u2019s too late now,\u201d MaMac emailed me. \u201cIt\u2019s too bad because I could pull that off, but it\u2019s past my time. I have a lot of confidence in myself. At 94, I still have it and never lost it.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTKay McConaughey wrote a memoir called \u201cI Amaze Myself!\u201d and has a bumper sticker on her car that boasts, \u201cI Amaze My Son.\u201dMatthew McConaughey said: \u201cTo this day, you call her right now. \u2018Hey, Mom, how you doing? It\u2019s good to talk to you.\u2019\u201dAnd his mother will reply, \u201c\u2018It is good to talk to me.\u2019\u201dHer memoir includes a section called \u201cSome People Deserve to Be Pissed On.\u201d (Mostly, in her telling, her birth mother, who left her at a boardinghouse when she was 16 months old.) Her marriage to Big Jim was a brawling, loving country song. Once, when she gave him the finger, he broke it. They divorced and remarried twice. She proudly writes in her book how he died of a heart attack while they were making love.But her most provocative moment came in 2017, right in the spot where we are now sitting in the Greek sunshine. McConaughey\u2019s kids and Harrelson\u2019s kids were chattering about how much the two men looked alike and how similar their mannerisms were, pulling up old pictures of the two on their phones.Image\u201cThe shining star of the show,\u201d according to Harrelson, is the indomitable Holland Taylor, who plays MaMac, the ball-of-fire bouffant matriarch of the McConaughey clan.Credit...Apple TVMcConaughey recounted: \u201cThen my mother, who has been listening, holding her \u2014 I don\u2019t know which glass of Kendall-Jackson, let\u2019s call it her third, goes to Wood, \u2018Oh, I knew your father, dot dot dot.\u2019 That ellipsis was where this whole thing started.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe kids banged the table and Harrelson exclaimed, \u201cWhoa, MaMac!\u201dHarrelson told me: \u201cI\u2019d known her for 20 years and I had never heard her talk about this, ever. \u2018What? You\u2019re just bringing up you knew my dad?\u2019 When she admitted this, she immediately realized she had just swum into some deep waters that she didn\u2019t need to be in.\u201d\u201cStarted pleading the fifth,\u201d McConaughey agreed.Even though the men are talking about one of the most shattering things that can happen to you \u2014 finding out your father isn\u2019t actually your father \u2014 they treat it lightly.Harrelson picked up: \u201cShe\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, no. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going on about.\u2019 Blah, blah, blah. I remembered Matthew telling me years before that when MaMac was going to the hospital to give birth to him, she said, \u2018Well, let\u2019s go, Jim.\u2019 He goes, \u2018No, I\u2019m not going to the hospital. That\u2019s not my kid.\u2019 See, he\u2019d done the math, and that math wasn\u2019t mathin\u2019. They had two divorces. It turns out she knew my father during what could be considered the perfect timing for the commencement for the spawning of his life.\u201dOver email, I asked Kay McConaughey if she truly thought Harrelson was Matthew McConaughey\u2019s half brother.\u201cI cannot tell him anything more than what I already have told him,\u201d she replied. \u201cI had a little incident with his father. They seem like brothers, yes, they do.\u201dVideoCreditCredit...Dana Scruggs For The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u2018Our First Competition\u2019This famous friendship started with a classic Hollywood rivalry, with one getting a part the other wanted.After the director Joel Schumacher offered Harrelson the lead in the John Grisham legal drama \u201cA Time to Kill,\u201d it was snatched back.Two years earlier, in 1994, Harrelson had starred in the bloody Oliver Stone hit \u201cNatural Born Killers,\u201d with Juliette Lewis, about a sociopathic couple who go on a murder spree, becoming media stars. After watching the movie over and over, a young couple from Oklahoma went on their own rampage. One victim was a close friend of Grisham\u2019s.The author went on a public tear about the film, and he had casting approval for \u201cA Time to Kill.\u201dHarrelson was out, and a handsome newcomer named Matthew McConaughey was in. That movie made McConaughey a star.\u201cThat was our first competition,\u201d McConaughey said, smiling fondly at his friend.ImageHarrelson and Juliette Lewis in the 1994 movie \u201cNatural Born Killers.