The university announced that the Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, who has strong ties to the school, will join the University of Texas as a professor and will teach this fall in the university’s Department of Radio-Television-Film.
McConaughey has been a visiting instructor at the flagship campus in Austin since 2015, and the university said in a statement Wednesday that the appointment recognizes his “outstanding work as a teacher and mentor.”
The university says McConaughey is respected for his “willingness to work with students beyond the classroom.”
“He has a passion for teaching, and for all things cinematic, that is palpable, even infectious,” said department chairman Noah Isenberg.
“It’s the class I wish I would have had when I was in film school. Working in the classroom with these students gives me a chance to prepare them,” McConaughey said in the school’s news release. “Making movies, turning words on paper into film, is both a science and art — no matter the time or generation. The elements of truth and genuine joy for the process are timeless. That will always be our classroom focus.”
McConaughey will co-teach the Script to Screen class with Associate Professor Scott Rice. The class meets once per week for three hours and McConaughey will attend in person as his schedule permits, said Kathleen Mabley, director of marketing and communication for UT’s Moody College of Communication. He also films lessons from the set that are viewed and discussed in class.
McConaughey earned a film degree from the school in 1993. The actor has appeared in more than 50 films, including Dazed and Confused, The Wolf of Wall Street and Dallas Buyers Club, for which he won an Oscar and Golden Globe for his leading role.
He’s salary each semester is dependent on the number of courses he teaches or co-teaches. For the fall semester, he’ll earn less than $10,000.
