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Matthew McConaughey is embracing his adventurous spirit as he stars in the Season 9 opener of Bear Grylls is Running Wild.
Teaming up with British survival expert Bear Grylls, McConaughey finds himself trekking across a Norwegian glacier. The actor, famous for roles in films like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Dallas Buyers Club, shares that this collaboration has been two decades in the making.
Amid their daring exploits of scaling cliffs, sipping from pristine ravines, and dining on reindeer testicles, Grylls takes the opportunity to delve into McConaughey’s life. The actor reflects on his cherished family, the moment that catapulted him to fame with Dazed and Confused, and his enduring 30-year friendship with fellow actor Woody Harrelson. The two first crossed paths on the set of EDtv in the late 1990s and have since shared the screen in projects like True Detective and Surfer, Dude.
“He consistently reminds me to stay youthful, as he embodies the spirit of an 8-year-old,” McConaughey remarks to Grylls about his long-time friend.
McConaughey chuckles, “I mean, you can’t get upset with Woody for arriving barefoot and three days late to your wedding because you know you could do the same at his, and he wouldn’t mind.”
According to the Academy Award winner, he and Harrelson are so close that he has, on multiple occasions, woken up to the Cheers alum sleeping between him and his wife, Camila Alves.
“He ain’t ever gone through a front door in his life. I woke up next to him in my bed between me and my wife because he snuck through the bedroom window unannounced many times,” McConaughey says, before joking, “I always like to say, I think he has almost kissed my wife as many times as I have.”
McConaughey’s outing with Grylls kicked off a star-studded lineup for the FOX show’s ninth season. Tiffany Haddish, MGK, Elizabeth Banks, Uma Thurman, and Colman Domingo are some of the other celebrities who will be taking on the great outdoors with Grylls in the coming weeks. With any luck, they will find the daring experience to be as alright (alright, alright) as McConaughey did.
Bear Grylls is Running Wild airs Tuesday nights at 9/8c on FOX. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Hulu.