McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born on November 4, 1969 in Uvalde, Texas.His mother, Kathleen "Kay" or "KMac" (née McCabe), is a former kindergarten teacher and a published author, who is originally from Trenton, New Jersey.His father, James Donald McConaughey, ran an oil pipe supply business and played for the Kentucky Wildcats football team and the Houston Cougars football team.Jim McConaughey was from Louisiana and was drafted by the NFL football team the Green Bay Packers but never played in the league.McConaughey's mother and late father married each other three times (having divorced each other twice). His ancestry includes Scottish, English, Irish, Swedish, and German.He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae.

McConaughey had a Methodist upbringing.McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980,where he attended Longview High School. He lived for a year in Warnervale, New South Wales, Australia, as a Rotary exchange student in 1988.McConaughey attended the University of Texas at Austin College of Communication, where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity.He began in fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a Bachelor's degree in Radio-Television-Film.McConaughey's original plan was to attend law school, but he realized he was not interested in becoming a lawyer.McConaughey achieved much success in 2013 for portraying a cowboy diagnosed with AIDS in the biographical film Dallas Buyers Club, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Drama, among other awards and nominations. He also starred as Rustin Cohle in the acclaimed 2014 HBO crime anthology series True Detective. In April 2014, Time magazine included McConaughey in its annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World."

 McConaughey won the Oscar Award for Best Actor for his role as Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club in 2014. His co-star Jared Leto won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making Dallas Buyers Club the first film since Mystic River (2003) to win both awards.