Why Matthew McConaughey feels 'guilty' helping actor son Levi, 18

Patrick Ryan, USA TODAYSun, August 16, 2026 at 1:01 PM UTC

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NEW YORK – There’s another McConaughey set to take over Hollywood.

Matthew McConaughey’s eldest child, Levi, made his film debut alongside his dad in last year’s “The Lost Bus,” and will next star in Apple TV drama “Way of the Warrior Kid” (in theaters Nov. 20) with Chris Pratt.

McConaughey, 56, is immensely proud of the 18-year-old, whom he shares with wife Camila Alves along with daughter Vida, 16, and son Livingston, 13.

During “Warrior Kid” production, “I actually took off work and spent every day with him working on that, which was a real privilege as a dad and an actor to share what I could,” McConaughey tells USA TODAY. “I try not to overshare and to just shepherd him along the way.”

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All three of his kids have some interest in performing, whether that be acting or music.

“Camila and I are like, ‘Look, try all kinds of things right now. You’re young,’ ” McConaughey says. “And, 'If you’re going to get in this industry, get ready for rejection because it’s part of the game, especially when you’re starting out.’ ”

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When McConaughey made his big-screen debut in 1993 comedy “Dazed and Confused,” the Texas native had never taken an acting class.

“Did I really know what I was doing?” McConaughey says. “I look back at some of my instincts I had then and I’m like, ‘You’re right on. You still have those today. I don’t know where you got those, McConaughey, but those were good.’ Only later on, after I started to work with the great [acting coach] Penny Allen ‒ who I worked with for 20 years ‒ did I start to understand how to break down a script and a character. So [Levi] is learning along the way.”

Ultimately, “I’m trying to impart what wisdom and things I’ve learned to him, but also not too many,” McConaughey adds. “Everyone finds their own way in this and I don’t want to overload him. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of overloading him a couple times, but he’ll be all right.”

McConaughey is currently promoting his Southern-fried crime thriller “The Rivals of Amziah King” (now in theaters), playing a bluegrass-loving beekeeper and the linchpin of his small Oklahoma town.

The Oscar-winning actor hadn’t filmed a project in more than five years when he first read the script back in 2023. During that semi-hiatus, he wrote his bestselling 2020 memoir “Greenlights” and taught film classes at the University of Texas at Austin.

“I didn’t have a plan,” McConaughey says. “I wasn’t like, ‘I’m not going to make a film for five years.’ I just spent more time writing and studying different categories of leadership in life. After I got my feel of that, I was like, ‘OK, I know enough about that right now. That’ll work.’ ”

Around that same time, “this script came across my desk and it was highly original; the most particular thing I’d read,” he continues. “I wanted to put on the shoes of Amziah. I knew these people. That’s what got me to say: ‘You know what? Let’s go act again.’”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Matthew McConaughey feels 'guilty' helping actor son Levi, 18

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