Matthew McConaughey: Love Hard

i don't think i would have had that courage if i wouldn't got the clarity from the one event that i talked about because when they said call us mom and pop i was able to plant my flag have another binding anxiety and turn it into action and go i'm binding this no i'm not calling you mom and dad i have a mom and dad i go thank you for thinking of me that way it's very polite and i felt i needed to contextualize that i went and they're still alive it's not unlike being hit on by someone and being like i appreciate you'd like to have sex with me but i have a girlfriend and she's alive it's mine be alex's breakdown she's gonna break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two so now she's gonna break down so break down she's gonna break it down all right all right all right i'm miami alec and welcome to my breakdown the place where we break things down so you don't have to it's a very exciting day we've had a lot of very exciting days but first i'd like to introduce you to the most grateful man i've ever met jonathan cohen hi miam i'm not sure about the cadence of that opening i read it right away all right no still no still no that's right we're going to have matthew mcconaughey on today to talk with us i don't even want to read this man's bio because he's matthew mcconaughey he's amazing you should read his bio also i should have been introduced as the most dazed and confused man [Laughter] that goes without or the lincoln lawyer jonathan i don't even know what to say this is like legit a person who i don't even know if he knows who i am or who you are he definitely doesn't know who i am i don't know what favor we did or who owed who what to get this man on our show but my publicist heather besignano is from texas and i think this was her thing so heather thank you he's an academy award winner this is his book green lights which is a really really visually lovely fun interesting really journey through his life there's all these pictures he mostly doesn't have a shirt on which i think is a thing jonathan will talk about later academy award winner matthew mcconaughey is a married man a father of three and a loyal son and brother he considers himself a storyteller by occupation he thinks it's okay to have a beer on the way to the temple feels better with a day's sweat on him and is an inspi an aspiring orchestral conductor he has a foundation that he founded with his wife camilla uh called the just keep living foundation he's a professor he's got many things he does he's also an owner of um austin fc he also co-created his favorite bourbon and yes he's the lincoln guy but he sold more lincoln's than any other person he's been in a ton of movies and i've seen some of them and we're going to talk about it i just we want to just get right into it make sure to follow us on instagram if you like this go ahead and like it subscribe let's talk to matthew mcconaughey what it down so do you have any idea who we are i have somewhat of an idea well we can't believe that you're here talking to us and i was thinking what favor did he have to do to come speak to us did they do any favors or something i don't know about jonathan do you know anything about that maybe i did that i don't know that i did it was a long campaign it was pressure from all sides to get him here we had uh deep-seated uh spies in texas gathering dirt not me and i didn't even know what it was like that's what i assumed so where do we begin i read this book it's called green lights and um not not surprised that it is a number one new york times best seller you know one of the things that kind of struck me is um it is not a classic memoir you know in the in the sense that that people often think of a memoir um it really is kind of a journey into your journey as it were and um i i guess i wanted to sort of start with these two wet dreams you had yeah thank goodness i wouldn't be sitting there talking to you right now if i didn't have those two wet dreams that's true now the dream you had two dreams that sent you on two separate and very specific journeys in your life was it the same dream twice that's the that's why right it's the same dream exact same thing i have this dream in 1993. whoa i woke up that was a wet dream boy the elements of that dream do not add up to a typical wet dream what was that about oh okay okay another thing that i related to you with because i sometimes have dreams like that but they're not sexual it's just like a thing and it's happening but none of them take me the places as long as we can it's so weird okay go ahead i shut up so then i have the dream again exact same dream exact same outcome frame the dream was the exact same frame for frame 11 seconds bam well it's the second time that i go in 1996 four years later that i go whoa that was the exact same dream the same outcome that's a sign that's telling me something i got to chase that down that's when i went off and chased down peru because the two things in the dream were the amazon river and african tribesmen and that was my geographical point so then i think my dream's over i've chased it down cut to three years later in 1999 i had the dream the third time which tells me i got to chase down the second half which was the african tribesman and i haven't had it since if i have it again you might have it tonight matthew you might have it tonight i hope so but if i have it again i don't know what the hell i'll be chasing i'm just gonna enjoy it revel in the post well and one of one of the other things that i really liked about your book and also kind of about your perspective is you come from a religious consciousness that's very infused in kind of your the culture that you grew up in meaning it's not overtly uh it's not overtly christian it's not overtly dogmatic you have a lot of appreciation for a lot of different practices and a lot of different kind of traditions but you know this kind of experience is a is a very mystical spiritual you know profound experience and i mean in in another culture in another time we would call you a prophet so was there some element that you felt of like personal prophecy or like how yeah how do you kind of frame that i took it as a direct line to from from the world the prime move the way make whatever we want to call it the uncaused cause whatever i took it as a direct line of truth a lightning bolt that was saying i knew it was specific and only for me and originally for me i knew that this was not something i was gonna go share hey have you ever had this dream with this outcome i knew it was an original experience that i had um no one had said hey one day you might have this dream and if you do listen to it it was mine and mine only and my so i sat there and after the second time said okay what a i gotta listen to this i gotta heed this call i've never had something so specific if the dream would have been similar to the first one with the same outcome i probably wouldn't have done anything about it but it shook my floor because it took me back to the time i had the first room and it was exactly every detail every frame i remember it's 11 frames like a movie one second two seconds three and i remember all the angles angles angles 11 of them 11 seconds ejaculation wake up whoa hey how about that what was that little kiss was that for me sure that little kiss was wow you know going all the elements of that dream sound like a nightmare but they weren't they were the opposite ooh okay script on that i like this version um so then what is it yeah that's why that's that's why i chased it and did i feel like it was a yeah a prophetic call for me to go follow yes what other have you had other specific you know feelings like that actually i was i was interviewed this morning and i was asked to identify some of the most spiritual experiences i've ever had and i had my second son at home um and i remember that was a very very um singular mystical spiritual like transcendental kind of experience are are there other things that you've experienced like that you know are you a person that you feel like oh i'm in touch with something i have access