Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey has finally opened up about his six-year hiatus from headlining movies. This comes after he made his feature acting comeback in Black Bear’s crime thriller movie The Rivals of Amziah King, which just had its world premiere at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival.
The Rivals of Amziah King is written and directed Andrew Patterson (The Vast of Night). Besides McConaughey, the film also stars Kurt Russell, Cole Sprouse, Owen Teague, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, and more. Described as “a deeply atmospheric, character-focused” movie, the story takes place against the unique backdrop of remote Oklahoma. At the moment, the movie has no official theatrical release date yet.
What did Matthew McConaughey say about his acting hiatus?
During a recent interview, McConaughey admitted that he felt nervous during the production of The Rivals of Amziah King, since it was his first time back on a movie set after leading Guy Ritchie’s 2019 action comedy The Gentlemen.
According to McConaughey, his six-year acting hiatus was an important time for him since he got the chance to write his memoir, Greenlights, and spend more time with his family.
“I needed to write my own story, direct my own story on the page,” he said.
On why he decided to return with The Rivals of Amziah King, the acclaimed actor explained that he felt a familiar connection to the movie’s story after reading Patterson’s script. He confirmed that working on the project actually helped him rediscover his love and passion for acting.
“I remembered a couple of things,” he revealed. “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. 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.”
In addition, the Interstellar actor also acknowledged that writing his 2020 memoir definitely helped him improved his craft as an actor. “The memoir was extremely honest and it forced me to be honest with myself,” McConaughey said. “It cleared up things you’ve been thinking about for 35 years. And it makes you realize that’s kind of who you are, Matthew. Let’s admit that and shake hands. Bravo. That gave me even more trust in myself, because, you know, there was less to maybe hide about myself. I had shared it. So that’s made it easier for me to be honest as an actor.”
(Source: Variety)
