Big-time Hollywood star or not, Matthew McConaughey would totally live in his car if he could. “Behind the wheel is my favorite spot,” he says. “I love sitting in a car seat — controlling my music, controlling the temperature, backing my seat up, putting a leg out over the side mirror.”
That made connecting to his character in his latest film, “the Lincoln Lawyer,” a cinch. McConaughey plays Los Angeles defense attorney Mickey Haller, who works out of the back of his vintage Lincoln sedan. It was a working style the actor could relate to. “My own car is a mobile office. All of my cars have always become somewhat mobile offices,” he says. “I will leave two hours early just so I can go find a good spot to park, hang out and say I’m going to make my phone calls parked under this tree outside of the place two hours before my meeting.”
Should you find yourself having to meet with McConaughey for any reason, don’t be surprised if your conversation happens in motion. “I love having meetings, actually, in cars,” he says. “I’ll do that a lot, where I’ll say, ‘Meet me at this place, I’ll come pick you up.’ And I’ll pick up and let’s go for a drive — you know, an hour drive.” He claims he’s never been a speed demon. “I’ve always leaned to the slow side of driving,” he says. “I would rather leave early and just cruise. Because I enjoy driving, so I don’t want to rush it. It’s kind of like my brother says: ‘I drink light beer because I like to drink beer, and I can drink more of it because it’s light beer.’”
Of course, the interior of his mobile office has changed somewhat, given the arrival of his son, Levi, 2, and daughter, Vida, 1. “Now stuff is mixed in,” he says. “But I know, anything for the kids or anything that I need, it’s somewhere in my car. Sometimes when I’m out, I go, ‘Oh, I forgot that.’ Nope, it’s in here somewhere. Sometimes it means getting out, looking in the back and digging around, but it’s in there.”
Career choices
“The Lincoln Lawyer” isn’t the first time Matthew McConaughey has played a lawyer, which is no coincidence, as it’s a career for which he has something of an affinity. “My plan when going to college was to do that. That was my plan,” he says of going into law.
So what happened? “Well, I looked up one morning and then noticed that to do what I wanted to do was going to be two more years of this school then four years of law school,” he explains. “So I’ll basically be 28 when I get out and start practicing a craft and start a career? And I was like, ‘No way, man. What about my 20s?’ I said to myself, ‘I’ve got some things I’d like to say now and try and do. And I’m glad I made that decision to change.’”
