McConaughey Gets Variety Legend Award at Filmland
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- Matthew McConaughey will receive Variety's Legend & Groundbreaker Award at Filmland in Arkansas on Friday, framing legacy and immortality around his three children with wife Camila Alves McConaughey — his "biggest bonfire."
- McConaughey just wrapped Netflix's "Positano" in Italy, a jewel-heist caper co-starring Zoe Saldaña, and is now promoting Black Bear's indie "The Rivals of Amziah King" (limited theaters Friday) and Apple TV's "Brothers" (streaming Sept. 23) reuniting him with Woody Harrelson.
- "The Rivals of Amziah King" — in which McConaughey plays an Oklahoma beekeeper and bluegrass musician — earned a rare standing ovation at SXSW last March and will screen at the newly renamed Matthew McConaughey Cinema, an Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.
- McConaughey teaches a "Script to Screen" class at the University of Texas, urging students not to fear "doing something shitty" and to "let it breathe" rather than treat the script as inviolable.
- McConaughey co-founded the Just Keep Livin' Foundation in 2008 with Camila, running free after-school fitness, nutrition and wellness programs at inner-city high schools; he cites graduates earning scholarships to UCLA and other schools.
- McConaughey says Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" is now better appreciated than at its 2014 release — "95%" of people who approach him bring up the film, per the interview.
Why it matters: McConaughey is releasing a Netflix caper, an SXSW-lauded indie and an Apple TV comedy reunion within weeks of each other, an unusually cross-genre output stretch that signals creative range rather than late-career consolidation. The simultaneous renaming of an Alamo Drafthouse theater in his name while he remains active underscores a durable cultural footprint beyond any single role.
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