Matthew McConaughey Says Woody Harrelson Might Be His Brother

Actor Matthew McConaughey Reveals That Woody Harrelson Might Be His Brother

By Regina Sienra on April 17, 2023

Actors Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey

Photos: everett225/Depositphotos (left), ChinaImages/Depositphotos (right)

Actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have been good friends offscreen for many years. Even onscreen, their bond was palpable when they starred side by side on the first season of the HBO show True Detective. While they have described their relationship as a “bromance,” the two Texan actors could share an even deeper connection—they could actually be brothers.

“Where I start and where [Woody] ends, and where he starts and I end, has always been like a murky line,” McConaughey said during an interview with Kelly Ripa on her podcast, Let's Talk Off Camera. “And that's part of our bromance, right? My kids call him Uncle Woody. His kids call me Uncle Matthew. And you see pictures of us and my family thinks a lot of pictures of him are me. His family thinks a lot of pictures of me are him.”

McConaughey then recalled something his 91-year-old mother shared with him and Harrelson. “In Greece a few years ago, we're sitting around talking about how close we are and our families,” McConaughey recounts. “And my mom is there, and she says, ‘Woody, I knew your dad.’ Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mom left after ‘knew.’ It was a loaded K-N-E-W.”

This revelation pushed McConaughey to look into his family history. What he found made him increasingly suspicious of what his mother had said. “We went on to unpack what this ‘knew’ meant and did some math and found out that [Harrelson’s] dad was on furlough at the same time that my mom and dad were in their second divorce. Then there’s possible receipts and places out in West Texas where there might have been a gathering, or a meeting, or a ‘knew’ moment.”

All these clues seem to imply that McConaughy and Harrelson could potentially share a father and that would make them half-brothers. While the matter could be easily settled with a DNA test, McConaughey is reluctant, as he is afraid of what it could mean. “This is what we're on the precipice of now. Look, it's a little easier for Woody to say, ‘Come on, let's do it!’ because what's the skin in it for him? It's a little harder for me because he's asking me to take a chance to go, ‘Wait a minute, you're trying to tell me my dad may not be my dad after 53 years of believing that?' I got a little more skin in the game.”

McConaughey's father, James Donald “Jim” McConaughey, died in 1992 at age 70; while Harrelson's father, a convicted hitman named Charles Voyde Harrelson, died serving a life sentence in 2007.

For now, both McConaughey and Harrelson will star on Brother From Another Mother, a new Apple TV+ show where, according to Vulture, they’ll play loosely fictionalized versions of themselves. The series is described as “a heartfelt odd couple love story revolving around the strange and beautiful bond between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.” While the title is definitely up to something, it's not yet clear whether the show will address these revelations.