Matthew McConaughey Overwhelmed His ‘Magic Mike’ Director With His Preparation for the Film
Matthew McCoanughey showed audiences a lot of skin when he collaborated with co-star Channing Tatum for Magic Mike. And like most of his roles, the actor was eager to dive deep into the stripper he was playing.
Matthew McConaughey overwhelmed his ‘Magic Mike’ director with his performance
Magic Mike was a part of a series of films McConaughey starred in during what the industry dubbed the actor’s McConaissance. The Steven Soderbergh movie was about an experienced male stripper played by Tatum who takes a younger stripper under his wing.
The actor went to great lengths to prepare for his role. This included going to actual strip clubs to meet male strippers with his co-star Tatum. He shared it was a very enlightening experience.
“So we get there early, we’re sitting there talking to a couple guys,” McConaughey once said according to LA Times. “They’re decent enough guys — one’s a lawyer, the other one’s back from the armed services, he’s got three kids at home…. Anyway, women start coming in, most of them are older women, we sneak into the back, and all of a sudden boom! These guys are coming out on stage, they’re dancing!”
But McConaughey noticed that the presentation and theatrics of the strip club was pretty sub standard.
“The production in there – it was just poor production. I mean, the sound cues, the record scratch, the lighting, there was nothing running. None of the women seemed to care,” McConaughey said.
That was where McConaughey got the idea that his character, who ran the strip club in the feature, would have top notch production. This led to him getting extremely into his Magic Mike character. But eventually, McConaughey’s passion for his character’s theatrics proved too much even for the director.
“So I was like, ‘Steven, can I get up there [and do the introductions for each dancer]? And he’s like. ‘Yeah.’ And I think after the 20thtime, he looked over at me and was like: ‘Do you have an entrance for this one too?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah!’ After about 22, he looked at me and said, ‘You don’t have to do this, it’s just a rehearsal,’” he said.
Matthew McConaughey was scared of stripping for ‘Magic Mike’
McConaughey ended up in Magic Mike after a simple phone conversation with the director.
“When Soderbergh first called and pitched me the part, I just laughed and said yes. On the phone, I asked, ‘Do you have any initial direction for me to go on?’ He took a deep breath and said, ‘Well, you really can’t go wrong.’ So I just took off and flew with this guy. I was going for Jim Morrison meets A Clockwork Orange, because he’s like a deity in his own mind,” McConaughey once told Advocate.
This meant that McConaughey would be nearly half-naked on stage along with his other castmates. But initially, the actor didn’t have to do the scene.
“It wasn’t in the script, but Soderbergh said in the beginning that if it felt right, I could strip at the end of the movie. I said, ‘I gotta dance, man.’ I would regret it for the rest of my life if I was in a male stripper movie and didn’t get up there and strip myself,” he said.
However, the Oscar-winner admitted that it was terrifying acting out the dance sequence.
“At first it was scary as hell, but then it became like a drug, and I couldn’t wait to do it again. Look, I love to dance, but I’ve never been a stripper. Channing’s one of the best hip-hop street dancers I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t want to challenge his style, so I worked on my own strengths. I also knew that my dance had to be the dirtiest. It had to be wonderfully filthy,” he said.
Matthew McConaughey took home his trousers and thongs from ‘Magic Mike’
McConaughey shared that a lot of thought was put into the outfits he and his co-stars wore for the feature. This included the male thongs that he had to wear, which he took great pride in.
“It’s a great thong. We took a lot of time designing it because the thong’s your armor, man. It’s your sword. Well, I guess it’s really the sheath for the sword,” he said.
The True Detective star even took some of his Magic Mike clothes home.
”I kept all mine. As soon as we found the leather pants on the first day with Christopher, the costume designer, we were like, ‘Okay, that’s Dallas’s staple,’” he once told Daily Mirror (via Contact Music).