to that or it just kind of drops in uh i mean look i've had different original particular singular experiences on usually on my own when i'm off on one of those trips where i put myself in a place so that those truths can land you know and you can hear them like i say they they hit you it's like soft as a butterfly but it's a [ __ ] lightning bolt at the same time you go whoa i can't unwrite that that's that's talking to me and i need to i need to heed that i look first child born that was a biggie for me um i became i remember i was like to myself i was like i just became immortal [Music] biologically so but even more than i was like okay this is it this is what i've dreamed of being all my life not immortal but a father and here we go um i've had look i don't know why i cry at birth and not death i don't know why i cry when i hear the story about the the the person getting out of jail that was wrongly prosecuted and finds his freedom but i don't cry at the death of something the birth springtime of things just light me up and that's uh um so and and i've been told that's odd i look around and no one else is crying and then when they're at the funeral i'm not crying um and maybe that's me maybe that is part of the faith belief as well because i don't think it's over in this life although i don't know i believe it's not and um so something about like oh great not happy for that person to be leaving physically but there we go congratulations [Music] mind be alex breakdown is supported by better help if you're feeling depressed if you're struggling with uncertainty if you're having difficulty sleeping i think it's time for better help better help offers online professional counselors who can listen and help you they assess your needs and they match you with your own 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something i love as a vegan it has not only a multivitamin and digestive enzymes but 20 grams of protein in one easy to mix shake and organifi gold is a superfood tea that helps promote rest and relaxation a healthy immune response and a healthy response to stress go to organifi.com break to receive 20 off your purchase that's o r g a n i f i dot com slash break for 20 off your purchase you describe a really interesting time that you had um was it the year between high school and college when you went to australia australia i bet you loved that story i i loved a lot of things about that story so um you know you're a very adventurous spirit and i know that sounds really trite but you know really so much of your life you know as you tell it has been marked by i mean you kind of call them green lights you know but sort of finding finding openings you know where sometimes things have seemed closed you know i think that sounds like it was an element of your personality but this particular experience you had in australia my favorite part of the story i think was your description about getting there where you're picturing you're like i'm gonna have this great time in australia and like the car just keeps going and it's like you described all the kinds of roads you drive on before you just get to shitty dirt it's like you just kept going and the population signs kept getting smaller and smaller and you know i mean there's a lot of humor to it but you know as someone trained as a neuroscientist and someone who's been really immersed in mental health and you know i grew up with mental illness also in my home and so you know what i heard and what i saw was an unraveling you know that you went through at a very critically important time in your life and you know you're you're kind of not just because you're you're many people's image of like the american man you have to understand my grandparents were about three feet tall and three feet wide and you embody like america to us like we came from the sheddles to meet men like this you know so like i picture you you know like ready to have this journey in australia but your you know your your your transition from high school to college was also one of tremendous challenge and you ended up i mean you took on a very interesting strict vegetarian diet because you said you craved discipline you were depressed my friend and you were trying to make sense of insanity i needed some measurement of achievement a day and eating that head of lettuce with a half a bottle of heinz ketchup pulled poured over it gave me a sense of accomplishment to run those six miles a day even though i was losing all the weight it gave me a sense of accomplishment right to say out to be celibate yet still go masturbate in the bathtub every night gave me a sense of accomplishment i need these sort of measuring sticks to go i did that today i followed through on that because the world was chaos right well that's and we call that binding anxiety i mean you were finding all sorts of ways to kind of make it make sense uh i don't mean to get all you know fancy on you but you know it's like anxiety there's a tremendous courage to you like there's all these situations that you found yourself in especially as a young man where you kind of asserted this courage that kind of seems like it was driven from some other power in you meaning when you had to ask to be removed from that home right like that's a tremendous sense of courage and i think about your father and you paint a really fascinating picture of this man but i think about sort of the ethics that you were you know sort of raised with you're really like you're a very classic hero's journey kind of guy like when i think of joseph campbell and the hero's journey like i picture your story not the matthew mcconaughey that like you know is famous and that like we see on the red carpet and all these things but like this story that you tell is one of really finding yourself and your courage a lot of it is around masculinity but i don't find you toxic so i'm curious kind of how you frame that sort of courage especially because you are this very masculine dude and you're also a very thoughtful and very dedicated sensitive artist i know that's kind of a lot of questions in one but talk a little bit about some of these journeys that that you had well let's go to that australia one the to get the courage to say to go to the rotary club and go to the present and go hey um you think there's any other families i could live with um and then they go away yeah i don't know i mean is everything okay over there and still take a high road and go yeah yeah everything's everything's fine which it wasn't but but you know i just i've got my year here can i experience another family i don't think i would have had that courage if i wouldn't got the clarity from the one event that i talked about in the book cause when they said call us mom and pop and it at that point the prior four months of all the wild [ __ ] that they had come up with that i was like going okay i'll do that maybe that's a cultural difference that was clear to me i was able to plant my flag have another binding anxiety and turn it into action and go i'm binding this no i'm not calling you mom and dad i have a mom and dad and i remember saying this i put this in the book but i remember saying this and then i'll go i go thank you for thinking of me that way um it's very polite but i have a mom and dad and i remember it going through my head clear and i go and i felt i needed to contextualize that i went and they're still alive for some reason i felt i need to throw it out there that that would really bolster my argument it's not unlike being hit on by someone and being like i appreciate you'd like to have sex with me but i have a girlfriend and she's alive and she's sitting right here um yeah so that moment was a moment that i needed because again i talk about up to that point all the confusion the things that that they want me to do that i didn't know was right i was tabbing up the cultural differences i didn't have anybody to bounce it off of like is this cool i don't know i didn't have that i didn't have mom i didn't have friends all i had was the paper that i was writing on so that moment to have the clarity and go i'll bet i'm