Matthew McConaughey, What Are You Saying?!: Actor Leaves Many Confused After SAG Awards Speech

From thank-yous to Neptune to sailing across the Atlantic, the actor touched on multiple topics during his acceptance speech

By Bruna Nessif Jan 19, 2014 3:19 AMTags
Matthew McConaughey, SAG AwardsKevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Matthew McConaughey sure had a lot to say tonight.

The actor continued his winning streak by snagging the trophy for Best Male Lead Actor for his work in Dallas Buyers Club tonight during the 20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, and once McConaughey got to the microphone, he channeled his True Detective character and talked about five different topics at once.

He started off, of course, by acknowledging the other nominees and notable works of the past year: "Oh this feels good, thank you. I mean, coming from SAG-AFTRA members…I've been doing this 22 years and we all know this thing we get to do, when it works and when it doesn't work so well. Thank you. To the nominees, not just in this category but so many.

"There were so many fierce performances this years. I mean the choices in the characters that some of these people have made really shines a great light on this bull-ride that we take called acting. I've been able to recently find some characters that I could humble myself to their humanities and get feverishly drunk to their obsessions. And that's really been fun for me."

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Then he goes into detail about his character in the award-winning film, "Dallas Buyers Club, Ron Woodruff. We got an important story about an important time in American and the world. The people who had HIV, how are they dealt with? How are they now? Is it dealt with now? It's still very relevant. You had Ron Woodruff, a guy who had the clearest obsession of all—I'm obsessed to stay alive. He was given 30 days to live and goes on and lives seven more years.

"There's magic place that we as actors release drive to get to and we don't always get there, but boy when we touch it. It's magic. When you're seeing the character from the inside-out, when you're walking out every day and everything you see, smell and touch and observe is coming through that character and into you and it's making sense and you're the subject. You're the eye. You're first-person seeing it through that character's eyes. That doesn't always happen."

Sure, he could've stopped there, but the best part hasn't even happened, because then McConaughey talked about space. Yes, space. Like, outerspace.

"But boy when it does, and it feels like they could put a blindfold on you and put you on a spaceship and take you to Neptune and you could hop off on the planet and they better have the sprock control and you get off that spaceship because you are going to behave as your man. That is a glorious feeling!"

To conclude, the award-winning actor shared a story of a man who built a sail boat. "There's a man I met 20 years ago. He escaped Russia. He was not even a carpenter, built a 17-foot boat and sailed across the Atlantic for decades he held the world record for smallest vessel single-man sailed across the Atlantic. He told me this, he said, 'A genius can be anybody he wants to, but a genius is always one person at a time.' So to that I say, that's what we get to do, isn't it? One man, one woman, one human. At a time. When we do it well. Just keep doing that. Just keep living."

Whatever you say, McConaughey.