Greenlights Read online

  “Come inside for a coffee and tell me all about your adventures,” he said with a smile.

  “It was epic,” I said. “We raced the autobahns, drank from the Austrian rivers, traversed the Swiss Alps, had dinners in Mussolini’s hideout, and raved in Rimini till sunrise.”

  “Thank you, Johan, it was the best trip we’ve ever taken,” Cole said.

  After a couple hours of tale telling, our rental car was delivered and it was time to head back to Amsterdam so we could fly home the next day. Johan’s wife grudgingly handed us back our plane tickets home.

  Johan in Rosenheim. What a mensch.

  I hadn’t thought about getting an agent or a job the entire month. I headed back to Malibu with lifelong friends and more great stories to tell.

  Greenlight.

  dirt roads and autobahns

  The road less traveled may not be a dirt road; for some, it may be the autobahn.

  Robert Frost was right, taking the road less traveled can make all the difference.

  But that road isn’t necessarily the road with the least traffic.

  It may be the road that we, personally, have traveled less.

  The introvert may need to get out of the house, engage with the world, get public.

  The extrovert may need to stay home and read a book.

  Sometimes we need to get out there, sometimes we need to get in there.

  Some days our road less traveled is a solitary dirt trail.

  On others it’s the subway on the 7 line.

  * The last picture ever taken of my dad. He’s in Navarre Beach, Florida, at the spot he dreamed of building his oyster shack if and when he ever “hit a lick” and retired.

  *2 Turns out an Enduro 450 is not the way to ride through Europe on the autobahn. If your motorcycle does only 105 mph, you’re gonna get blown off the road by the eighteen-wheelers and V12 sedans cruise controlling at 180.

  JANUARY 1994

  Don loved that I had gone on the motorcycle trip through Europe with “his boys!” The three of us, all cast by him in Dazed and Confused. Back sleeping on his couch, I didn’t say a word about meeting an agent. Didn’t even think about it. Didn’t need to.

  One night, over another scoop of vanilla Häagen-Dazs and some strawberry marmalade, Don said, “You’re ready. Tomorrow morning, I got us a meeting with Brian Swardstrom and Beth Holden at the only agency that would see us, the William Morris Talent Agency. Tell em you wanna direct as well, you’ll sound even less needy, they’ll salivate.”

  My résumé was my performance as Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, which had been released in limited theaters a few months earlier. (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation hadn’t been released yet.)

  Boots, jeans, and a tucked-in button-down, I shook their hands and sat down for my next job interview. I acted like I wanted them, not like I needed them. Swardstrom nibbled, Holden bit. I signed with Beth and William Morris the next day.

  Now, this is usually the point in the story where the protagonist, the young wannabe actor gone west, grovels and lines up hundreds of “almost got it” auditions, has to take a job waiting tables, and gets asked to suck somebody’s dick for a cameo role.

  Well, that’s not my story.

  One week after signing with William Morris, I got my first audition in Hollywood with casting director Hank McCann for the role of Drew Barrymore’s very honest husband “Abe Lincoln” in the film Boys on the Side. They liked my audition enough to schedule a second one for director Herb Ross six weeks later. A week after that first audition I got called in for another one, this time for a Disney film called Angels in the Outfield. The role was that of an “all-American baseball player named Ben Williams.” I wore my American flag baseball cap and a white T-shirt for this job interview. Warner Bros. lot, Bungalow 22, parking-lot level. I opened the door to enter, backlit by the afternoon sun.

  “Whoa! Look at you! All-American kid!” a voice boomed from a couch opposite the entry door.

  I stopped in the doorway and looked down at the squinting man who was addressing me. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “You ever play baseball?” he asked.

  “Twelve years, from six years old till I was eighteen.”

  “Great, you got the job, we start shooting in two weeks!”

  $48,500 to play baseball for ten weeks in Oakland. You kiddin me? And I needed it, I only had $1,200 to my name at the time.

  I called my brother Pat to share the news.

