Any character that I play, I always ask, ‘What’s their monologue?’. Whether it’s subtext or whether it’s spoken, you gotta have your monologue before you can say your dialogue.
Matthew McConaughey says
And dialogue is something McConaughey, with his Southern drawl that swings between charming and passionate, delivers perfectly. But when he read the script for his new film, “The Lost Bus,” McConaughey wasn’t sure it was right for him. As a fan of “Captain Phillips” and “United 93,” he wanted to work with director Paul Greengrass, and the story — a true account of bus driver Kevin McKay rescuing 22 children during the 2018 Camp Fire — was exactly the kind of intense adventure he loves. Still, he couldn’t find a way in — there was no inner monologue to show how Kevin changed from an ordinary man into an extraordinary hero.
After speaking with Greengrass, McConaughey realized he was wrong. Kevin had a broken heart, mourning his father’s death and struggling to bond with his teenage son, something McConaughey could relate to. There was a line that Paul came up with that said it all to me. It’s toward the end, where Kevin says, ‘I was too late as a son and now I’m too late as a father,’ and boom, I got it.
McConaughey recalls
McConaughey may have doubted it at first, but Greengrass believed he was the only major star who could convincingly play a man fighting to survive and keep his family together.
Matthew comes from a blue-collar background. He understands what it means to work a job and still not be able to make ends meet. “The Lost Bus” is coming out at a time when climate disasters happen often. While editing the film, wildfires swept through Pacific Palisades and Altadena in Southern California, killing people and destroying homes. I’d spent months creating these images on-screen; to see them playing out in a community I know was shocking. But it’s part of our world now. Places like France, Spain and Greece are having their worst forest fires in 100 years. McConaughey and Greengrass want to show not just the effects of global warming but also how ordinary people can face extreme challenges. Kevin is just going through the ho-hum of a regular day when everything is interrupted by this crisis. He didn’t want to answer the call to pick up those kids. But there was no one else on that side of town, so he took the call and it was his salvation.
Greengrass says, then McConaughey says
“The Lost Bus,” which premieres at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 5, marks McConaughey’s return to movies after a six-year break during which he wrote a memoir. He believes the time away improved his acting.
Real life inspires me. Art emulates life more than it does the other way around. So real drama, real responsibilities, real comedy, real pain, real joy, real victory, real failure fills my tank and helps me create better characters. He’s a great actor, and I’d like to see him in that world.
he says, As he considers what’s next, McConaughey is excited that his friend Nicolas Cage will lead the fifth season of “True Detective,” the HBO series that started the McConaissance in the early 2010s.
McConaughey says he’s open to playing Rust Cohle again if the chance comes up.
We nailed that first season. But if it’s a script like that first one, with that fire and originality, I’d do it. And you talk about monologues. Well, Rust Cohle had a monologue. He talked about everything that was inside him, and he didn’t care if you were listening or not. There’s freedom in that.
he says
Source: Variety