On Friday afternoon, the revered actor descended upon Filmland, an annual film festival in Little Rock, Arkansas, to receive the Variety Legend & Groundbreaker Award as well as present a screening of his latest film, “The Rivals of Amziah King,” wherein he stars as a honey-maker who finds himself roped into a criminal plot. Directed by Andrew Patterson, and marking the stellar debut of co-star Angelina LookingGlass, “The Rivals of Amziah King” is the first film McConaughey shot in five years, and our critic said it marks a welcome return for the actor, with the role fitting him “like a glove” while also being “different from anything he’s every done.”

Prior to the screening, the Oscar-winning actor sat down for a conversation with filmmaker Jeff Nichols, a Little Rock native and co-founder of both the Arkansas Cinema Society and its film festival, Filmland, as well as the man who directed McConaughey in 2012’s “Mud,” which marked the beginning of what became known as the “McConaissance.”

McConaughey, 56, was his usual charming, gregarious self, regaling the crowd at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts with tales from the set, including his unforgettable film debut in Richard Linklater’s 1993 cult classic “Dazed and Confused” and working with Christopher Nolan on 2014’s “Interstellar.”

“Christopher Nolan came to me because of ‘Mud,’” McConaughey told Nichols, since Nolan apparently got to screen an early cut of “Mud,” owing to a relationship with one of its producers, Aaron Ryder.

And McConaughey had nothing but glowing praise for “The Odyssey” director concerning their time together working on “Interstellar.”

“He’s an absolute general, but he’s first there and last to leave, and literally first up the mountain and last down the mountain. It’s hard, it’s long, it’s a full commitment,” said McConaughey, adding, “You don’t see a phone on that set. There’s no checking out with the outside world. You are consumed.” But he was also quick to note that Nolan “has a great sense of humor… without trying to be funny.”

One of the most surprising revelations concerned McConaughey’s screen debut in an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” that aired Dec. 2, 1992. McConaughey played Larry Dean Dickens, a Marine in Pasadena, Texas, who confronted a man, Edward Harold Bell, who was exposing himself to children. During the confrontation, which occurred back in August of 1978, Bell shot Dickens with a pistol, and then went back to his truck, grabbed a rifle, and shot him in the forehead, killing him. Bell then escaped to Mexico and Central America, where he was on the run for 14 years.

Viewers recognized Bell from the reenactment in the “Unsolved Mysteries” episode and, on Feb. 14, 1993, a joint operation between the FBI and Panamanian National Police led to the capture of Bell in Panama City. Bell admitted to committing 11 murders, but was only convicted of Dickens’. He died in a Texas prison in 2019 at the age of 79.  

Cue McConaughey, who cracked: “I’m gonna toot my own horn a little bit. The ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ episode I did? They caught the guy weeks later — based on what I did.”