  “Fuck, yeah, little brother. Super Bowl’s comin up, let’s go to Vegas and celebrate. On me!”

  Greenlight.

  * * *

  Now, I like to gamble. Mostly on myself but occasionally on sports, specifically NFL football. I never bet enough to change my lifestyle, win or lose, but rather, just enough to buy a ticket to the game, meaning, enough to make me want to watch it closely and give a damn, enough to get a buzz. For me, that can be $50. I’ve never used a tout service (expert “pickers”) because to me, what’s the fun in that? If I lose, I try to figure out where I misread the matchup, but ultimately I like to pick my own winners because when I win, I kn-ewww it.

  When I win, it was so easy, such a clear choice, a lead-pipe cinch. I’m a fortune-teller, Nostradamus, a magician, all because I fucking kn-ewww it. That’s what I love about betting, and I give a lot more credit to the I kn-ewww its than I do to the What the fuck happened?s. I bet for the entertainment value, the enjoyment I get when I kn-ewww it.

  When betting, I specifically enjoy considering the intangibles. The bet on San Francisco at home to cover against Baltimore because Baltimore will be jet-lagged from the long flight West bet. The take Brett Favre and the Packers on Monday night because his dad passed away last Tuesday or bet on any team who has a star player who just had his first newborn child because they’re now playing for more than themselves bet. The bet against the Philadelphia Eagles because they’re playing their first game in their new stadium and have Sylvester Stallone, aka Rocky Balboa, there to commemorate it, because it’s too much celebration about stuff OFF the football field bet. When I win these bets based on these psychological hunches and tells that are neither scientific nor measured by the Vegas line makers, I believe I have an inside track, betting 5.0, Machiavellian craft, all because I kn-ewwww it.

  * * *

  I flew Southwest Airlines to Vegas for the big game, the second year in a row the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills would meet in the Super Bowl. An agent, a 48,500-dollar job in hand, a weekend of blackjack, boozing, and football with my brother Pat. I was flying high.

  The Dallas Cowboys were a powerhouse that season: Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Charles Haley, Michael Irvin. They had drubbed the Bills in the previous Super Bowl and opened as 10.5-point favorites in this one. The line was stretching further in Dallas’s favor, already up to 12.5.

  The Saturday night before Super Bowl Sunday Pat and I dominated the blackjack table for eleven straight hours and walked out of the casino at daybreak up big. I’d won almost two thousand bucks and Pat was up over four grand—major money for both of us at the time.

  We woke up Sunday around noon and started strategizing on who we were going to bet on and why.

  “I think +10.5 was too many points to begin with and it’s already up to +13 at the Aladdin,” I said. “Second time’s a charm, let’s go Bills.”

  “Shi-iit, I think they might even upset the Cowboys money line (straight-up win),” Pat said. “Let’s round the wagons with the Bills and hammer em every which way.”

  An hour before kickoff, we found a casino that had Buffalo at an astronomically high +14.5 and placed our bets. We put our money together, six grand total, and laid our bets on the Bills in every way you can imagine.

  4g to cover the 14.5 point spread.

  1g to win 3.2g on Bills money line.

 
$250 at 8 to 1 that Thurman Thomas gets more yards than Emmitt Smith.

  $250 at 12 to 1 that Andre Reed has more yards than Michael Irvin.

  $250 at 6 to 1 that Jim Kelly throws for more yards than Troy Aikman.

  $100 at 18 to 1 that Bruce Smith is the MVP.

  $100 at 4 to 1 that Dallas has more than 1.5 turnovers.

  We bet every penny we had except $100 for our beer.

  At halftime the Bills were up 13–6. We were dancing, singing, and buying doubles. “Holy shit, we’re gonna upgrade to first class for the flight home. We’re geniuses. And we were getting 14.5 points! We kn-ewww it.

  But you know what happened, right? Dallas scored 24 unanswered points in the second half and not only won the game, but covered the 14.5 point spread 31–13.

  Emmitt Smith outrushed Thurman Thomas.

