Matthew McConaughey Educates SNL Fans on Alright Alright Alright

It’s one of the greatest catch phrases in all comedy movies- and in the hands of McConaughey’s new fans that never saw Dazed and Confused- also one of the most annoyingly overused and wrongly used catch phrases. So last night when Matthew hosted Saturday Night Live, he used his monologue to explain the origin of the phrase, and his acting career.

In 1992, in Austin Texas a young college student went to a bar and spent four hours talking with a movie producer. In the cab ride home, the producer asked him if he might want to act in a movie, because he felt he might be right for the part. That movie was Dazed and Confused, the part was Wooderson and the director was Richard Linklater, and the line becomes a “launchpad line.”

It was the first scene he ever shot, he wasn’t even supposed to be in it, so it was unscripted. He had minutes to develop the character in his head on the spot and all he knew was he would be into a red-headed intellectual. So he was thinking about who his character was, and he thought, “Wooderson’s about four things, car, weed rock and roll and chicks.” He looked around and thought “I’m in my seventies Chevelle that’s one. I’ve got Slater riding shot gun so I’m definitely getting high. That’s two. And we’ve got Ted Nugent playing Stranglehold on the eight track. Well that’s three.” action “And I look up across the drive through at this red headed intellectual and I say to myself buddy you’ve got three out of four, alright alright alright.”

Watch the monologue below.