How Matthew McConaughey Really Feels About His Catchphrase
"Alright, alright, alright." From the 1.85 : 1 frames of Dazed and Confused, these words rang out into eternity. As catchphrases from 1993 go, it's right up there with "Got milk?"
It's been nearly 30 years since Matthew McConaughey broke out into the world of cinema with those six simple syllables. Since then, they've become synonymous with the actor's Lincoln-shilling, Wild Turkey-swilling, charismatic Southern swagger. Still, being saddled with a single line of dialogue through four presidential administrations could reasonably be considered a drag, no matter how easy, breezy, or iconic it might be.
More complex reputations have frustrated artists in the past — Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't crazy about Sherlock Holmes, and any time someone asks Christian Bale his opinion on Batman, you can see a little piece of his soul die. Since his debut performance, McConaughey has experienced a movie star reinvention, becoming an international celebrity and an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning Serious Thespian. He's offered up starring and supporting turns in critically acclaimed films and television programs. Surely, by now, he's done with the "stoner at the drive-in" aesthetic hammered home in a Richard Linklater movie from back when Blockbuster Video was still killing it, right?
Apparently not. Against all odds and in keeping with his laid-back public persona, McConaughey is apparently all for his personal tagline. In his interview on Marc Maron's WTF podcast, he discussed his feelings on the subject. He is, simply put, alright with it.
Matthew McConaughey is alright alright alright with it
McConaughey, now in his 50s, seems to have remained tickled by the public's fascination with his universally recognized delivery of one word said three times. "Those are the first three words I ever said in film," he told Maron. "So the reason I love it when people say it, or tattoo it on 'em, or whatever, or walk down the street and say half of it and I say the other half ... I didn't know at that time if (acting) was gonna be a one-off hobby where I got to work for a week in the summer of 1992 and never did it again. But it turned out to be a career, so I'm like yeah! Please! Thank you! Alright, alright alright!"
The details of the catchphrase's genesis have been muddied by time, but McConaughey recalls that it might have come from Jim Morrison. He remembers hearing the Doors frontman shouting "alright, alright, alright, alright" at a concert crowd, and says that it might have been in the back of his mind when he shot Dazed and Confused.
The actor went on to describe his mantra as "a launchpad line," the kind that tells you everything you need to know about a character. He likened it to another of his lines in Dazed and Confused: "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age. I read that and I'm like, 'who's that guy?' That guy really believed that. That line is not an attitude, that's like, part of his constitution. There's an encyclopedia on that guy in that belief." It's a little far out there, but hey. The guy gets results.
And those results?
They're alright.