  Michael Irvin had more yards than Andre Reed.

  Jim Kelly did not have more passing yards than Troy Aikman.

  Bruce Smith was not the MVP, and Dallas turned the ball over only once.

  We lost every single bet we placed. Every. One.

  Heads hanging, our buzz turning into fatigue, we walked out of the casino and hailed a cab to take us back to the hotel with twenty bucks between us. A dusty yellow ’86 Bonneville with its back-left bumper grazing the pavement pulled up. “Holiday Inn,” we said as we got in.

  Behind the wheel was a shaggy old guy who hadn’t shaved in three months or showered in three days. Clearly taking interest in our defeated body language, he reached up to his rearview mirror and tilted it to get a better look at us as he pulled away from the curb.

  Pat and I were staring out our backseat windows in stunned silence, wondering what the hell had just happened, when an all-knowing voice boomed through the cab, “Bet on the Bills, did ya!? Coulda told ya that was a stupid-ass bet. I kn-ewww the Cowboys were gonna kill em, ya fuckin losers!”

  Pat stared ice picks into the guy through the rearview mirror, then, exploded.

  “Oh, yeah, motherfucker!? If you kn-ewww the Cowboys were gonna cover, then what the FUCK are you doing driving a cab!”

  Everybody likes to be in the know. Even when we lose two and win one, we believe the one more than the two. We believe the one winner we picked was a product of our truer selves, was when we met our potential and read the future, was when we were gods. The two losses, however, were aberrations, misfits, glitches in our masterminds, even though the math clearly makes them the majority. After the game is played, everybody kn-ewww who the winner would be. Everybody is lying. Nobody kn-owwws who’s going to win or cover the bet, there is no sure thing, that’s why it’s called a bet. There’s a reason Vegas and Reno continue to grow. They kn-owww we bettors love to believe we do. That is a lock.

  * * *

  A month into shooting Angels in the Outfield, the studio behind Boys on the Side flew me back to Hollywood for my follow-up audition in front of director Herbert Ross. I’d been rehearsing for the part every night after playing baseball and was confident I had a take on my man. Herbert liked my audition and I got offered the role.

  My very first audition in Hollywood had gotten me a second audition that landed me the fourth lead in a major motion picture drama starring Drew Barrymore, Mary-Louise Parker, and Whoopi Goldberg. It also got me a major paycheck of 150 grand.

  As soon as I finished playing baseball in Oakland, I headed to Tucson, Arizona, where we’d be shooting Boys on the Side. Instead of the hotel where most others were staying, I rented a quaint adobe guesthouse on the edge of the Saguaro National Park outside of town. I rescued a black Lab–chow mix puppy from the local pound and named her Ms. Hud, after Paul Newman’s character in one of my favorite films. The house came with a maid. I’d never had a maid before.

  One Friday night after work, a friend of mine, Beth, came over for dinner and drinks. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I was telling her all the things I was so happy about in my new digs—the mud-brick architecture, the national park as my backyard, the fact that it came with a maid. Especially the maid.

  “She cleans the place after I go to work, washes my clothes, does the dishes, puts fresh water by my bed, leaves me cooked meals—and, she even presses my jeans!” I told Beth, holding up my Levi’s to show her the crisp, starched-white line running down the legs. Beth smiled at my enthusiasm, then said something I hadn’t ever thought to ask myself, and haven’t forgotten to since.

  “That’s great, Matthew, if you want your jeans pressed.”

  I’d never had my jeans pressed before.

  I’d never had anyone to press my jeans before.

  I’d never thought to ask myself if I wanted my jeans pressed before because for the first time in my life I could have them pressed.

  The never-before-offered opulent option now being a reality, of course I wanted my jeans pressed.

  Or did I?

  No, actually. I didn’t.

  * * *

  After Boys on the Side, I returned to Malibu, now with my own loft on the beach. I started taking acting classes for the first time because I thought it was time to start learning the craft that I had practically fallen into. In the past, I’d always just gone with my instincts and they had served me well. Now, I was back in school, getting an education on how to read a script, what to look for, how to prepare for a role, how to study. How to be, I thought, a professional actor.

