Matthew McConaughey shared details of an unusual personal practice during an appearance on the Build or Break podcast hosted by Daniel Lubetzky on October 13, 2026. The actor, estimated by Fortune to have a net worth of approximately $200 million, described spending a weekend in the West Texas desert reviewing two decades of negative acting reviews.
According to McConaughey, he compiled negative reviews spanning 20 years into a single book and brought only that material with him on the retreat. "I took them on as a thick book…not all the positive, the negative ones, and I sat with them," he said. "It's all I took, and I spent 2 days looking at them, and it was hard."
McConaughey said the desert trip occurred around 2018 or 2019, during the period when he was working on his memoir Greenlights. He resurfaced the experience during his recent podcast appearance.
When reflecting on the reviews, McConaughey distinguished between criticism of his work and personal attacks. He noted that some critics simply disliked him regardless of whether they had seen his films, while others provided substantive analysis of his performances. He characterized the most valuable feedback as coming from critics who examined his work objectively while acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses.
"This person got a point," became his shorthand for identifying useful criticism during the process.
