Matthew McConaughey Says He Was Worried Some 1995 True Detective Scenes Would Be Boring [Slight Spoilers]

Matthew McConaughey is on quite the run. He’s the odds on favorite to win best actor for his role in Dallas Buyers Club at the Academy Awards tonight, and nobody will shut up about his character in True Detective. Earlier this week, though, he admitted to having some doubt as to whether his stoic character from 1995 (which would grow exponentially more vibrant in its 2002 and present-day incarnations) was going to be engaging enough.

“The big challenge I saw was being patient,” he said in a Q&A with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. “We had a 450-page script, and most films have 120. Most film scripts have Act 2 starting around page 32. This was, like, page 150. So, the 1995 [Rust] Cohle, where I made some choices to keep him sort of that stoic guy that he is, I had a couple of times where I was like, ‘Is this going to be really boring?'”

“Because I’ve been doing the same laconic thing for like five weeks now,” he continued. “And I started to feel like maybe certain scenes needed spicing up.”

Ultimately he decided to patiently hold his line and gradually build the dynamic, and we’re all better for it. You can kill the interminable period between now and tonight’s True Detective episode by watching more clips from McConaughey’s q&a here.

[H/T Warming Glow]