  Meanwhile, I hadn’t gotten work in the six months since wrapping Boys on the Side. I hadn’t worked since I started taking those acting classes. I’d had a lot of auditions, and quite a few callbacks, but I couldn’t seem to land a gig. I wondered why. I noticed I was more uptight and not taking as many risks in the auditions as I used to. I was tense. I was earnest. I was literal. I was heady. The new intellectual exercise had me getting in my own way.

  the INTELLECT

  Is not meant to surpass the apparent so far as to conceal it or make it more confusing.

  It is meant to expose the truth more clearly and reveal more of the obvious from more lines of sight.

  It should simplify things, not make them more cerebral.

  * * *

  Finally, I received a blind offer for a minor role in a small independent film called Scorpion Spring. I’d only be in one scene. They offered ten grand and I took it. No audition, shooting in two weeks. That’s all I knew.

  I decided that was all I wanted to know. I got the script and I didn’t read one page of it, not a word, not even of the scene I was in. Why? Because I had a bright idea.

  To lubricate my creative juices and rid myself of all the theoretical tension I’d been carrying since that last movie and those classes, I decided I was going to go back to how I acted when I first started, when I played this guy named David Wooderson, when reading just one line of the script completely unlocked the character for me.

  It was easy for me to improvise in all those other unscripted scenes in Dazed and Confused because I was confident I knew who my man was, comfortable to just say and do what Wooderson would in any scene the director put me in. Back when I was all instinct, a natural.

  Well, that’s what I’ve been missing, I said to myself. Enough of this academic, tight-minded, learn-ed studying shit I’ve been doing, it’s time to return to my roots.

  In Scorpion Spring, my man was an “American drug runner in South Texas who meets up with the Mexican coyotes smuggling his dope back into the States,” who then “reneges on the deal, doesn’t pay for the smuggled drugs, and instead, kills the smugglers and takes the cocaine for free.”

  That’s all I needed to know. Just be that guy, handle the situation like he would, improvise, do what my man would do. Easy.

  Two weeks later, I’m on location in my trailer.

  I know my man. I’ve created my backstory of an upper-midlevel drug runner who works for the cartel on the American side in Texas. I need
the cocaine and the money and I’m carrying a loaded pistol, willing to kill to get out alive with both. I even look the part: unshaven, greasy hair, black boots, leather jacket. Who needs a script? I know who I am. Press record. I got this.

  Time to go to set. Time to shoot the scene. No problem.

  I arrive in character. I don’t talk to anyone. I don’t introduce myself to the other actors in the scene with me because my man doesn’t care about them and my man is going to kill them in this scene anyway. I just want my cocaine for free.

  Just before we take our marks a production assistant comes up to me, “Some sides,*1 Mr. McConaughey?” I take them and just shove them in my pocket without looking at them. All the actors settle onto their marks and prepare for “action.” Here we go.

  Well, I guess I lost my nerve a little bit because I decide it would be a good idea, right at this moment, just before we roll the camera, to have a quick peek at the scene and the dialogue. My thinking at the time? If it’s written well, I’ll immediately remember the written lines because obviously that’s what my man would say, and if it’s not written well, then, I’ll just be my man and do and say what he would do and say anyway.

  I unfold the sides and have a look.

  One page.

  Two pages.

  Three pages.

  Four pages…

  Of a monologue…

  In Spanish.

  Holy shit. I feel a bead of sweat form on the back of my neck. My heart starts racing. What am I going to do? My mouth goes dry. I try to keep calm. And then I look up to no one in particular and aloud to the set, I say, “Can I get twelve minutes, please?”

  My half-ass thinking was that twelve minutes would be: (1) enough time to memorize all the Spanish because, Hey, I took a semester of Spanish class in the eleventh grade, and (2) not enough time to inconvenience the crew.