\u201dCredit...Warner Bros., via Getty ImagesImageMcConaughey and Sandra Bullock in a scene from the 1996 film \u201cA Time to Kill.\u201dCredit...Warner Bros., via Getty ImagesThe next year, the two stars were at an agency party in Hollywood, and Harrelson walked up to McConaughey and suggested they do a tequila shot. When McConaughey resisted, Harrelson insisted: \u201cDon\u2019t be a problem.\u201d They did the shot \u2014 \u201cand then that was it until we did \u2018EdTV\u2019 with Ron Howard,\u201d Harrelson recalls.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT Now, 27 years later, Howard told me he remained \u201cfascinated\u201d by the kinship and career paths of the two stars.\u201cI\u2019ve witnessed tremendous chemistry, and they really are a lot alike,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have this unpretentious intelligence and talent, but they also have a lot of personal integrity.\u201dHe described them as very ambitious in art and in life, but, he said, \u201cThey\u2019re not really following the rules \u2014 they\u2019re doing it their way, and they\u2019ve earned it.\u201dFor all their similarities, sometimes the relationship gets strained. The show plays up the odd couple dynamic that exists in real life, McConaughey seeking order and Harrelson more free form. McConaughey calls his friend \u201cCaptain Chaos.\u201dTaylor says her enduring memory of the two on set is Harrelson \u201cthe Carefree,\u201d throwing himself into life and stunts and getting beaten up and bruised, putting his feet up on every surface, and McConaughey \u201cthe Meticulous\u201d getting a faraway look in his eyes as he muses about the meaning of life.\u201cI have a better sense of time and context, I think it\u2019s fair to say,\u201d McConaughey said. \u201cI mean, the man doesn\u2019t have a phone, so you got to email, which he checks maybe periodically. Trying to get ahold of you, that can be a bit frustrating.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTImageMcConaughey and Harrelson got to know each other playing brothers in \u201cEdTV,\u201d the Ron Howard movie about a young man (McConaughey) who found fame and misfortune by allowing his life to be filmed.Credit...Universal, via Getty ImagesHarrelson rebutted, \u201cI check that email pretty much every day.\u201d He does Wordle and reads a lot of good books \u2014 he has been working his way through Dickens \u2014 and said he decided his phone \u201cwas really terrible in terms of it just becoming another appendage and another addiction.\u201dThe two have very different working styles.\u201cHe is the most hyper-prepared actor you\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Harrelson said, recalling their time on the dazzling first season of \u201cTrue Detective.\u201d \u201cI\u2019d go into his Airstream, and he had on his wall the whole timeline of everything that had happened and then what is coming next.\u201dHarrelson said he had some heated moments \u2014 or got \u201cthe red ass,\u201d as McConaughey calls it \u2014 because of McConaughey\u2019s \u201cmethod\u201d approach playing the cynical Rust Cohle.\u201cThere were 500 times I wanted to punch him in the nose,\u201d he said.McConaughey jumped in: \u201cHe drew blood. We had a fight scene where he went a little long. I know he\u2019s a great athlete, so he didn\u2019t go long unless he means it.\u201d Turning to Woody, he said, \u201cYou chipped my tooth.\u201d\u201cDid I?\u201d Harrelson asked, looking surprised.On their last day of shooting, after six months, McConaughey knew Harrelson was angry at him, so he grabbed him by the head and said, \u201cTell me, just say what you feel.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMcConaughey doesn\u2019t allow problems to linger, Harrelson said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve stayed good over the years.\u201dImageFor Harrelson, McConaughey\u2019s intensity as Rust Cohle in \u201cTrue Detective\u201d was a challenge. \u201cAfter work, everything\u2019s groovy, but during working times, there were 500 times I wanted to punch him in the nose,\u201d he said.Credit...HBO, via AlamyAs they\u2019re reminiscing, the men\u2019s wives, Camila Alves and Laura Louie, stop by to say hi.\u201cShe\u2019s sometimes my wife, too,\u201d Harrelson said, grinning at Alves. McConaughey acknowledged that Woody was \u201cthe man who\u2019s kissed my wife more than anyone else besides me.