betting on myself here i'm this is black and white this is not a shade of gray i'm not compromising on this i'm going forward going no i'm not calling you mom and dad and i'm sticking to it and i don't care if i'm wrong i may end up i don't care i'm different well that gave me the courage thing go i'm gonna try and get out of here and move in with another family i'm not gonna go home i'm not gonna pull the parachute and get the flight home but i'm at least gonna try and get out of this house um i don't know i mean it gave me to go back to the ethics and ethos of certain the religious underbelly responsibility courage are kind of we're ingrained in there and us and go you better go take care and take care of yourself um that was part of the masculinity step up to the initiation go through the initiation how long can you endure it can you step up and go i am the only i'm standing for this and i may be the only one standing for this but i'm going i'll go by hook or by crook that was a big thing for my father as you read in other rites of passage that i have for him he's wanted to see that if i was if i had the the gall and the the the the the the courage to stand up for myself and certainly we call it husband my family would spa all that the the the the the metal the the uh whatever whatever it's called that it did i have it to stand up for myself when i was alone and everyone else just agreed that was a rite of passage for him um and in a way you bring it up i performed it over there in a couple ways in australia and then literally performed it with him with that bar fight oh that bar fight yeah it wasn't he wasn't happy that i was a fighter he was just happy that i did something on my own that i made the choice so let's talk let's talk a little bit about the bar fight like i said there's something very not toxic sort of about the way that that that you talk about you know this kind of structure of how you were raised and i resonate with it a lot because the culture that i come from is very very patriarchal there's a lot of there's a lot of because dad said so and dad decides and dad puts cash on mom's dresser every week and that's the cash she has for the week and you know like you know is very very old-fashioned um but this bar fight i remember what struck me and probably because i i do feel a little bit like we're similar it was that someone put their hand on your dad when they weren't supposed to i remember seeing almost the fingers go from outstretched to compressed slightly against his chest and i was like that was trespassing that was get out the guards we're going and the next thing i knew i'm getting pulled off here in the voice of my head going that's enough and that that's like where it got me when he said that's enough son because like it's such a it's such a fascinating moment and it's not that that's the only way that you could show connection or love but you know this portrait that you paint of your dad he was a very specific man you know he was very specific and very definitive your mom was too your parents were twice divorced and then they married each other right were you at any of the ceremonies i was trying to figure out the timing okay so the first the first time they got divorced was like right out like within a year right pretty soon after yeah early 50s right okay and then the second one like 1977-ish okay got it when i was living in the trailer park with dad and thought mom was on the extended vacation oh yeah yeah that's yeah she's taking some time you grew up with a certain amount of drama right i mean there was a i mean we didn't call it that then it was just we call it that and we didn't give it the credit to call it drama right what i mean what was it you know i described like unpredictable predictability was my house you know it was predictable chaos is kind of how it felt sometimes um do you have sort of you know just for people who may not know and a lot of it is in the book but um you know you're you're one of three boys yeah what was it like what did it feel like love hard look i didn't include and my mom just wanted it's what she doesn't like what what she didn't take well about the book she was like all the stories are true about me and your dad and yeah my middle finger is broke four times from him doing that and i deserved every one of them and it's how i needed to communicate she goes but she could have included more stories about how loving we were and how many times we were hugging it out and i go you're right i and i didn't and that was 98 of the time we were loving it i didn't include those because for me these stories i think this is the best i can come up with it why i choose to tell these stories as the love stories from my family they were when the love was tested the most it's you thought it was going to break down you i thought we thought it was over or from objectively you would think it was over i never thought it was over when i watched the fight when mom pulls out the knife i never thought that was the end i thought ah here we go i mean when the cops come sometimes that's just how the evening ends yeah and and they didn't you know they handled it right there because it but it was always it was drama looking back at it but again at the time was i crying was like oh my god no no have i been on my dad's back when he you know had my brother pinned to a ceiling you know with his feet kicking going stop it dad stop it yeah but what do i remember i remember that he had pat up there because pat lied to him and once pat got up which is about off the floor about five minutes later i remember him going to slow in the truck boys and me and my brother and my dad rode in the front cab in the bench seat me in the middle windows halfway down radio half off frequency ac on drove to the all the way across town it's 45 minutes to the best burger stand there was in town and it was a school night it was after bedtime but it didn't matter we're getting doubles and you can have a milkshake that's what i remember that it always ended with the love the love always ended and there was never another word talk there was no grudge there was never a remember what we said yesterday it was over it's quick lethal and over you're a dad you're a parent and that [ __ ] doesn't fly anymore right and you say something really specific i think it's paige i literally said to jonathan i don't want to mention anything he mentions in the first two pages of his book because he'll think i didn't read every single word and i did but you mention that you you don't identify as a victim but in the language of today right we would say matthew you were traumatized that's a traumatizing experience and i i wonder now that you're a dad and especially you know you're a progressive person and you know what how do you frame that as a dad because i do raise my kids differently than i was raised i mean my children's like i i also did something matthew here's another thing you don't know about me i recently wrote a screenplay and i directed my first film and it stars dustin hoffman and candice bergen and also simon helberg and diana agron and i wrote a story about a family that is struggling with mental illness and with loving heart one could say and yes there are absolutely things from my life i do not want my mother to see it she has not read it we've already had several fights and a few therapy sessions about why i don't feel the need for her to see it for some of the reasons you kind of talked about but the things that i lived through they don't need to be repeated that way because we do live in a different time and i have a different experience it doesn't mean i demonize my parents or my childhood but i absolutely know that i was to a certain extent conditioned with fear because that's how we were raised and it quote works it works and and it's it's a choice that i make to try not to do that with my kids right but at the same time i don't want them to feel like everything about the way i was raised was shitty and wrong and it was bad and they traumatized me these were complicated people who [ __ ] did the best that they could and like that's kind