HBO
Not every actor is a fan of method acting, with Woody Harrelson apparently being among them, as the Academy Award-nominated actor recently recalled wanting to punch Matthew McConaughey on the set of True Detective because of it.
During a recent episode of his Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Woody Harrelson recounted the frustrations he had with Matthew McConaughey — who was a guest on the podcast — while the famously friendly duo were filming True Detective.
According to Harrelson, McConaughey stayed in character as Rust Cohle even when they weren’t filming, which — if you’ve seen the first season of True Detective — sounds like a miserable experience, to be fair.
Woody Harrelson says Matthew McConaughey’s method acting on the set of True Detective made him want to punch McConaughey
“He’s method,” Harrelson said while McConaughey was appearing on his Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast with Ted Danson. “When we were shooting, he was Rust Cohle. There [were] so many times I wanted to punch this motherfucker in the face. I’m so pissed at him cause he’s in his character.”
“We’re sitting there. We’re about to start shooting, and we were rehearsing,” McConaughey explained. “I’m just kind of being stoic Rust Cohle. Woody goes, like, ‘Hey man, I need to talk to you about something.’ He goes, ‘The way you and I work, McConaughey, I hit you the ball, you hit back, I hit it back to you. We volley, we play. … Man, that’s us. It’s dramatic, but it’s also comedy.’”
Just last week, McConaughey sparked rumors of a potential True Detective follow-up after he posted a photo alongside Harrelson and series creator Nic Pizzolatto on Instagram.
“Oh man, you gotta know the rumors you just started,” Pizzolatto commented on the post.
Last year, Pizzolatto also added fuel to that fire as he said he had another story brewing for McConaughey and Harrelson’s characters.
“I actually have another story for Cohle and Hart that — who knows? — maybe we’ll do it one day,” Pizzolatto said. “It’s character-based again. … But it’s not something I’ve written or anything. It’s just, I had that in my head. And we’ve talked about getting back together and doing it, and I think the guys are open to it. It’s just a question of whether that would ever happen or not.”
A fifth season of True Detective is currently in the works that will reportedly star Oscar winner Nicolas Cage and be set in Jamaica Bay, New York. Similar to True Detective: Night Country, though, Pizzolatto has no involvement with the reported fifth season.