\u201dAlves assured me: \u201cNever on the lips. Don\u2019t listen to those two.\u201dAlves was a Brazilian American model who, McConaughey said, mesmerized him in a floaty turquoise dress at a club on Sunset Boulevard in 2006.Harrelson hired Laura Louie in 1987 as his personal assistant. His dating life had consisted mostly of brief encounters. When the \u201cCheers\u201d cast appeared on Arsenio Hall\u2019s show once, Kirstie Alley asked the audience, \u201cHow many women have not slept with Woody Harrelson?\u201d Then, three years after he met Louie, smoking a spliff on a solo trip to Africa to get his \u201chead right,\u201d he said he felt his teeth itching and realized he was in love with his assistant, which was awkward. But she turned out to be in love with him, too.Both couples seem very happily matched, which is reflected on the show. The McConaugheys have three teenagers \u2014 two boys and a girl. The Harrelsons have three grown daughters, whom he dubs \u201cthe goddess trilogy,\u201d helping balance the energy in a patriarchal world.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAt first, the men thought their families could play themselves in the Apple TV show and it could be a \u201cdocu-comedy\u201d with a more improvisational vibe, like \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm.\u201d But then they realized that might be too much for their families.Lee Eisenberg, the \u201cBrothers\u201d showrunner, shaped their story into a scripted fictional comedy with real actors backing up the two leads, who play heightened versions of themselves. Harrelson as the peripatetic stoned surfer dude, a \u201credneck hippie,\u201d as he calls himself. McConaughey as a Texas rancher with his life in order.ImageLaura Louie, far left, and Camila Alves attend the U.S. Open with their husbands this year. The families have also become close.Credit...XNY\/GC Images, via Getty ImagesThe show pokes fun at the stars\u2019 images. The Woody character wanders around amiably in a wet suit with a surfboard and guitar, firing up his bong, and sharing a \u201chooter\u201d with his adult TV daughter.Did he smoke with his own kids? \u201cNo, I never smoked with my oldest daughter, never smoked with my youngest daughter,\u201d he said. \u201cI think one time, I had a little vape hit with my middle daughter years ago, but none of them smoke. I always say, I think I\u2019ve been a model of what not to do\u201dMcConaughey, who was famously arrested in 1999 for smoking a bowl and playing the bongos naked while he listened to music in his own house in Austin, no longer smokes pot. The strains are too strong for him.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cIt\u2019s not the same as when you used to pass it around and get the munchies\u201d and want some snuggle time with somebody, he said. \u201cThe subplot\u2019s become a little unmanageable.\u201dOne night that gave him pause was when he was living in a Malibu trailer park, barbecuing for Harrelson, Willie Nelson and Alves\u2019s father, visiting from Brazil, and he smoked some pot and lost track of time.\u201cI have that shock, paranoid, panic attack \u2014 the steaks are on the grill!\u201d he recalled. \u201cI go running out there. The steaks were still in the fridge. That\u2019s not that fun to me.\u201dI told McConaughey that I had had a similar paranoid panic attack doing a story about the legalization of pot in Denver in 2014, when dispensaries were selling very strong pot to neophytes, and have stayed away from weed since.Harrelson grinned at us as if we were amateurs.In the show, the Matthew character teases his friend about being nominated only for an Oscar, not winning one. As he did in life, Matthew is considering a run for Texas governor in the show. He hires a blunt campaign consultant, hilariously played by the comedian Lisa Gilroy, who tells him that voters don\u2019t care about his weighty thoughts \u2014 they only want to see his butt in bike shorts. When Matthew objects, saying he wants a more serious campaign, the consultant explains, \u201cThat would be like Sydney Sweeney telling an agent she only wanted to do voice work.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT \u201cI\u2019ve witnessed tremendous chemistry, and they really are a lot alike,\u201d Ron Howard said, of the pair. \u201cThey have this unpretentious intelligence and talent, but they also have a lot of personal integrity.