Matthew McConaughey: ‘True Detective’ Season 1 Was ‘One of the Great Events in TV’ History
Matthew McConaughey can “objectively” say that his season of “True Detective” was the best. McConaughey, who co-starred alongside his now-frequent collaborator Woody Harrelson in the first season of the noir anthology series back in 2014, told Variety that the HBO show was “one of the great events in TV” history. McConaughey himself watched it live week to week to be part of the “water cooler talk” after its coveted HBO Sunday slot.
“My favorite season — and I feel like I can say this objectively — is Season 1,” McConaughey said. “I happen to be in that one, so I thought that was incredible, incredible television and a great series. I watched it weekly, like everyone else, on Sunday night, and that was an event for me. And I got to sit back and enjoy that. I loved the water cooler talk on Monday morning. Even though I made it, I sort of forgot what was going to happen next. It was one of the great events in TV.”
McConaughey added that he did watch the most recent installment “True Detective: North Country.” “I watched, I saw it,” he said. “Yeah, there’s a lot about it that I appreciated.”
Yet it wasn’t quite like the season he was part of … McConaughey previously credited the series for his “Dallas Buyers Club” Best Actor Oscar win. He later was nominated for an Emmy for “True Detective.” “During the ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ run, I had ‘True Detective’ in your living room every week. To talk about this freely, ‘True Detective’ was the best campaigner for ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ there was,” McConaughey said in 2020.
Now, the star is back onscreen after a six-year acting hiatus with feature “The Rivals of Amziah King,” premiering at SXSW. When asked how it was to return to set after years away, McConaughey told Variety that he had to remember how acting is a “vacation” from his personal life.
“I remembered a couple of things: One, how much I truly enjoy performing. Two, I remembered, hey, McConaughey, you’re pretty damn good at this. And three, I remembered that acting is a vacation for me, and what I mean by vacation is that when when I’m performing, it’s my singular focus,” he said. “When I walk out the door in the morning, my wife says, ‘Go kick some ass. I got the kiddos. We’re good.’ That’s vacation. Because I’m not multitasking. I’m not compartmentalizing. I’m fully focused on finding the truth of my character.”
