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Anyone who watched the first season of True Detective knows Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have some pretty impressive chemistry onscreen.
The HBO series wasn’t the first time the two men had worked together—they had previously starred in the largely forgotten Truman Show “ripoff” that was 1999’s EDTv—but they each showed off their impressive acting chops in a project that garnered both men a nomination at the 2014 Emmy Awards.
Their ability to vibe shouldn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise when you consider McConaughey and Harrelson operate on similar wavelengths thanks in no small part to the roots they share; both men were born in Texas in the 1960s and were raised in some fairly unstable households before eventually taking their talents to Hollywood.
However, based on a bomb McConaughey dropped in a recent interview, he and Harrelson may have much more in common than anyone could have anticipated.
The duo will be reuniting once again in an upcoming comedy series that’s been dubbed Brother From Another Mother—although that title may be a bit of a misnomer when you consider what McConaughey had to say about the potential nature of their relationship on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast.
During the interview, the actor said he’s always felt close to his True Detective co-star while noting, “You see pictures of us and my family thinks a lot of pictures of him are me. His family thinks a lot of pictures of me are him.”
That led to a pretty stunning revelation concerning a conversation that unfolded when the two men were talking with McConaughey’s mom, who apparently hinted there’s a chance they could actually be biological brothers:
“In Greece a few years ago, we’re sitting around talking about how close we are and our families. And my mom is there, and she says, ‘Woody, I knew your dad.’ Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mom left after ‘knew.’ It was a loaded K-N-E-W.
We went on to unpack what this ‘knew’ meant and did some math and found out that his dad was on furlough at the same time that my mom and dad were in their second divorce. Then there’s possible receipts and places out in West Texas where there might have been a gathering, or a meeting, or a ‘knew’ moment.”
McConaughey says he’s hesitant to get a DNA test to confirm the theory they could actually be siblings (“He’s asking me to take a chance to go, ‘Wait a minute, you’re trying to tell me my dad may not be my dad after 53 years of believing that?”), but this is certainly quite the development.