\u201dCredit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesIn real life, the duo\u2019s politics are hard to pin down. McConaughey is a centrist. When I asked him if he would have run for governor as a Democrat or Republican, he replied, \u201cI think those are tiny words.\u201dMcConaughey made an impressive, emotional speech in the White House briefing room in 2022 after the barbaric killings of 19 children and two teachers in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, his hometown.\u201cI\u2019ve never been prouder,\u201d Harrelson said about that appearance.A gun owner himself, McConaughey supported tighter laws to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness and to address the problem of high-powered weapons falling into the wrong hands.McConaughey, who has been teaching a film course at the University of Texas at Austin, said he hadn\u2019t given up on the idea of running for office.\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it for six years,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s at the very least been a great exercise to sit there and think about where your own personal values align with what you think would be the best for the most people.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTHe said the biggest sacrifice in elected office would be \u201cfatherhood.\u201d\u201cThree kids in the house,\u201d he said. \u201cTwo about to be gone. I got another one, 13. Let me get my kids out of the house and let me assess my horizon.\u201dHarrelson, a professed anarchist, seems discouraged about politics.\u201cIf I ever saw a government done right, I think I might get behind it, but I haven\u2019t seen it,\u201d Harrelson said. \u201cI sure don\u2019t see examples of it now.\u201dThe Woody in the show says he doesn\u2019t vote. The real Woody told me: \u201cI have voted. I always vote Democrat, but honestly I don\u2019t see the point. In the end, you don\u2019t get the Jimmy Carters\u201d \u2014 the kinds of politicians, he said, who really seem to care and aren\u2019t just self-interested.Harrelson, who was an outspoken skeptic of masks, vaccines and coronavirus safety rules on set, added, \u201cThere\u2019s too much of the government sticking its nose in people\u2019s business.\u201d He recently signed an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain calling for an investigation into the Covid vaccine.In 2024, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running for president, Harrelson narrated a short biographical film for him called \u201cWho Is Bobby Kennedy?\u201dI wondered how he felt now.\u201cHow would you respond, dude?\u201d Harrelson asked McConaughey.\u201cWell,\u201d his pal replied, \u201cif you don\u2019t have a full-fledged answer you want to give, then say, \u2018Next question.\u2019 If you got something you want to say that\u2019s going on, I stand by that.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cNext question,\u201d Harrelson told me with a grin.The two men are known for having a crazy gear, but McConaughey said he couldn\u2019t talk about the craziest thing they ever did together, because \u201cI don\u2019t know what the statute of limitations are.\u201dHarrelson interpolates, \u201cWhat about when you drove that car into the pool?\u201d\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s the craziest,\u201d McConaughey said.\u201cI was in the passenger seat,\u201d Harrelson said.\u201cOpened the vents, stayed in there for 20 minutes underwater,\u201d Matthew said.Where was that?\u201cThat\u2019s a Texas activity,\u201d Harrelson said.\u201cThat\u2019s a Texas Thursday afternoon,\u201d McConaughey agreed.There are a few hours left before sunset, so the men are eager to get back to their sporting marathon.I ask if they have any last thoughts on friendship.\u201cWe have had our philosophical differences, but as much as we may have had a difference of opinion, it didn\u2019t cost either one of us anything,\u201d McConaughey said. \u201cHis world wasn\u2019t going to crumble if my idea proved to be correct, or my world wasn\u2019t going to crumble if his idea did. We always end up hugging it out. I love you, buddy, that\u2019s it \u2014 even when we\u2019re fighting about whatever.\u201d\u201cThat\u2019s how brothers do each other,\u201d Harrelson said, smiling.\u201cThat is how brothers do each other,\u201d McConaughey agreed, smiling back.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-19T09:01:15+00:00",
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