of what it looked like you know they did better than was done to them and you know my grandparents fled eastern europe everybody was just doing the best that they could and my parents did the best that they could and you're absolutely right the story that i tell is much more interesting when i dig into the hard stuff and i dig into that complexity and the conflict and that tension and one of the notes i got from my my director's cut was this abuse seems gratuitous and i was like oh well i'm sorry i'm sorry that it makes you uncomfortable but i wonder sort of what your perspective is as a dad how do you frame that with your own kids well my mother's been living with us now for 18 months because of code yeah she is and she's about to turn 90 and you know like you said i didn't grow you we grew up and why because i told you so that's right and fear-based and i write about this are there things i didn't do that i shouldn't have done for fear that oh that ass weapon might hurt more than how much i'm going to enjoy doing this yes and i'm glad i did they where i had other friends that did i knew there were consequences on the other side and that helped keep me in line in certain ways um i didn't fear random especially from my dad i didn't fear any random like i said every time i got in trouble gosh dog and i look back i knew it at the time i'd earned it i knew it i knew i'd earned it when i opened my mouth and something fresh came out i knew it was coming back you know um i you know i've i've tried to evolve as a parent too i don't as you see the book i don't judge my parents how they did is right or wrong or oh that you can't do it that way anymore i i do try to i'm trying to instill the same values my parents try to instill in in us i try to do it in different ways um do we have long or much longer discussions with our kids yes do we choose they have so many feelings children today they got so many i said you think anyone asked me where i'd like to eat out we ate out once a month and you went wherever they told you and you ate everything on the plate you don't feel like chinese food and no corn does not count as a vegetable in the line at luby's cafeteria yeah oh so i we have uh trying to instill the same values don't really do physical punishment and consequences try it's tough figuring out what do you take from them that they love to make them think oh i don't you know i got my screen time taken away why because i did this right i told this paper didn't it's tough figuring those things out it doesn't make sense to them if i fibbed why you take away my screen time yeah what's the math the math doesn't add up i used to say how do you stop hitting i can't cut off your hands like i don't know what the logical consequence is don't hit your brother i hear you or you get hit back wow that hurt yeah exactly right um you know and it's quicker that way and it's it's it's immediate and it sure as hell's more than it can be at least an attention getter my emba mbalex breakdown is supported by away take me away away away is a modern lifestyle brand that creates thoughtful products for every traveler and every kind of trip jonathan and i travel all the time we can attest to this now travel looks different than ever before and you can count on a waze range of suitcases bags and accessories whenever you take whatever kind of trip you go on i can't wait to visit jonathan's 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get up to forty dollars off your first box that's code breakdown for up to forty dollars off your first box at dailyharvest.com that's dailyharvest.com camille and i are trying to do it different than than my parents did or even her parents did um and are we doing it better i don't know we'll see how the kids get out there and negotiate me and my two brothers have done all right you know with how mama and my older brothers had it rougher than i did i was the baby boy i was more than mama's boy i didn't i didn't i didn't have it as rough as probably as they did well that's what they say i would say i learned to break the rules and get away with [ __ ] better but you know i mean i'm already in this time now where my kids are 13 11 and 8. well you start off there's a there's a rule that every kid follows that's it everyone follow the same rule then all of a sudden they start becoming their own little people and you got to go wait i'm going to treat you fairly but i'm not going to treat you all the same because i know you sir if you forgot to feed the dogs you actually looked at the empty dog ball and said [Laughter] get away with it but i know you dear you looked at the dog you didn't look at the dog you just freaking forgot so the same consequence is not for you because yours wasn't intentionally you know you didn't intentionally walk away from it not do it so i'm trying to customize those how do we teach them uh we are big on uh consequences and also big on the definition of consequences gets a bad rap is always being the bad yep i'm supposed to have equal amount of being the good the pleasure as well um we are pretty disciplined family um uh we like our we like i like the manners and graces that my parents caught me with i like sirs and mams and please and things yeah i don't let my kids call any adult by their first name freaks me out they are miss or mr. great thing of respect um i even call my kids mr and mrs now just to get in the lingo going back and forth um calling them out of respect so we try to give them more agency we listen to more debates than my parents would have listened to holy moly will they stop talking some days it's like i understand you have feelings but that doesn't mean that they win yes i understand you're in terrible psychic pain that they don't have the sweet potato fries but i'm not going to another restaurant you're just not going to have fries tonight i know yeah it's not going to happen oh now that now it's over now the whole night's stuck really because there's no sweet fries the sweet potato fries became more important than our time together and then then you find yourself and it's past bedtime and you're up late you're gonna as you know to say no is a hell of a lot harder than saying totally keeps you up at night and all of a sudden it's getting into your time with your spouse it's getting time with your partner they're staying up late so we you know another one we've tried here recently is like one of the one of the kids doesn't listen to the rules okay i'm gonna walk around and ignore you for a day why because you ignored me jonathan does that to me i mean it's it's it's a quiet but but but good one it's silent but deadly literally you know yes yes you know why didn't i why why didn't i get a plate set oh didn't know you were here eating why why oh and you know how long that conditioning takes one day that's a one-day lesson i hope so um but yeah i'm trying to evolve and do it differently than my my parents did and and again with no judgment to saying that they did it wrong you explained with your parents i would use the same verbage for mine they did it the best they could and their intentions were right and i know that it was really important to my mom and dad to go we got 18 years to help you get ready to go negotiate life and life's a [ __ ] civilization's hard not everyone's for you it's thorny out there you're gonna need a helmet you're gonna have to stand up for yourself go get and so you know for what to what extent a lot of that a lot of that worked one of your kind of earliest thoughts you know about sort of where you see your life i mean there's some really there's some really sweet actual tidbits in your handwriting which i really loved and i love trying to decipher your you know your scribbles and stuff especially when you really kind of got going um but you wanted to be a dad you knew you wanted to be a dad um is it what you imagined how's it different how's it the same when i had the first child and i write about this is and i don't know how it is for for the mother but for the father the man's never more masculine than that time when he has his first child again for me i was like i'm