Judy Greer told Entertainment Tonight in a recent interview that Matthew McConaughey helped her out after the table read for “The Wedding Planner.” At the time, she was “very broke” and couldn’t afford to pay a parking attendant at the Roosevelt Hotel. Mr. McConaughey stepped in with cash to save the day.
“I left my car in valet parking, but I didn’t know anything else,” Greer said. “I was broke, so I didn’t have enough money to pull my car out of the valet lot. I was calling my friend Sean Gunn from a payphone in the lobby, and Matthew McConaughey, who was listening, gave me $20. It was very frustrating, but he was also my hero.”
Directed by Adam Shankman, The Wedding Planner stars Jennifer Lopez as a San Francisco wedding planner who falls in love with a client (Steve, played by McConaunhay). Greer played Penny, Lopez’s friend and colleague. The film grossed $94 million worldwide and helped establish McConaughey as a romantic comedy icon. Mr. Greer said working with him was “great.”
“I loved watching him get his hair and makeup done every morning, because he’d be in his pajamas and drinking yerba mate (tea),” Greer recalled. “I haven’t worked with him since then, but I feel like not much has changed.”
McConaughey followed up “The Wedding Planner” with a string of romantic hits, including “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “Failure to Launch,” “Fool’s Gold,” and “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” which grossed close to or exceeded $100 million at the worldwide box office. He said on the Good Trouble podcast in 2024 that he physically abandoned Hollywood and moved his family to Texas because the industry refused to break away from the genre. At the time, he made a promise to his wife that he would not return to work unless he was offered the role he wanted.
McConaughey revealed in his 2020 memoir that he turned down a $14.5 million offer to return to the genre that made him a star.
McConaughey said at the time: “That seemed to me to be probably the most rebellious act in Hollywood, because it really sent a signal that, ‘Oh, he’s not a bluff.'” “And when you have someone who doesn’t have a bluff, there’s something appealing about that. I think that’s what made Hollywood go, ‘You know what? Now he’s a new, fresh idea. He’s a new, great idea.'”
