Matthew McConaughey recalls his rebellious era in Hollywood

Matthew McConaughey has no regrets about his exit from romcoms.

The Oscar-winning actor sat with tennis pro Nick Kyrgios in a teaser of the athlete’s Wednesday episode of Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios. The conversation turned to McConaughey’s notorious exit from the romcom scene for his Texas ranch.

"Look, man, the devil's in the infinite yeses, not the nos," McConaughey, 55, began. "No, it's just as important, if not more important. Especially if you have some level of success and access. No becomes more important than yes.” 

“I mean, we all look around and see we've overleveraged our life with yeses and go, ‘Geez, oh, man, I'm making C minuses and all that s*** in my life because I said yes to too many things.’ I have many times in my life where I’m going through autopilot."

Matthew opened up about what made him leave after becoming a staple in romantic comedies including The Wedding Planner, How to Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

"That was my lane, and I liked that lane. That lane paid well and it was working. But the lane was... I was so strong in that lane that anything outside of that lane, dramas and stuff that I wanted to do, were like, 'No, no, no, no, no McConaughey.' Hollywood said 'No, no, no, no, you should stay there, stay there.'"

Matthew McConaughey is opening up about what pushed him to leave Hollywood for his home state, Texas.

Matthew told the Australian athlete, 29, he “didn’t want to” stay in that lane. When he couldn’t do get his dream roles, he pulled the plug on everything else and relocated to his family’s ranch in Texas. There McConaughey made a vow to not go back unless things changed. 

“‘I'm not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do,' " he recalled telling his wife, Camila Alves, 41.

He looks back at them as two “wobbly” years. “Luckily, Camila got pregnant with our first child [Levi, 16]. So there was purpose coming to look forward to. But I was still like, ‘Man's gotta work.’ Making chimes and working in the garden wasn't cutting it.”

He stayed true to his word despite a $14.5 million offer for an unnamed action comedy.

"I think that was the one that was probably what was seen as the most rebellious move in Hollywood by me, because it really sent the signal, 'He ain’t f****** bluffing,' " McConaughey said. "I think that's what made Hollywood go, 'You know what? He's now a new novel idea. He's a new bright idea.' "

From there, he saw himself breaking free from that romcom fixture with Hollywood, eventually bringing him films like Interstellar, Mud, and Dallas Buyers Club, which earned him the Best Actor Oscar.