immortal like literally biologically wow uh i am now immediately now inherently instinctually living for the future where yesterday i wasn't i am a shepherd i'm a postman and wherever i go out in the world they may not be with me physically but i got them right here and my decisions are based on consideration for them too and their future second thing that i was what really surprised me which i think a lot of parents run into this is i thought it was a lot more environment yes then it was dna it's a lot of dna oh dna is the champ okay biology i got i'm all for the giddy up but the giddy up ain't beating the biology okay they are who they are you know we can shepherd them inform them give them laying from what turns them on and try to keep from them what may really harm them and show how that feels good to them and how it's good for them and hopefully good for others but boy you know other than that they are you know you teach my buddy says what you teach them how to read and write in literacy after that you don't know if they're petunia or an oak tree they dna they are who they are um and that was a big surprise for me as a parent i've heard that's a surprise to a lot of parents that i came in thinking it was a lot more like what we do as parents which is not to say you shouldn't pay attention and be there no absolutely not no you don't just go okay yeah absolutely but you know especially as they get older and i said earlier i'll treat you fairly but not all the same i see three different completely different individuals now where when they're younger and they're more of a young you know marshmallows marshmallows yes they're they're you know you're trying to teach them to block and tackle and do then just you kind of get up and eat and food clean up after yourself that kind of thing now it's it's it's very specific for you you have one that's a that's a mini you do you have a mini me the the boys camilla would it's easy for camilla my wife to say and she says did you see that i'm like yeah right she's like what are you yeah right about that's you um and i get it i see it in both of of of them a lot in completely different ways um um you know eldest very much a perfectionist uh very much once and is very clear about what he wants and has incredible debates about it takes take the coffee table with the microphone and has slideshows and you're like going damn that's a good argument that's not what we decided to do that's a that's a great presentation um so he's he's got that to do whatever by hooker crook to get what he wants and it has the marketeering sort of side the salesman side um i got another one that's really wonderfully stubborn they're both wonderfully stubborn and i'm well you know you want to walk that line i think with kids i try to go i'm glad you're a perfectionist because you're clear on what you want at the same time understand that the world can do unto you and you can also be open to we were just having a conversation a minute ago about something about you got to try to can do you have the ability to hop into the opposite opinion and just understand it and just sit in it it doesn't i know what you're doing you're getting scared thinking well if i think of that opinion as a possibility that means i'm weakening my no i'm not trying to convert you but can you jump over and that's something that kids learn to do and adults are still learning to do to talk about it frankly um so yeah i see a lot of myself in them and if i don't my wife reminds me that was you i'd like to talk about what's behind you because what i see is just stacks of money is that just stacks of money behind you the second person who said you see how much money is back there is that just how you do your interviews just like me and floyd mayweather um but there are two flags behind you i believe that is the flag of the united states of america and is that the flag of the great state of texas that is where are you are you in the capitol building i'm in my i'm in my office in austin and those are stacks of money no those are actually green light books [Laughter] are you serious that's amazing i love that symbol under the cover take the cover yeah that's what i was noticing symbols that's what's cool right there so i want uh that's my you know i was looking for my nike swoosh with the book and that's i was and i've always said this that's why i made that cover of my face on it three quarters hopefully to tell the reader i hold it pull my face off the thing and look under it i mean if i had a nickel for every time i said sorry okay sorry jesus i think i'm your new brother from another mother i think woody harrelson needs to move over dude over wood um so do do you talk i mean we can completely edit this out if not but do you talk about some of the the buzz surrounding your oh so please tell it i would vote for you for president but there's a couple steps before that correct logically maybe um you you do have political inclinations as it were is this something you talk about i have leadership inclinations and less than inclinations i feel like i'm being pulled that way i feel like it's when my you know my saturday night 2 a.m buzzed ideas go to places where i look at and go that's that's i think that'd be good for people i think that'd be useful it's my natural free association mine goes to things naturally and has been for um quite a few years now i don't know what that category embassy is going to be do i need to consider politics for that well i'd be foolish not to yeah but it's in a way politics has got to repurpose redefined because it's some small thinking right now it's both each party thinks they are democracy and they're not and then democracy still needs continual redefinition um it needs its own challenging um so i'm looking and i'm going through my own process now and have been diligently of going what is my embassy what is my way forward what is how can i be most useful not only to most amount of people but to me and my family as well because it's got to be a selfish decision it's a very personal decision that would come with great sacrifice um but i gotta i'm trying to measure that where would i be most useful to myself my family and the most amount of people now would that be politics i don't know it's a bit of it's a bit of a broken business that needs a lot of repair right now um and as i said redefinition um and so am i the right person to do that is that sort of the task are you asking me consider i'm i'm asking the either are you asking for her as your running mate it's a binding anxiety oh stop it never gonna let me live it down oh matthew when i see you at all our red carpet parties you'll say finding anxiety um you you do you do a lot of really interesting also other things you you do hold a professorship as it were um what what is your time commitment for that like how often do you do that it's it's very it it works with me very well i have a professor that's in their daily name scott rice who really has taken my baton of the class i created and runs it day to day um i go by the classes in person and or i zoom i'm able to zoom in more to talk to the class what we do is take it's called script screen we'll take like your script your movie you just directed you put up your original script next to your movie they're very different right so what we do is we'll go i would say come to you and go i have a class it's a full semester can you share your first script and with notes about hairs what i what then they the kids get up and they declare here's what movie i see here's the dramas and things you hand in the second script wait what happened to so-and-so what are these changes do we know why you hand them a third you hand them the shooting that's amazing then you show them a first assembly now they think they're going on the final cut i'm editing literally in the next room before i got here i was editing and that's what i'm going to do later today i'm literally i just did my first cut and working on my second that's and it's a complete i'm totally making the actors do everything i wanted that they didn't do in person but it's a totally different