matthew-mcconaughey-is-happy-memoir-hit-nerve

Matthew McConaughey Is Happy Memoir ‘Hit a Nerve’

Over the years, Matthew McConaughey has starred or appeared in several great movies. From Dazed and Confused to Dallas Buyers Club and animated films like Sing, he’s proved he can do it all. Some of those films brought him Oscars and People’s Choice Awards, among others. In short, we all know that McConaughey is one heck of an actor.

Last October, Matthew McConaughey proved that he was also a stellar writer. On October 20th, 2020, he released his memoir Greenlights. Before long, the award-winning actor became a New York Times bestselling author. In fact, Greenlights stayed on the coveted list for fifty-two straight weeks.

Matthew McConaughey is happy to see the book’s success. However, it isn’t the acclaim and profit that bring him so much joy. It’s the fact that his words resonated with readers in such a big way. He talked about what it meant to him in a recent appearance on The Today Show.

Matthew McConaughey on the Success of Greenlights

During the interview, we find out that Matthew McConaughey put Greenlights together from journals that he started keeping when he was only fifteen. As a result, the book was deeply personal and brutally honest. That, he says, is what many readers loved about it.

About the book’s success, Matthew McConaughey said, “That makes me very happy because it was the most personal thing I’ve ever put out. Did I feel like what I was writing had a populace sort of nerve that it could hit? Yeah.”

It most definitely struck a nerve with several readers, and they’re all too happy to tell Matthew McConaughey about it. “I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘Look, [Greenlights] laid out a path for me, a different way of lookin’ at my life, where I’ve been, and where I’m going.”

McConaughey said that he’s heard several people say that he was so “brutally honest about the successes, the failures, the smiles, and the tears” that it put them in their place. Furthermore, it stripped away the mystique of fame. “I think they were able to feel like they were looking me in the eye, and I was looking them in the eye.”

Greenlights Took On a Life of It’s Own

Matthew McConaughey said that Greenlights struck such a nerve with people that it took on a life of its own. “People were sharing it without me sharing it.” However, he knows it wasn’t just because it was a book he had written. The success came from the words he put between the book’s covers. “It was about the themes that were underneath that paper cover with my face on it. It was about that philosophy, that approach to life. [Greenlights] took on a life of its own.”