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Matthew McConaughey Talks Baby Son, Dallas Buyers Club: "It's Been a Wonderful Year"

Dallas Buyers Club star talks career and family

By Marc Malkin Nov 21, 2013 4:00 AMTags
Matthew McConaugheyFrederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Matthew McConaughey should be careful.

Dallas Buyers Club has been so successful that his future backers may expect him to always make magic on such a low budget.

"Nobody had a trailer," McConaughey told me at the Governors Awards, referring to costars like Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto. "There wasn't time."

They shot the film in about 25 days. Even lighting was a luxury. McConaughey was lit for one scene by the headlights of his own car. "There was one camera and no lights," he said. "There wasn't one light or C stand on that entire set."

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In fact, they almost lost funding for the project just days before they were set to shoot and after McConaughey had already lost 40 pounds to play a man dying of AIDS. "We would just always act like we didn't hear that." he said. "We'd just show up."

He said, "Dallas Buyers is a labor of love that we battled and pinned our ears back and said, 'We're going to get this made,' even when we kept hearing a week out, a week before, we were hearing, 'No, it's not going to happen.'"

Fortunately it did happen. Both he and Leto are getting all sorts of awards season buzz.

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Things are going quite well for Mr. McConaughey.

"It's been a wonderful year," he said. "I have a 10-month-old son whose come into this world so we've got a lot of wonderful things happening to me right now."

McConaughey's wife Camila Alves gave birth to their son Livingston in December. They also have another son, 5-year-old Levi, and a daughter, Vida, who will be three in January.

McConaughey told me at the recent GQ Men of the Year party, "My [Just Keep Living] Foundation, acting and my family—those are my three things."

Watch: Matthew McConaughey Talks Son's Birth