movie yeah then you talk about that and it's just the many ways to skin the cat like every movie how do you because you know i was in film school and i thought it was a dictatorship i thought oh you make a film it has to be every word for word the intentionality has to be super clear well i was closed off to magic and inspiration then i go work with richard linklater and he's very much like we'll take an idea from anywhere and i was like oh you can get great ideas and be open inspiration anywhere along the way and i saw a completely different way of making movies in a much more successful way so it's a class that shows puts the science behind the magic of how we get how we feel that's beautiful and i also do want to mention your just keep living foundation tell us um tell us about it because i we're gonna post you know links and stuff so people can learn more about we have an after school curriculum in title one schools title one schools are lower income schools through the united states we're a little over 40 schools and i think nine states i have a curriculum on tuesdays and thursdays and these young men and women come and they set a physical exercise goal which maybe i want to make the soccer team but i can't run half a mile it may be i want to lose three pounds so i can fit my prom dress in two months whatever that is we're gonna help you kind of get that we had nutritional goals hey you went and spent 42 bucks on burgers last night great we're we're all for burgers but we're going to take you and your mom or your dad to the supermarket with the same 42 bucks we're going to walk down the produce section grab some beans maybe some meat we're going to come home have a healthier dinner and you get to cook it with your family we also have community service they all have to give back to their community and then the final sort of halo over our curriculum is gratitude is gratitude the the students share something out loud they're thankful for in their life with each other and as you know uh with with with your neuro education sharing what you're thankful for when you're in high school ain't cool so these kids thought that when we first started off they were like i'm i'm thankful they're just reading the foundation whatever they mumble stuff and then also i was like they they're feeling this is really heavy that they have to tell something dramatic and real and now camille and i went one day and i was like got to me and i was like i'm thankful i woke up this morning i got a french kiss from my wife right when i woke up and they all went but it opened the floodgate and it made them go oh i'm happy halloween's coming i'm gonna get candy i'm happy i'm feeling sexy today now once that happened they started to share things like that my grandmother got out of the hospital that my dad got a job that my sister's now helped and they share it and the coolest thing we've heard about it is kids say their favorite thing about the the gratitude circle is that for the first time in their life they're hearing their peers say thank you for something that they have in their life that they've never said thank you for so that's what we're doing it's really beautiful um we have a little rapid fire set of questions okay i thought we were in that okay such a comedian all right rapid-fire questions what was your mother write about my mother was right about the fact that there's great value and denial if you really commit to it [Laughter] take it to your grave holy toledo what was your father write about in an intimate time and he told me this when i was 12. we were having our birds and bees talk he said you're going to be at an intimate time with a girl you're going to like a girl you're going to get off you're going to get off some time together you are going to kiss and it may go further than that may move to here we talked about it and he goes it may carry on he goes those are the stages that that intimacy goes through he goes when you're with whoever that girl is if you feel them hesitate don't go any further he goes and he goes and what happens if you don't go any further is they may even go oh yeah no it's okay don't wait till next time and then but but if there's if there's a reflex to stop the forward momentum of the intimacy stop then live live live to love another day um and he and it was a good one uh when i think back about it next one out when i'll share with my my kids location you've been in that promotes the best mental health for you i love desert i love the desert you have a lot of little sayings you're so southern but what's your favorite mantra oh my favorite monster let me give you a real southern one because this came from the southern man a 90 year old there's going to be a lot of apostrophes in this there's going to be a lot of there won't be any g's on the end of any of the ins um the g's are all behind you matthew they're lined up on that table i'm sorry all the g's me and floyd money my friend lopez truck is out front mantra if there's one thing you can depend on people being it's people perfect um who has been your best spiritual teacher pastor dave and brother christian they are in your book who are you most competitive with me um last one one of the really remarkable things that um i loved in this book and that i love about you i promise i really learned so much about you from this book um and especially because i'm trained as an actor but you know right and you know just directed for the first time you have a tremendous sense of intuition you have a tremendous sense of intuition and when you need to make a move when you feel something with most passion your last rapid fire question when has been your moment of your best and strongest intuition in your life she was moving right to left from my eye line the place was kind of fuzzy and not just because there was fake smoke coming from the floor the amount of tequila i had in me had something to do with it with these caramel arms that a little bit of sheen on them just a touch of humidity coming out of this turquoise dress and i said what is that and as i said it i started to get up but then i started trying to catch her eye and i'd wave to get her attention and as i was waving to get her attention i heard my mother in my 15 year old ear going get your ass up boy and go introduce yourself to that woman you'll wave this woman over it and i went yes ma'am and i got up and went to who is now the mother of my children and my wife kamil that's beautiful um this has been an absolute pleasure i don't know what favor you were repaying to come speak to us but we are so thrilled it's been a real honor to speak to you it was super fun and interesting let's do it again you crack some good jokes i make matthew mcconaughey my best friend i i think woody harrelson is a little bit in the way we have to i think i make matthew laugh more than what he does we should have a contest we'll get both of them in the same room with you and see who does a better job i'm very proud of myself he did a great job i barely ever seen movies that he's in i've seen like two movies but i love them i think i did a good job not mentioning dazed and confused if this man has not said all right all right all right every day for the last month i don't even know what that is do it you do it cute no i won't do it no how do you say it all right all right all right what do you do that is not how it's done all right all right all right you clearly haven't seen the movie i haven't is that for is that the link letter phil all right all right all right that is the cannot be how he says it no it's probably not it either but that's a classic movie it's um he seems very famous he has a very famous see movie stars are very different than tv stars i once saw emma stone on an airplane we were both in first class and she she just has like an air about her it's like the movie stars are different he's just like he's different tv actors bring their lunch pails to work [Laughter] okay pretend you're a movie star for a minute i don't how does it sit he's got very good posture very good posture he's very confident like i'm sure that he's got his moments