The role Matthew McConaughey was warned would bring him “very bad karma”
These days, Matthew McConaughey is one of the biggest names in Hollywood.
Not only is he instantly recognisable for his trademark southern drawl and thrice-repeated catchphrase, but he’s also fronted some of the biggest movies of recent years.
His performance as an astronaut fighting to save the Earth in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is nothing short of astounding, the heart and soul of the British director’s best film. You’ve also got the likes of the ‘Magic Mike’ series, The Wolf of Wall Street, and, on TV, the first season of True Detective. However, things weren’t always so peachy.
Before he found his feet again with the much-lauded ‘McConaissance’, the handsome Texan made some very questionable career decisions. He appeared in some awful films in the 2000s, including The Wedding Planner, a ‘rom-com’ that was neither ‘rom’ nor ‘com’, Sahara, a baffling adventure movie that is so noughties it hurts, and 2008’s Surfer, Dude, one of the rare movies to land on a score of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
There’s also Reign of Fire from 2002. Set in the far-flung future of 2020 (oh dear), the film takes place in a world where dragons rule the Earth. McConaughey plays Denton Van Zan, the leader of a group of American survivors. He teams up with the equally ridiculously-named Quinn Abercromby (Christian Bale) to blast those dag-gum dragons back to the stone age. That isn’t an actual line of dialogue from the movie, but it very much could be.
As per Showbiz Cheat Sheet, McConaughey took the role because he was sick of being in so many romantic comedies. The character of Van Zan, whose signature move was to eat the heart of every dragon he killed, appealed to the rugged star’s more masculine urges. He also saw it as an opportunity to save his ailing hairline. McConaughey had read that shaving one’s head helps hair grow back thicker, so he decided to brave the trim for Reign of Fire. Little did he know that this would land him in hot water with the top brass.
An unnamed executive was apparently so enraged that McConaughey had cut his hair that he sent the actor an angry letter. It apparently described the situation as “a tragedy, a major misstep, and an act that may bring you very bad karma,” with those final two words in bold and underlined. McConaughey was not happy with this treatment, calling the letter “arrogant, cavalier, and in very poor taste”. He decided to enact a measure of revenge by attending an industry party with his new look on full display. He also made sure not to tan his head and to rub oil all over his scalp to make it nice and shiny.
As ‘cavalier’ as the executive’s letter may have been, it might have also been correct. Reign of Fire was a complete disaster, not only critically, but financially too. Was this the ‘bad karma’ that the letter warned of? Or maybe it was just the fact that this was a stupid idea for a movie, and it was never going to work. We’ll never know.
In the present, McConaughey enjoys both good karma and a healthy head of hair, but maybe his career could have been even better had he just kept his scissors in the drawer.
