Matthew McConaughey is back on the big screen.

McConaughey, 55, opened up about his decision to return to live-action movies for the first time in six years in an interview with Variety published on Sunday, March 9, one day before his new movie The Rivals of Amziah King debuts at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

The actor noted in the interview that the making new movie — his first performance as more than a voice actor in any movie since 2019’s The Gentlemen — helped him recall his love for acting. “I remembered a couple of things,” McConaughey told the outlet. “One, how much I truly enjoy performing. Two, I remembered, ‘Hey, McConaughey, you’re pretty damn good at this.’ And three, I remembered that acting is a vacation for me. And what I mean by vacation is that when when I’m performing, it’s my singular focus.”

“When I walk out the door in the morning, my wife says, ‘go kick some ass. I got the kiddos. We’re good.’ That’s vacation,” he added. “Because I’m not multitasking. I’m not compartmentalizing. I’m fully focused on finding the truth of my character.”

Elsewhere in the interview, McConaughey — who shares three kids with wife Camila Alves McConaughey — admitted he felt some nerves getting back to moviemaking when he first arrived on The Rivals of Amziah King’s set. The actor admitted that he raised a hand and asked “is anybody else nervous except for me?” during his first day of shooting, and when cast and crew members all laughed along, he added, “Alright, alright, alright, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one.”

McConaughey told Variety that he intentionally tried to spend more time with his family during his years-long hiatus from acting; he also released a memoir titled Greenlights in 2021 and most recently appeared in front of the camera in Zach Bryan’s 2024 music video for his song “Nine Ball.”

“I needed to write my own story, direct my own story on the page,” he added of his years away from live-action film roles.

According to a SXSW description for McConaughey’s new movie, he stars in the movie as a “charismatic and musically gifted” honey farmer in rural Oklahoma who attempts to reconnect with an estranged foster daughter as his rivals in the honey business look to destroy his own. McConaughey costars in the film with Kurt Russell, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori, Owen Teague and Cole Sprouse, among others.

The Rivals of Amziah King premieres at SXSW on Monday, March 10.