and i read his book like he sure has his moments but like i don't think i don't think he cries like i do no one cries like you do i mean i i don't mean to like fan girl out and be like star struck because the fact is look let's just be honest he's a person just like you're a person just like you know the person experiencing homelessness when i drive off the freeway like we're all just people we're all just here but he is very different because he's different well he has he's composed he hasn't he has an a very collected energy about him there's something very handsome about him besides just like oh he has classically attractive features like his present he has a very you know it's confident and he is he's very you know i hope people weren't upset or triggered by his his and my conversation about masculinity because you know that that is obviously a gendered term and it's not just reserved for men there are women who have masculine like it's totally good and all good but he really is like a very you know he's america i don't know that this is a fact but he's one of the most photographed people with his shirt off that's not true in tabloids yeah there's like there's a running joke that matthew mcconaughey never has a shirt on in pictures okay you don't go on the internet i don't do things there's a lot of pictures of him here he does have his shirt off i mean if i had a body like that i would never put on clothing no there's like if you google it there's running jokes on late night oh i didn't know he never like he doesn't own shirts [Music] and there's pictures of him and woody without their shirts they're like totally he's like the shirtless guy i didn't know that i mean there's jokes that uh he had to like put a shirt on to drive his lincoln that's when the only time well i saw him in dallas buyers club which is a really really a very significant important film um about um hiv and a very specific time in in history and he he plays this unbelievable character and he actually talks about in the book like you know at that time in his career he was switching over from the movies that everyone knows matthew mcconaughey from to the movies that i know matthew mcconaughey from and like no one thought he should make it and he lost all this weight to the role and like he's very i didn't want to like talk act i mean i wanted to talk everything with him but i don't know if method acting is something that he kind of talks about but he really does talk about like being in character and he has a story of something that he like didn't even study the script for this job because he like wanted to just like be in it and then he gets to set and finds out he's supposed to speak spanish like give a whole monologue in spanish and he's like oh my gosh like so much for like trying to be in the moment but anyway um that's the like the shirtless image i have of him is from dallas buyers club when he i mean i think he was like 130 pounds or something like really really very very thin um no he we didn't get to ask him about hair there's a great anecdote in the book tell us about it he was going to shave his head he has amazing hair he has beautiful hair he was he was starting to lose it and so he no one believes that he that's what he said and he decided to shave it and it's also a wives tale and and what was it how did he phrase it there's an aboriginal handshake and the the man said if two people believe what is it if two people believe something like it becomes true like if they believe it deeply enough and then his hair was fine so you're telling me that this could have been prevented we don't believe it enough that it's gonna be okay oh maybe it'll come back what do we believe together enough that we're gonna make it true that we're gonna last as a couple but even that is like no there's there's a lot about his hair in addition you know he like almost lost a job because of it and then like the director saw him in person was like oh just kidding you're still stunning everything's fine i do very highly recommend this book because he really it's it's not a memoir like you think and he really does cover we didn't get into a tremendous amount of like mental health per se but i mean all of our lives are a journey of of mental health or of challenges you know and he has this running line of persistence and spontaneity and and courage and like i don't know if he's fearless but he lives as if he is fearless i know that not everyone has the resources to be like i had this dream about you know the amazon and i'm gonna go there but you know he's done some beautiful things and it's funny when we asked him about his just keep living foundation when he opened his mouth i was like are we gonna get like a little sound bite here which is fine but then when he started talking i was like this is a man who really is articulating solutions to some really prominent challenges you know at schools all over this country and i really i do i admire that i don't it's not lips i don't feel like it's lip service like it's really really lovely the things he was saying he wasn't just like we're giving money to support after school programs he was giving real examples like i was very very impressed by him and i know people are going to be like he's just a rich celebrity but no i was really impressed by him he's crazy i made him blush can we talk about that we can he's clearly guided by a deep intuition and and we talked a little bit about spirituality and being guided by sort of what he called a direct line and a direct line of truth i think that's like clearly i mean it's a very religious concept and i didn't want to poke him about it because i don't think that this is because you're friends like that yet well no but i the next time he comes no but i don't look two hours i didn't want to i didn't want to poke that not now he said let's do it again i think he meant it but what what i do think is interesting is that like i've been taught that dreams are symbolic it's like not him let's let's pick a dream that i could have woken up and been like must pursue this like are there donkeys with wings let me go find them do you have a recurring donkeys with wings dream i do this is the first i'm hearing about this name me a dream of yours that you think maybe we shouldn't take literally i mean i fly sometimes i have a recurring flying dream never flown i mean do you have a better example bro i mean i had a recurring dream that actually came true but i didn't go pursue it whoa i had a recurring dream about the town of ashland that i wrote to you about and i told you about that i showed up and it was like this extremely distinct uh place and the geography was is what made it so specific there was like a river next to a downtown area and and um i ended up in this town in 2018 in real life in real life i walked downtown for the first time and i was just struck i was hit so hard by this recurring dream that i had had i had it but like once a week for several years okay that's weird babe and then you're telling a weird story i mean weird in a good way but i feel like that's a little bit of a different story like i once dreamt that i joined the circus but i didn't do it instead jonathan's like i speak to the universe and it sends me messages of where i should live like that's a different story well this was not necessarily permanent living on i was on this road trip in the dream and i was arguing with my then partner and we got to this town we pulled over on like on this road trip is this real life for the dream this is the dream and then we parked there and i just turned to her and i'm like can we rest here a little while and like there was so much tension in the car from but two we live here now we do but i don't think we're living there forever uh and it okay i had forgotten about that dream just took a turn i had totally forgotten about that dream until i then walked in that downtown and i hadn't had it for like five years that dream but i was like totally struck i'm like holy shoot this is the location of the dream also don't curse that i had been having for years and years prior to that and it like totally