“Congratulations class of 2015,” Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey told the graduating class at the University of Houston Friday. “Life’s not fair. It never was, isn’t now and won’t ever be. Do not fall into the entitled trap of feeling like you’re a victim. You are not.”
“Get over it and get on with it,” he said. “Yes, most things are more rewarding when you break a sweat to get them.”
McCoanughey received a standing ovation from the UH class of 2015 for the commencement speech he gave after being booed at the Cannes Film Festival the day before.
The five key things the actor defines himself by are: fatherhood, being a good husband, health, career and friendships. “I want to keep all five in healthy shape,” he said. “If I don’t keep maintenance on them, one of them is going to get weak.”
He told graduates to do things for the joy of it, and success will follow. “As soon as the work, the daily making of the movie, the doing of the deed became the reward in itself for me,” he said, “I got more box office, more accolades, more respect than I ever had before.”
“Personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work and literally being more happy when I stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to a certain end,” McConaughey, a native Texan, told the 4,300 graduates.
The speech was a little bizarre at times, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
He told them he used to play bongos in his “birthday suit,” and that “an honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind.” Bizarrely, he described a time he walked naked around Peru, threw up, and awoke feeling light and free.
In very-McConaughey fashion, he said: “The truth’s all around us all the time. … Put yourself in place to receive the truth.”
The actor was paid over $140,000 for the speech, 100 percent of which he announced he will donate to his non-profit the Just Keep Living Foundation.
