Judy Greer told Entertainment Tonight in a recent interview that Matthew McConaughey came to her aid after “The Wedding Planner” table read. She was “so broke” at the time and could not afford to pay the parking valet at the Roosevelt Hotel. McConaughey stepped in with cash to save the day.
“I valeted my car; I didn’t know any better,” Greer said. “I didn’t have enough money to get my car out of the valet because I was so broke. I was on the pay phone in the lobby, calling my friend Sean Gunn and Matthew McConaughey overheard me and gave me $20. I was so mortified, but also: my hero.”
“The Wedding Planner,” directed by Adam Shankman, starred Jennifer Lopez as a San Francisco wedding planner who falls for a client (McConaunghey’s Steve). Greer played Lopez’s friend and colleague Penny. The movie was a box office hit with $94 million worldwide and kickstarted McConaughey’s tenure as a romantic comedy icon. Greer said working with him was “lovely.”
“I loved seeing him in hair and makeup every morning, because he had pajamas on and a Yerba mate [tea],” Greer remembered. “I haven’t worked with him since, but I have a feeling not much has changed.”
McConaughey followed “The Wedding Planner” with rom-com hits “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “Failure To Launch,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,” all which neared or crossed the $100 million mark at the worldwide box office. He said on the “Good Trouble” podcast in 2024 that he physically abandoned Hollywood and moved his family to Texas when the industry refused to let him branch out of the genre. He made a pact with his wife at the time and said: “I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do.”
In his 2020 memoir, McConaughey revealed he turned down a $14.5 million offer to return to the genre that made him a star.
“That was probably seen as the most rebellious move in Hollywood by me because it really sent the signal, ‘He ain’t fucking bluffing,’” McConaughey said at the time. “And when you got someone who’s not bluffing, there’s something attractive about that. I think that’s what made Hollywood go, ‘You know what? He’s now a new novel idea. He’s a new bright idea.’”
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