| By Fred Topel
In Theaters March 10
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Chances are, most of the 30-something guys living at home with their parents don’t look like the sexiest man alive. Even in the movie Failure to Launch, Matthew McConaughey is the anomaly. While most manboys who failed to move on are antisocial nerds, McConaughey plays a man’s man who loves the outdoors and has no problem wooing the hottest babes. But since he lost his one true love, he has no reason to ask for anything more out of life.
“It was very important to me that we didn’t set up the whole reason that the parents want him out of the house, that that wasn’t set up on because they don’t like him there, because he’s a pain in the butt, because he’s a slacker, because he doesn’t’ contribute,” McConaughey said. “It’s very important that he has a great relationship with his parents and he’s a god son. It’s very important that he has a great relationship with his two friends and he’s a great friend to them. He’s a good dude, but if you asked him, like he says, ‘Yeah, I’m at home. Rent’s paid, mom cooks, clothes are folded. Why screw this deal up?’ Very simply, that makes sense.”
Though the film pokes fun, the idea of living at home well into adulthood is not so uncommon these days. McConaughey himself has known many stay-at-home sons. “Some I’ve met it’s for economics. In some cultures it’s just out of respect. Like in some Latin cultures you stay at home with mom and dad until you get married. And even some after you get married, you live at home with your wife. I know other people who moved out but as soon as they got married and moved into their own home, they moved next door. Those things are fine. I don’t think it’s about right or wrong. It’s different for different people.”
For McConaughey, as soon as he fulfilled his obligation to the government education system, it was time to spread his wings. “Two weeks out of high school, I was on a plane to Australia for a year, so I was ready to go off and go test myself and put myself in an unknown place and work it out. Some economics and some of them like this guy, ‘Hey, I get along with them. They get along with me. Mom’s a great cook. I like my bed. Rent’s paid. What’s not to like?’ On a very simple level, he’s not an ambitious guy that’s going, ‘No, I’ve got to be this later on. I’m a boat broaker. What do I dream of? Sailing around the world one day. But I haven’t quite got the boat built yet and I’m not in any rush.’”
The women love McConaughey in these sweetheart roles in romantic films, but his success comes from the fact that guys don’t hate him. “The romantic comedies I don’t like are ones that I go in and some women will like them but I’ll go in, I’ll go, ‘Oh, geez, man. I mean, you completely got castrated in the thing. You got de-masculated in the whole thing.’ And a lot of these romantic comedies are set up to be some sort of war of the sexes, that’s the fun of them. And so if you do that, I believe it needs to be really balanced and a lot of them are written where they’re not balanced, where the man is sort of the foil. He’s pulled left, pulled right and kind of pushed in a direction and sent on his way by the girl in the romantic comedy. I think it’s funnier and more true if you can go in, be a guy’s guy, not that you take everything literally and completely seriously and everything’s hardcore walk the line, but give the guy some juevos. It’s funnier to me I think. And then it doesn’t alienate anyone that way. So if they’re going on a date, and it’s the girl’s choice, the guy’s hopefully going to go and go, ‘All right, man. I dug that.’ Not that he necessarily stood up for the men, but saw a guy doing that and playing that light side but still being a man about it.”
In real life, McConaughey is involved in a very high profile relationship with actress Penelope Cruz. Though they’ve been together for two years, McConaughey has no plans to make anything official. “I keep it in the fun zone, man. Life’s hard enough, the stuff you’ve got going on. I know if anybody I’m going to spend time with, I want to enjoy it. Now, is fun meaning there’s no hard work? No. Hard work can be fun because you’re evolving. You’re building something with someone. But that can also be fun. Does hard work or commitment mean that it’s got to go deep and down? No. No, no, no. One person said this and it makes a lot of sense, ‘How else can love survive if it doesn’t stay buoyant?’”
If it seems like a contradiction that you keep things fun while being committed, McConaughey says that long term commitment actually promotes more fun. “Sometimes it’s easier to keep it fun because you know the other’s sense of humor. You know what each other likes. And when you can do those things together and you can also appreciate and have fun sort of for the other one, just because you know they’re doing something that they really dig even though you may not physically be there, that’s very important too I believe.”
See Matthew McConaughey have fun with the ladies in Failure to Launch, opening March 10. |