freaked me out do you think that it's going to require another wet dream for matthew mcconaughey to run for office like he's going to have a wet dream and he's like yep i'm supposed to be governor of texas no but i do think in all seriousness i mean again i'm not saying he's a prophet but this notion of but he has the hair for it no but this notion of you know what if we received information that we get with that kind of seriousness meaning to say what's the message here like what am i supposed to do and he i also really respect you know public people famous people you know who are not afraid to say like i have a relationship with god and like this happened and i believe that was like that i really i think that's really cool he also said he put himself in the place to receive that information and so if we want to go there i would posit that everyone has the ability to receive direct information of truth whatever totally we understand truth we don't know how to listen or receive like people used to so so many of us are not putting ourselves in the position not making space in our lives and it's like also it's you know you call it serendipity or like coincidence but you know that's just the lens that that we see it with if people want to tell us about their serendipity moments or moments of moments of great intuition we would love to hear that i think that's fascinating tag us on instagram at bialik breakdown that's our instagram page this was a very exciting episode before we go mime talk to us a little bit about gratitude i have an attitude of gratitude he talked a little he talked about attitude of gratitude he talked about um well before he talked about attitude of gratitude he talked about quick lethal and over which is might be the episode title it's also the title of our memoir but tell us why gratitude is helpful we've talked a little bit about this and ask mime anything but you know this is less of an ask mime anything and more of a uh little why gratitude is so good for us one of my favorite things that we do here at mybialx breakdown is to break down the science behind things that people don't often know have science that relate to mental health and gratitude is one of them and you know i'm kind of allergic to positivity meaning like i'm not hate when i'm positive no i'm just like i i wouldn't say i'm like an optimistic positive person like that's just not it's not my vibe i was kidding by the way you like know i i do but um i much more resonate with gratitude and an attitude of gratitude which because there can be false positivity which is a whole other problem yeah and like i'm i'm very i'm just it's me it's not you you know i'm very sensitive to to false positivity or to spiritual biceps now or like like super sometimes it can feel superficial to me or can feel inauthentic but what's interesting is that um there have been some really interesting studies scientific studies about gratitude and some of the things you know you can kind of dismiss if you'd like to i mean the the studies report there was a study of i think 300 college students that was done um and you know they found that like depression markers decreased when people were asked to like write gratitude letters every day and things like that um but enter functional mri machine that's right fmri is our friend and there have been gratitude studies that have been done when people are in an mri scanner and i'm happy to describe what an mri scanner does another day my undergraduate thesis we used functional mri um it's it's showing blood flow and brain activity and there are things that we can infer infer from the patterns that we see and the changes in blood flow and and therefore oxygen delivery to different parts of the brain and gratitude seems to um seems to activate the medial prefrontal cortex which is generally associated with learning and decision making so the idea is that when when we experience gratitude when we express gratitude our brain is is rewiring in some ways and i'm not saying that as like the brain can rewire i'm literally talking about when you express and have access to things that you can be grateful for even if fill in the blank it allows your brain to start learning and accepting and being open in a new way and that's one of the things that 12-step programs in particular are big on is gratitude lists you know when you wake up can you be grateful about three things without feeling guilty about it without feeling like oh but also this is going on and i shouldn't be you have a right to experience gratitude and it is it's good for your brain and it can be little things too that's what people don't understand totally my life has to be perfect in order to have gratitude you know what my list sometimes sounds like just that they exist just cats patience i often just have gratitude for patience the gift of pausing is something all i can like get my head around in the morning i'm just grateful that i've learned that i don't have to instantly react to everything i'm grateful for the gift of recovery that i can experience things bigger than myself but those notions of gratitude it does it puts a different lens on your day so the last thing about this interview that we just did because everybody's like nobody wants to listen to you we just heard matthew mcconaughey is that matthew talks about not raising his voice and that i connected to that by pausing i don't know why i'm getting that face because you shouted at me the other day there's no evidence of that [Music] if he gets to a point of needing to raise his voice what he says is that he hasn't dealt with other things that are contributing to him boiling over and that the thing is yelling at hundo is not actually upsetting most of the time the best example is with my children and i was a yeller i was a yeller in some of their early years and i have tremendous sadness and regret about it but i i took a parenting class uh it's called quality parenting and it's kind of a progressive you know a lot of people in the holistic community well we took it together a group of girlfriends of mine um we took it together and what it said is that any time you lose your patience not just with a child but with any human being it is always because you do not have the patience to deal with whatever it is that's in front of you meaning people can try and get their needs met children especially in ways that are annoying that are frustrating but i can have my child behave and do the same exact thing on a good day and a bad day and the only thing that's different is me that's the baseline of overall stress that has either accumulated or that we haven't managed in other ways and so that's an amazing sign what have you what have i not dealt with that's what's coming out now and so much of what we talk about is being aware enough to deal with the stuff that is in front of you that you're holding on to that you're experiencing and having the tools to do so my i'm very grateful for learning new tools every day that we do this podcast well thank you but all the guests that we get to speak to people that we i would never otherwise get to talk to jonathan i'm grateful that we get to do this podcast together it's really lovely i'm also grateful for all the listeners that um really seem to appreciate it they they message us most of them we get a couple of them i'm grateful for our awesome team i'm grateful for our friends at rabbit grin scott who's sitting here today and jeff who's out there we have a really nice support team and they've already been helping us and right fest gabe everyone from our grateful breakdown to the one that we hope you never have except the gratitude part we hope you have that we'll see you next time it's my ambiance breakdown she's gonna break it down for you she's got a neuroscience phd or two non-fiction and now she's gonna break down it's a breakdown she's gonna break it down [Music]

Channel: Mayim Bialik

Views: 193,299

Keywords: mayim bialik, big bang theory, amy farrah fowler, mayim, celebrity news

Id: M4KiuaD-cdg

Length: 70min 19sec (4219 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 31 2021