Even In 1993 Matthew McConaughey Was So Bro In His ‘Dazed And Confused’ Audition

We get older, David Wooderson stays the same age.

22 years ago, before the Lincoln commercials and Magic Mike, Matthew McConaughey was just a young actor attempting to get into Hollywood. In a never-seen-before video, McConaughey is auditioning for the role of David Wooderson, the “too old to be hanging out with high school kids guy” in the movie Dazed and Confused. The Criterion Collection released this amazing time-warp video, which shows that even at 24-years-old with no real acting credits, McConaughey is still the laid-back, but confident guy he is today.

McConaughey actually got the part as a matter of chance. He said he was hanging out at a hotel bar in Austin, Texas, when he just so happened to run into Don Phillips, a casting director. The two did some drinking and quickly developed a bond. “Top of the Hyatt, Thursday night!” McConaughey said. “I went there because the bartender there gave me free drinks because he was in my film school class [at the University of Texas at Austin]. We got kicked out! We were really drunk. We were talking about a golf hole that we had both played and we were just so loud that management told us to leave.” Matthew sure knows how to make a first impression.

During the time of the audition McConaughey was still a student at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Communication. He graduated in the spring of 1993 with a Bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television-Film and had planned to attend law school. However he decided against being a lawyer, and after Dazed and Confused McConaughey drove to Hollywood to become an actor. He nailed his very first two auditions and landed two consecutive parts.

The stoner cult classic helped lauch McConaughey’s career. The 1993 film also kickstarted director Richard Linkalter’s career, who is currently the frontrunner for the Best Director Oscar for his movie Boyhood.

McConaughey reprised his Wooderson role in “Synthesizers,” a music video by Butch Walker and the Black Widows in 2012.

Check out the video because it will make you feel alright, alright, alright.