This is the pact that Matthew McConaughey made with his wife after leaving Hollywood

There was a time when Matthew McConaughey was the king of romantic comedies in Hollywood. It was in the 90s when all we saw the actor star in was good rom-coms, and he ruled that and how. In a recent interview, the Oscar-winning artist talked about what all it took to get out of that zone and do more with his acting career.

Speaking on the Good Trouble podcast, Matthew McConaughey revealed that he abandoned Hollywood and moved his family to Texas when the industry refused to let him branch out of romantic comedies. He said, “Look, man, the devil’s in the infinite yeses, not the nos. ‘No’ is just as important, if not more important. Especially if you have some level of success and access. ‘No’ becomes more important than ‘yes.’ Because, I mean, we can all look around and see we’ve over-leveraged our life with yeses and going, ‘Geez, oh man. I’m making C-minuses and all this shit in my life because I said yes to too many things.'”

Matthew McConaughey was initially the rom-com guy

Matthew went on to star in several rom-coms like The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure To Launch, Fool’s Gold and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. These were all remarkable romantic films that were declared blockbusters at the box office. 

The actor revealed, “When I was rolling with the rom-coms, and I was the ‘rom-com dude,’ that was my lane and I liked that lane. That lane paid well, and it was working,” he continued. “I was so strong in that lane that anything outside that lane – dramas and stuff that I want[ed] to do – were like, ‘No, no, no. No, McConaughey.’ Hollywood said, ’No, no, no. You should stay there.’ So, since I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, I stopped doing what I was doing, and I moved down to the ranch in Texas.”

After McConaughey relocated with his family to Texas, he made a pact with his wife. He told her, “I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do.” 

That decision was not easy to make. The actor revealed it “was scary” to leave a thriving career. He even thought that moving to Texas would mean he would need to find a new job.

Also read: 52nd International Emmys: When and where to watch the awards; everything to know

“I think I’m going to teach high school classes. I think I’m going to study to be a conductor. I think I’m going to go be a wildlife guide,” the actor said. “I stepped out of Hollywood. I got out of my lane. The lane Hollywood said I should stay in, and [I thought] Hollywood [would say], ‘Well, fu** you, dude. You should have stayed in your lane’ It was scary. The days are long — the sense of insignificance. But I made up my mind that that’s what I needed to do, so I wasn’t going to pull the parachute and quit the mission I was on. But it was scary, because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out of the desert.”