Landlocked Austin, Texas, may not seem like the most logical place to premiere Matthew McConaughey’s latest film, Surfer, Dude. But for the 38-year-old actor, it made all the sense in the world.
“My producing partners on this film and I met at the University of Texas,” McConaughey said in an interview with The Diamondback. “Texas is where I went to film school and got my first acting job in Dazed and Confused, and Surfer, Dude seemed like the right kind of picture to take back home to where I met the people that I started working with. Those were the years where I got on track and figured out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. That was right there in Austin.”
With 15 years passed since that breakthrough part as David Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, McConaughey boarded into uncharted waters with Surfer, Dude, where he took on the role of a full-fledged producer for the first time (he previously was an executive producer on Sahara). He worked on bringing the movie – which is the first production by his company, Just Keep Living – to the big screen for a decade before it finally hit theatres.
“I optioned this script in 1998,” McConaughey explained. “I started working with [director] Rob Bindler … and he started to put in more of the conscious themes into it. Themes of brotherhood, the green themes and the planet-friendly themes made it feel like something a little more worth making, but also still a comedy.'”
Surfer, Dude tells the story of Steve Addington (McConaughey), a laid-back stoner with a penchant for hitting the waves as often as possible. But when the ocean in his home town of Malibu, Calif., goes flat for weeks on end, the high-profile surfer finds his lifestyle thrown astray.
“He’s a simple guy who is very connected with nature, which is a big part of the story,” McConaughey said. “He loves one thing and that’s the most precious thing in his life, and that’s the waves.”
The same, however, could not be said about McConaughey, whose Texan roots previously kept him from ever becoming an avid surfer, even after he moved out to California.
“Basically I went and got wet and got in the water and fumbled around for a while,” McConaughey said. “I got smashed and slammed for a couple months before I ever actually caught a wave. I’m from Texas, so there’s not much surf – well, I guess there is now with Hurricane Ike – but I didn’t know about surf down there.”
But once he got off the beach and onto a board, McConaughey realized exactly what he was missing. Now he just hopes more people will appreciate surfing and all the sport has to offer.
“I think the movie will show people what’s cool about the philosophy of surfing,” he said. “It’s an analog thing to do. You’re a person, you’ve got a board – all you need is waves. There are no membership fees, you don’t have to have a coat and tie to get in and it’s about as close to nature as you can get.”
In addition to spending his days in the ocean, McConaughey also used the film as an opportunity to once again work with Woody Harrelson, who plays Addington’s manager. McConaughey considers his co-star to have been “more like a brother than a friend” since the two met on the set of EDtv.
“It’s always a hoot working with Woody,” he said. “I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth and he never knows what’s going to come out of my mouth. There is a lot of improvised stuff when Woody and I are in a scene.”
When it comes to why audiences should pack theaters to see Surfer, Dude, McConaughey cited how the film is “lighthearted, absurd and funny, but it’s also got some good things to say.”
“An overall theme in the movie is that if you do the cool thing in life and make the right choice, life’s going to reciprocate and give back to you,” McConaughey added. “After those sort of messages, which are not hardcore preachy or a hammering fist, it’s all a joke and more understandable because it’s harnessed in comedy. After that, it’s a fun, stony movie.”
tfloyd1@umd.edu
