Matthew McCoughney’s Advice for Son on First Movie Together

Published: September 18, 2025

By Michaela Gordoni

Matthew McConaughey and his son Levi starred in their first movie together, and the father shared some advice with his teen to help him prepare.

“I had to tell him, this ain’t no bs-ing around,” McConaughey said on the TODAY show. “It’s play, but the preparation, it’s work, it’s a rodeo. This is not about showing up with attitude.”

“So I was somewhat hard on him early and continued to be, just to teach him as much as I can, but once he got on set, this is great, you’ll know this moment,” he added.

Levi stars as Shaun McKay in THE LOST BUS, as the son of McConaughey’s character, Kevin McKay, a bus driver who makes a risky rescue of a teacher and 22 school kids.

“That day when he went to set, he wasn’t looking at me for any sort of approval,” he continued. “And I was happy, as a father, to go, ‘When you show up, you better own it. Don’t be getting there auditioning, saying, ‘Can I ask permission or have take two,’ … You got one take, let’s go.’”

“And so he owned it that day and didn’t look to me for any supervision, didn’t look to me for any approval, and I sat back and just kind of went (claps hands),” the proud dad said.

McConaughey recalled his son being interested in the role when his dad told him about the movie. The actor revealed at a screening that he had no idea that his son wanted to act.

“He goes, ‘Can I read for it?’ I was like, ‘Huh.’ I want to hear him work for it. He came and badgered me again and again and again, and finally I said, ‘OK, yeah you can read for it,’” he said.

“It hadn’t been cast yet,” he said. “I talked to him about acting, we worked on the scene, put him on camera. He was good.”

“I sent it to the casting director. I said, ‘I think this might be good enough for a callback.’ Casting director wrote back and said, ‘I think it might be good enough to send straight to the director.’”

McConaughey asked the casting director to pull Levi’s last name off of the audition. He didn’t want his prestige to influence his son’s work.

He explained, “So she pulled his last name off, the director saw it and said, ‘That’s the kid.’ And she goes, ‘Well, that’s actually Matthew’s son,’ and he goes, ‘Even better.'”

When Levi got the call that he got the part, he was overwhelmed with emotions.

“I was trying not to start crying on the phone so I was like, ‘Yeah, that would be amazing. Thank you so much. This is great,’” Levi recalled. “I hang up the phone and I started crying.”

McConaughey’s mom, Kay McConaughey, also plays his character’s mom in the movie.

“We’re halfway through production and (Greengrass) goes, ‘I got to cast the role of the mother, how about your mom?'” McConaughey said. “I go, ‘Mom send me a tape, a minute that says why you love being a mom,’ and my mom sent an eight-minute tape because she was being a mom. He looked at it and goes, ‘That’s her.’ And all of a sudden, there we are with my mom and my son in a scene,” he said.

The actor loved working with his family in the movie.

“And that’s something that’s going to get nothing but cooler with time to look back on it,” he said.

THE LOST BUS premieres in select theaters Sept. 19. It will be on Apple TV+ on Oct. 3.

Questions or comments? Please write to us here.