Matthew McConaughey Made a Production Secretary Cry In His Audition for ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’
Max Weinstein
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Typically, Matthew McConaughey has balked at the opportunity to talk about his role in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. But while the film itself has never been a point of pride for him (or co-star Renée Zellweger), he does enjoy telling a great Texas yarn about auditioning for it as an upstart actor in Austin.
When McConaughey auditioned for the part of Vilmer, a demented descendant of Leatherface’s (Robert Jacks) cannibalistic clan, director Kim Henkel needed someone in the production office to read with him.
“The girl that was the secretary goes, ‘I’ll do it!,'” McConaughey recalls in a video posted to his YouTube channel. “I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a big table spoon out of the drawer, came back in, and just pinned her in a corner and acted like it was a weapon. And did it until she cried.”
Watch the video below:
Henkel was pleased with the performance by the time he yelled, “Cut,” but they wanted to hear from the secretary, too. “The girl was like, ‘Yeah, that was really good. You really scared me,'” McConaughey says. Henkel offered him the part on the spot.
As it happens, the part of Vilmer wasn’t even what McConaughey first auditioned for. Initially, he was offered a part in The Next Generation that would take a day to shoot—”a guy who rides up on a motorcycle at the beginning of the movie, sees Renée Zellweger’s character on school campus, she sees him, he rides off.”
Also Read: Other Cast and Crew Members Look Back on Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
By the film’s end, Zellweger’s character, Jenny, would escape Leatherface’s wrath and McConaughey’s character would scoop her on a motorcycle to ride off to a happy ending. (“No lines. Just sort of Romeo to Juliet character,” McConaughey says.)
At Henkel’s request, McConaughey suggested some local actors who could possibly play Vilmer. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to play what Henkel had described to him as “the guy who drives the tow truck, hangs the kids up on a winch, has a mechanical leg.”
“As I got to the curb to get in my truck, I said, ‘I should try for that role,'” McConaughey says. “So I went back down the sidewalk, went in, I said, ‘I want to try out for the role of Vilmer.'”
McConaughey tried, the secretary cried, and the Texan production team went off to make their novel piece of homegrown horror.
